Volume 5, Issue 59: Watching Too Much Television
"Nature really does weed out the nimrods."
My upcoming novel, Lloyd McNeil’s Last Ride, will be released on May 20. I believe you will like it. I hope you will pre-order it. Send me your pre-order receipt and I’ll send you a book plate and enter you into a contest to, like, hang out with me. Details here.
Tonight at 11:30 p.m. ET, NBC will show the first-ever episode of “Saturday Night Live,” which originally aired on October 11, 1975. If you listen very closely, in the background, perhaps you can hear a one-day-old baby in rural Illinois, wailing as his haggard and overwhelmed parents, both in their early 20s, watched over this baby on Commercial Avenue in Mattoon, Illinois.
There aren’t many Americans alive who don’t have some sort of memory, or hundreds of them, tied up in “Saturday Night Live,” which is celebrating its 50th anniversary with a (live, obviously) special Sunday night on NBC. Every time SNL has an anniversary special, it comes with fanfare, hype and endless promotion, and each time it happens, I grumble a little bit, because a reminder of “Saturday Night Live”’s birthday is inevitably a reminder of my own. I was born, at a now-demolished hospital in downtown Mattoon, Illinois, on Friday, October 10, 1975. The very next day, almost exactly 37 hours later, on Saturday, October 11, 1975, John Belushi and Michael O’Donoghue walked on a stage on the 18th floor of Rockefeller Center in New York City and, live over NBC’s airways, performed a sketch about feeding one’s fingertips to the wolverines. Both of us were off and running.
I don’t know you could possibly grow up in the United States and not have some sort of emotional connection to “Saturday Night Live,” even if you hate it—heck, especially if you hate it. The show, for better or worse, is inextricable from our culture, and, particularly, most of our childhoods. For a show that is ostensibly satirical and at least theoretically cutting-edge, there’s no time you feel more connected to “Saturday Night Live” more than when you are growing up, when you are not cynical about it, when you haven’t yet learned enough about the world to see the show’s soft edges and inherent middlebrow limitations. At its best, “Saturday Night Live” can hit that sweet spot between insular hipsterism and your-cool-aunt that can make a kid feel like the world is so much bigger than they thought it was, and that this show might just be a portal to it. When I was in middle school and a freshman in high school, Saturdays were the one night I got to stay up late, and “SNL” felt like a cultural education, an in-joke that, despite the fact that it was beamed to millions of people across the planet in real-time, I thought I was the one of the few people cool enough to be in on.
I suspect most people are like this, and then it changes. Later, you get too old for it, you discover more daring and innovative and downright funnier forms of sketch comedy. For me it was “Mr. Show” and “Kids in the Hall;” today’s kids are more into “I Think You Should Leave” (which I also enjoy, though I’ll confess I prefer “The Detroiters”) or whatever people are screaming into their phones on Tiktok. But then you get even older, and “Saturday Night Live” becomes for you what it is, and probably has been for the last 35 years, for most people: Comfort food. When you get older, comfort food comes in handy. Particularly when they keep finding new people to make it that comfort food in ways that aren’t new, exactly, but can feel just new enough to keep you eating. I don’t love the show now, and in many ways I watch it out of obligation. There are some cast members I think are uniquely talented—Sarah Sherman tops the list, though I’m a big fan of James Austin Johnson and have at last come around on Bowen Yang—but I don’t think this is an unusually strong cast, and I’ll confess to being immune to the supposed charms of, say, Michael Longfellow and Chloe Fineman. (Shoutout to Heidi Gardner, though, the final-ever guest on “The Will Leitch Show.”) But that I have strong opinions about any of these people speaks to the ubiquity and power of the show—I do, after all, always watch it. You feel like you have to. I suspect, as long as it’s on, I always will.
The cliche is that everyone thinks their era of “SNL” was the only good era of “SNL,” but while I’m certain that there will never be a better “SNL” cast member than Phil Hartman, to me the show’s Golden Era, from a quality aspect, came during the 2008 Presidential campaign, when the show was firing on all cylinders to not only cover what seemed at the time to be the most historic Presidential race ever but in fact consistently make news every Saturday. I remember watching, in the final “SNL” before the election, Tina Fey as Sarah Palin “go rogue,” turn to the camera, essentially acknowledge that the McCain-Palin ticket was going to lose … while standing about right next to McCain himself. It was a high-wire act that blew me away. And yeah, comparing the way we discussed politics then as opposed to now makes me extremely nostalgic.
