Someday, in the far distant future when I become funny, I would like to write things like sketch comedy. I prefer the absurd and things like satire, and I've watched enough that, on some level I think I have somewhat of a grasp on it, although maybe I'll just end up being a real life Neil Hamburger of comedy writing. I grew up watching Kids in the Hall and Saturday Night Live, and I love stuff like Mr. Show and Tim and Eric. Although 30 Rock isn't technically sketch comedy, it has the absurd elements and jam packed with genuinely funny jokes wrapped up in a satire about working behind the scenes on comedy. Most recently, I just started watching Portlandia and it's funnier than I thought it would be. And it's produced by, guess who, LORNE MICHAELS.
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorne_Michaels#Selected_television_credits here's a complete list of the tv shows he produces, not including the huge list of movies:
-Hart and Lorne Terrific Hour
-Saturday Night Live
-All You Need is Cash
-Mr. Mike's Mondo Video
-The New Show
-Sunday Night
-Kids in the Hall
-Late Night with Conan O'Brien
-The Rutles 2: Can't Buy Me Lunch
-The Colin Quinn Show
-Suns and Daughters
-30 Rock
-Late Night with Jimmy Fallon
-Portlandia
I suspected Mr. Michaels had a stranglehold on comedy towards the American East Coast, but apparently I was being naive. Why is this one guy so involved? Does he have all the right connections? Is he the only person with money that cares about making comedy?
Most people I know don't even classify Saturday Night Live, Lorne's franchise, as actual comedy. A clever New York article written back in 1995: "there's more ailing Saturday Night than any particular personnel defections: The show that once broke all the rules is now obsessed with maintaining its internal pecking order, from where people sit in meetings to how much airtime new cast members deserve...And when it's as bad as it can be, and people still act like there' snothing wrong, then it's sort of like a fuck-you to the audience --'We don't have to be good, because we're Saturday Night Live!' It's like the post office. 'What are you gonna do, deliver the mail yourself?'"
It may or may not be remarkable how little has changed since that article was written. I actually ended up watching Saturday Night Live recently as Tina Fey was the star, and with my current 30 Rock obsession I was hoping for some sort of weird parody sketches or maybe just some exceptional jokes like when certain big stars come on. Alas, you could watch any random SNL episode and get the same feel. Laugh about once for every hour of it you watch; definitely not time effective if you have anything better to do. But really, that seems to be the whole point of the show. Its a bunch of filler for people with crying babies to pay half attention to or any other depressing imagined scenario where a person would find themselves in front of their TV late on a Saturday night. Like David Letterman or any other talk show, they just barely provide enough entertainment to escape the problems of your own life or maybe just fill the room with the voices of other people.
One thing that does impress me about SNL was the costumes. One sketch had Tina Fey as the little mermaid as Osama's corpse fell down the sea on top of her crab friend. Kind of a funny idea, or maybe Disney has some sort of stake in the show??? A separate sketch also referred to Pirates of the Carribean - maybe Disney movies are just really safe pop culture references. ANYWAY what impressed me so much were the little mermaid costumes - something like 8 people had huge, brightly colorful exagerrated costumes that really looked great. The sketch didn't last 3 or 4 minutes, and that was the entire life of all those costumes! I guess they could reuse the costumes at some point, but making costumes sets for just a couple of minutes of airtime is really impressive, since it must cost a lot to have all of that made on short notice.
Considering the half ass appearances to the writing and acting in the show, it doesn't quite add up that props, costumes, sets, etc. would be so top notch. Although compared to celebrity salaries its probably still chicken scratch. The comedy industry seems like a complicated Byzantine political landscape, where success is defined less by a persons' raw ability to be funny in favor of a more holistic set of qualifications: how easy they are to work with, seniority, who their friends are. All I can conclude from what I've read is Lorne is on top of it because he is the best at this portfolio of skills, and he is always hungry to expand it at every opportunity. He eat sleep and breathes the industry. The man is dedicated.
I think we can all relax about SNL being as bad as it is with all of this in mind. In a recent interview with Tina Fey, she lists things she learned as head writer from Lorne Michaels. #1 on the list: Producing is about discouraging creativity.
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