"Maroon 5 is band you're going to be hearing a lot of for many years to come!"

They really need to get some surefire good hosts, because that's half the problem lately. They need to pull out the big guns and book Christopher Walken again. It'd be good if they got Ray Romano too, since both times he's hosted were well above average.

What are you talking about?

I like "This Love" more, but I don't even really like that.

And they should make Forte the new full-time Bush impersonator (Oh my fucking GOD Hammond is bad at Bush!), and get back to harshly mocking Bush as they did when Ferrell had the role.

I also think I've decided that the current SNL News might be my favorite ever. (Tina Fey is so great on that).

OTM about Hammond's Bush sucking (which is wierd becaue he's usually such a great mimic --- His Donahue on the Xtina episode killed me)....

The cast is the best it's been in years. The problem is that they've been hiring awful hosts and writing the entire show around them. Every sketch is about Xtina or Nick and Jessica or whoever, they aren't writing regular sketches.

An aquaintance of mine who writes for the show said JT was one of the funniest people he'd ever met.

Baldwin's been on a few times (in the mid 90's) and he was always hilarious.

I think that if for some reason Jon Stewart leaves the Daily Show, they should get Tina Fey to be the new host. She'd be great on that show.

Forte and Meyers are definitely the future of this show, though. They need to push them in the spotlight more. Forte's bit last night on Weekend Update was especially funny. His comedy style is strange and somewhat unique, which is what the show really needs right now.

Jimmy Fallon has his moments, but he's more often than not very annoying. Hopefully he'll be gone in a season or two and he'll start making awful movies. Horatio Sanz can be very funny, but any time he is paired with Fallon, you are guaranteed that it's going to be embarassing and unfunny. Chris Parnell has a narrow range, but he's great at what he does. Maya Rudolph and Rachel Dratch can be funny, but too often they rely on silly voices and exaggerated facial expressions to get across a joke, which is a setback.

Fred Armisen is a funny guy, but I get the sense that he is on the wrong show. His best stuff is very subtle and plays off of detail - he's style is a bit like a cross between the Best Show On WFMU and Christopher Guest movies, and I don't think the mainstream is necessarily the most comfortable place for him to be. Sometimes he can do stuff on the show which fits in well - his Prince impression was really funny and accurate - but I think he'll do much better things later on in his career.

Matthew, I do like Fallon on the News, but if he does one more sketch (like the White Stripes one on the Barrymore episode) where it's like "HEY EVERYBODY! I PLAY GUITAR!!! I CAN SING!! HEE HEE HEE!" I'm going to puke....I never thought I'd say "poor-man's Adam Sandler" but there you go...Yeah, and your right about him and Horatio...it's like nobody thinks you guys are as funny as you do....quit cracking up fer chrissakes.

Compared to the high school talent show garbage they air today (which borders tenuously on poop jokes), the earlier incarnations (especially the over-celebrated "golden age" of Belushi/Ackroyd) are high art.

Fallon's Irish guys sketch is basically a variation on Meyers' shitty Scottish jokes, his stoner webcam tv thing with Horatio is a variation on Wayne's World. It goes on and on, really.

Jimmy's funny when he's being himself, but he's so often aping other people's bits or doing unfunny lcd jokes that he rarely gets a chance to do that anymore. Fallon just strikes me as a guy who is desperate to be loved and popular, and that fucks him up more than anything else.

That was funny.

My God, I didn't know the writers were that bad.

Um, Alex, when was SNL some kinda cerbral experimental thing? It's always just been a sometimes funny/sometimes not sketch show....or am I missing something? Was Samurai Chef really mind blowing at the time or something?
Matthew, I do like Fallon on the News, but if he does one more sketch (like the White Stripes one on the Barrymore episode) where it's like "HEY EVERYBODY! I PLAY GUITAR!!! I CAN SING!! HEE HEE HEE!" I'm going to puke....I never thought I'd say "poor-man's Adam Sandler" but there you go...Yeah, and your right about him and Horatio...it's like nobody thinks you guys are as funny as you do....quit cracking up fer chrissakes.

-- M@tt He1geson (matt@game[remove]informer.com), February 22nd, 2004.

First seasons were extremely experimental, muppets, Andy Kaufman, even the samarai chef was a weird thing, no dialogue at all, no explanation, just wackiness.

The first four years was very inventive, and the early 90s is obviously classic, but in terms of just being weird and funny, the late 90s is the peak.

Will Ferrell was easily the best of the bunch, but for god's sakes, man, he CARRIED the rest of the cast. I've been watching the show since it's inception, and it's NEVER been worse than it is today, even in its Lorne-less Rocket/Gottfried era.

Tim Meadows is the most underrated guy in the history of the show. He's a genius of deadpan deliverary, and was very versatile, but he just doesn't have a fanbase for whatever reason. I think he's brilliant, one of the best ever.

He's not well-apreaciated because, apart from a few notable exceptions (Ferrell being the biggest), the SNL "star" players are the least apropriate sketch comedians. The best sketch comedy is based around ensemble and ever since Chevy Chase got huge after the first season, the show has become more a star factory than a sucessful sketch show and it's to the point where they're hiring schmucks like Jimmy Fallon who don't even pretend to have a sense of ensemble.

MAD TV's cast is comprised entirely of those people from high school who weren't really funny but talked loud and made fart noises so they won "class clown" at the end of the year. That, and they always bring in lame b-rate celebrities to help with sketches, and then kiss their asses.

That's not true at all. MadTV is fucking awful, but they've generally hired really talented people who did great work in Chicago. I have no idea how the show is so terrible, but the problem isn't the cast.

I think I liked it so much because I was younger. I still really like it though.

I would say that the problem isn't lack of presence or charisma on the part of the cast, but maybe that they're more geared toward stage than TV. The way both Mad TV and SNL farm out talent hurts the improv/sketch ensemble process. I think the people Mad TV hires are more cognizant of this, so instead of ending up with tons of people climbing all over each other to become celebrities, they churn out a watered down in-between version of good sketch and SNL, which is the opposite side of the same coin.

The only Mad TV person to ever make it to SNL is Jeff Richards, who is a boring guy with a lot of bad characters, and has recently been fired. It's pretty obvious why he didn't fit in.

"Hey, honey, remember that stomach virus I got that nearly killed me? I'll never forget that." Jim Breuer is that kind of memorable.

by the by Mad TV wretched and makes me wretch when I watch it (though they occasionally fall into a good sketch) they equate yelling and repeating annoying quirks w/comedy. also the sketch w/the tall guy that has rosy cheek make up and pretends hes a little kid ('stuart' I think) is awful but they continue to do a sketch w//the character almost every show!

Sigh.

Actually, that makes me feel a lot better. Sophie Muller's one of my favorite videos and I hated the idea that the worst image I'd ever seen was her idea.