Also, a 15-months-pregnant Amy Poehler doing a Palin Rap right next to Sarah Palin will make one feel very strongly about the limitless possibilities of the human animal.
The nostalgia, let’s face it, can be intoxicating. One of the more surprisingly moving moments of this past election season was when “SNL,” which has been bringing back old cast members as part of its ongoing anniversary promotion, cast Dana Carvey as Joe Biden. After watching all sorts of actors (from Jim Carrey to Woody Harrelson to John Mulaney to Mikey Day) try and fail to find anything interesting about Biden, Carvey just waltzed in, effortlessly found the exact right angle (basically, he’s completely gone) and perfect catchphrase (the seriously hilarious “Guess what, and by the way”), and instantly transported me and anyone who grew up on that era of “SNL” right back to 1988 like none of the previously 36 years had ever happened. To see Dana Carvey do that thing that only Dana Carvey can do made me feel 13 again in a way that listening to an old record you haven’t listened to in decades does. You’re right back there.
That seems the ultimate value of “Saturday Night Live.” It just keeps going. In a terrific feature about Lorne Michaels in New York, Reeves Wiedeman captures something vital about Michaels, and his attitude toward the show and, really, everything:
When Conan O’Brien, an SNL writer who had barely any experience in front of a camera, was struggling in his early run of hosting Late Night in the 1990s, Michaels told him to stay calm — the goal was simply to get to do the next night’s show. “The longer you’re on,” he told O’Brien, “the longer you’re on.”
“Saturday Night Live,” no matter how funny it is or isn’t, is important and lasting simply because it is a connective tissue throughout all of our lives. (A Redditor made a flow chart of all the eras that’s pretty terrific.) The Chevy era to the Bill Murray era to the Eddie Murphy era to the Carvey/Hartman/Lovitz/Hooks era to the Adam Sandler era to the Will Ferrell era to the Tina Fey era to the Wiig/Hader/Sudeikis/Samberg era to wherever we are today. (The most complimentary way you could describe the last decade-plus, I’d say, is the Kenan Thompson era, and I’m not sure it has earned such a lofty designation even though he remains Hartman-esque in being the one cast member you can forever count on). Your most avid fandom may cross over one of those eras. You may have bailed on the show during one of them. But the show kept going either way. That matters. The longer you’re on, the longer you’re on. There’s a great lesson in that. Just keep making stuff. Just keep doing it. It makes you irreplaceable. It makes you inevitable.
There is much question, particularly in Wiedeman’s piece, about how long Michaels, who will turn 81 this year, will remain in charge of the show, and if the show will continue in his absence. (The most commonly rumored successors are Fey and Seth Meyers, for what it’s worth.) Can “Saturday Night Live” go on forever? Or will eventually it go away and become an artifact of its own?
I guess the real question I’m asking is this: Who’s going to live longer, “SNL” or me? We came into the world within hours of each other. I’ve only lived in the world of “SNL.” I suspect, when I leave, I’ll still be in it. I bet we all will be.
ON REWATCHING SNL 40
In preparation for a piece that I did not end up writing for The Washington Post, I re-watched the SNL 40 celebration show from a decade ago. The following people are major figures on one of the most mainstream American cultural touchstone nights imaginable:
Kanye West
Louis CK
James Franco
Justin Timberlake (who opens the show with Jimmy Fallon with a number that made me want to claw my eyeballs out)
Win Butler
Joe Piscopo
Sarah Palin
The latter’s appearance featured this exchange with Jerry Seinfeld:
Ten years is a long, long time, friends. It is worth noting, by the way, that the SNL 40 special aired four months before Trump came down that escalator. Everything in American culture, and American life, has been scrambled unrecognizably since.
A NOTE ON THE CURRENT HAPPENINGS IN THE WORLD
Someone pointed out this week that the current sensation of seeing something awful— something that is going to have vast, deeply unsettling ramifications for all of us for years to come—but being unable to get people who are steadfastly not paying attention to understand what is happening and how it’s going to affect them feels strikingly similar to how scientists must have felt in February 2020, trying to get people to prepare to grasp what is coming but having it fall on deaf ears. That … sounds right. I hope you are all holding up the best you can.
