id love to read an article about how early SNL frequently wasnt all that funny and a look at Michael ODonoghues career seems to me a fine way to organize one. It sure isnt this Tom Carson piece at Grantland, though, which is like the Green Bay Packers sweep of dim component readings. grantland/features/michael-odonoghue-snl-saturday-night-live-mr-mike/ To my mind, SNLs contribution was in the strength of its early performers (everyone but Chase and Morris is consistently pretty good, and Radner is special), the value placed on the writers (to the point at which five people hired that way became performing personalities, including the two weak actor links mentioned above), and its *mix* of new humor components with old-school television values. (I think it was frequently unfunny, and moreso even as the humor became more accomplished later on. SCTV was ten times the show. But they probably erred on the side of out-there new humor, in those first couple of years and they had such a big platform that those things hit hard, like MAD Magazine did in the 50s.) You always have to remember, too, how short the cultural memory was in the mid-1970s. Finding a connection to and value in old-school TV like having Broderick Crawford host was in itself an act against the prevailing culture of its time. Probably five people in my entire state knew Belushi was doing Toshiro Mifune. And the point of the Tony Orlando and Dawn sketch wasnt that they deserved it, but a bunch of stuff, including the directness and tastelessness of the suggestion. Comparing Candy Slice to a Dean Martin skit pisses me off, too.
Posted on: Sat, 23 Aug 2014 15:00:36 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015