Saturday Night Dead

I'll date myself here.   I can actually read when Saturday Night Live was watchable.  Of course, it's been on for over 40 years and I have a larger sample size than most.

These days, I watch about ten minutes of the show religiously.  The opening sketch is always dependable and last week's edition was no exception with Larry David spot-on as the lunatic Barry Sanders.    Then I hang in through the host monologue, mainly to see how badly that week's guest star reads the cue cards.

After that, I normally hit "off" and go to sleep.   Normally, SNL's primary laughs are front loaded and the last eighty or so minutes are nothing but a tooth extraction without novocaine.

But, last Saturday, I hung in there a little longer.   I wanted to see how they were now doing the famed Weekend Update sketch.

Okay, that part of the show has been legendary.   Some of the brightest moments in SNL history.   From Chevy Chase to Jane "that ignorant slut" Curtin to Dennis Miller to Norm MacDonald to even Tina Fey and Amy Poehler.

So now it's two schmucks named Colin Jost and Michael Che and they are singlehandedly destroying the whole segment.  Beyond that fact that these chuckleheads can barely read the cue cards, they are just not funny.

But, even more distressing, is the reaction of the audience, which is primarily between the ages of 18-24.   They are laughing like crazy.

Is it an age thing?  Nah.  Funny is funny.   But it goes back to my fear of how the younger generation is getting their news and information today.   Well, they're not.   At least in an unfiltered and unbiased way.

I fret over whether this SNL news format is actually considered real news and information to the youth in the audience.  Already, we have lots of idiots in television land who thought they were getting true details about current events from the likes of Jon Stewart Liebowitz and Stephen Colbert.  PS, they weren't.

The Weekend Update segment I saw with these two untalented clowns really was humor at the lowest base denominator.   And was actually conveying wrong, albeit comedic takes on true situations in the world.   Bob Hope knew how to do that.   Johnny Carson knew how to do that.   And you never knew what political party either one of them was affiliated with.   They were equal opportunity offenders and we were delighted to get lampoons of both sides of the aisle.

Not so with Jost and Che.   You had no confusion about whether either one of these jerks sat on the political fence.   And I'm not sure either one of these dopes are over 30.

Scary because they have a pulpit and their parishioners every Saturday are not smart enough to know the difference.

Yep, I'm back to tuning out SNL at 1140PM every week.

Dinner last night:  Hamburger patty and French fries.