Kenan Thompson: SNL’s Fat Albert Wears Out His Welcome

All things being equal, I’d love to be friends with Kenan Thompson, the good-natured and mildly obese black man we’ve seen smiling down at us from NBC’s “Saturday Night Live” for going on three seasons now. He’d be a great wingman, with that infectious smile, and the kind of guy who’d always be down to split a pie, late-night.

But he’s not funny – not funny funny, at least. In fact, it’s possible that he’s the least funny black man on Saturday Night Live since Tim Meadows, who wasn’t funny at all (actually, was he black?)

Going back in time, SNL has had some pretty unfunny black dudes on their show – which isn’t really a problem, since they’ve had umpteen unfunny white dudes on their show (does anyone remember A. Whitney Brown?) The issue is exacerbated, though, by Lorne Michaels’ strange decision to only allow one African-American male representative per season to be on the show; i.e. to be “the black guy.” Seriously – does anyone remember a season where there were two black guys? Did Chris Rock have anyone black to hang out? No. He had to make do with Chris Farley’s hairy, pregnant, midwestern ass. Did Tracy Murray have another black guy to chill with? No. He had to get incredibly drunk in his own dressing room and then come out and mumble hilariously on stage.

Even Eddie Murphy had to buddy up with Joe Piscopo. Now that’s weird. I came up on Eddie Murphy’s SNL cast – my first season as a fan was ’82-83 – and at that time I didn’t think anything of it. But do you think that Eddie and Joe are hanging out now? Lifelong friends, taking anabolic steroids together? Answer, no.

Tell me, Lorne Michaels, just what the hell is so dangerous about having two or more black men on the show at the same time? Basically what you’ve created are those “ethnically diverse” coloring books that we used to have to use in school in the 80′s, when there was exactly one Chinese couple and one Salvadorean and then two “Negroes” with afro wigs. Lorne, if you could bring on someone legitimately funny mid-season (who’s black), then I wouldn’t have to hate on Keenan Thompson, who’s not exactly horrible – I liked his “France’s Best Def Jam Comedian” – but who’s not exactly up to carrying the jockstrap of Chris Rock, either.

Here’s some trivia. My favorite season of SNL – just because it was so damn weird – was the ’85-86 show. You had an awfully strange line-up that featured a teenage Anthony Michael Hall (The Breakfast Club), Robert Downey Jr. (Less Than Zero), Danitra Vance (a black woman performance artist who was freakish and strange on the show; she later died of breast cancer), Jon Lovitz in his first season, Dennis Miller in his first season, Terry Sweeney (the first openly gay member of the show), Nora Dunn (The Pat Stevens show), and a couple of other forgettables. The black guy on that season? Damon Wayans. Yeah. He was so abjectly bad, so consistenly unfunny and unhappy on the show, that he made his exit after less than a season. Wow.

Put more black guys on SNL. And have Kenan lose some weight. Fat Albert’s done.