Here is a numerical breakdown of all the things I wrote this week, in order of what I believe to be their quality.
The Wild Eagles Fans Took Over the Super Bowl, New York. My report from on the scene.
Which Teams That Missed the Playoffs Are Likely to Make It This Year, MLB.com. The Cardinals are not on this list.
Will Ferrell Movies, Ranked, Vulture. Updated with You’re Cordially Invited.
Seven Hopeful Predictions for the New Season, MLB.com. I am always trying to be hopeful.
Reactions in the Wake of the Alex Bregman Deal, MLB.com. Mostly, just another reason the Cardinals can’t trade Nolan Arenado.
Also, I didn’t write anything for them this week, but there is some Official Will Leitch Writing Stuff News: I have officially joined the staff of The Washington Post as a contributing columnist. This doesn’t change anything with anything else—I’m still a national correspondent for MLB.com and a contributing editor at New York—but it’s, you know, something new. I’ll be writing 2-3 times a month, as well as participating in chats and videos and stuff, and it’s official enough that I even now have an actual Washington Post illustration. Like all of them, it kind of looks like the author.
Anyway, yeah, more places to see all this stuff I keep insisting on making.
PODCASTS
Grierson & Leitch, no show this week.
Morning Lineup, I did Friday’s show. Spring training is here.
Seeing Red, back weekly with Bernie Miklasz this coming Monday.
HOW CAN I HELP?
As established, we’re compiling the stories of individual people who are trying to find ways to make the world a little bit better in whatever fashion they can, no matter how small. Send yours to howcanonepersonhelp@gmail.com. Today’s entry comes from Dave, in Flint, Michigan.
I volunteer at a local food bank/distribution center in Flint. The first day we unload the delivery truck and separate the food into its proper place. The next day we package the food and hand it out to the many people who are in need.
The other volunteers with whom I work are absolutely the best of the best.
Most, of course are older retirees, and they all work straight through for four to five hours each day until all of the food is packaged and distributed. No complaints of tiredness. Everyone cheerful, friendly, and just having a nice time together.
On food distribution day, men from a local community re-entry program help deliver the food to the long line of cars filled with people who are in need. The volunteers take such great care of the guys by setting aside their favorite foods for them to take home, providing needed clothing and other items, and good naturedly giving them a hard time. None of the volunteers seek, expect, or care about receiving any kind of thanks or recognition for their work.
Those two days are the highlight of my week.
We have gotten so many of these already. Please send me yours.
LONG STORY YOU SHOULD READ THIS MORNING … OF THE WEEK
“Mad About Bridget Jones,” Erin Carlson, You’ve Got Mail. There is no more qualified person on the planet to write about the last remaining romantic comedy hero than Erin Carlson, the foremost expert in the field. (And a fellow Illini, no less.) The new Bridget Jones movie is actually pretty good, and this is a terrific appreciation of the character over the last two decades.
ONGOING LETTER-WRITING PROJECT!
This is your reminder that if you write me a letter and put it in the mail, I will respond to it with a letter of my own, and send that letter right to you! It really happens! Hundreds of satisfied customers! (Got some more of these out this week, stand by.)
Write me at:
Will Leitch
P.O. Box 48
Athens GA 30603
CURRENTLY LISTENING TO
“No Speak No Slave,” The Black Crowes and Jimmy Page. As a perpetual Big Hall person, here are the artists I would vote for, if anyone were foolish enough to give me a vote, on the newly released Rock and Roll Hall of Fame ballot.
The Black Crowes
Mariah Carey
Cyndi Lauper
Oasis
Outkast
The White Stripes
Also, about time for Wilco and the B-52s to get on the ballot, no?
Remember to listen to The Official Will Leitch Newsletter Spotify Playlist, featuring every song ever mentioned in this section. Let this drive your listening, not the algorithm!
Also, there is an Official The Time Has Come Spotify Playlist.
Go Illini, beat Michigan State, those jerks.
Have a great weekend, all.
Best,
Will
Wilco not in the RRHOF is an injustice!
Win Butler featured quite prominently on last night's SNL 50 Homecoming Concert. Though it was more like "didn't you guys used to be Arcade Fire?"
BTW, it's a must watch (replaying on Peacock.)