Samberg, Hader, and Wiig: The only bright spots I can think of.

Old habits die hard, and for some ungodly reason, I’ve been watching every episode of Saturday Night Live’s new season. Guys, we’re all friends here, so there’s no need to beat around the bush: it stinks. Literally, there’s about 1.5 skits per show that are actually funny, and maybe one – if you’re lucky – laugh-out-loud moment. I’m basically mad/disgusted.

Andy Samberg, Bill Hader, and Kristen Wiig seem the only bright spots I can think of. Yeah, Samberg’s no Dan Akroyd, but he’s got this je ne sais quoi about him that just makes you happy he’s on screen. My dad came into the room the other night when I was watching and he exclaimed joyfuly, “Look at that Punim!” (His ‘Jew face.’) Every time Samberg was on, my dad started cracking up for basically no reason. “Oh, that Punim!”

Kenan Ivory Thompson is not doing this for my dad.  Thompson’s a child. He’s like watching a six-year old up on screen. I’m surprised he can even stay up to participate in Saturday Night Live.

We need a makeover, a complete mid-season overhaul. Fire people! Break contracts! The Yankees do it all the time. Isiah, Starbury, people that suck in professional sports? They get canned. Lorne Michaels needs to take a cue from Steinbrenner’s book and be a li’l more ruthless.

Bill Hader, however is a genius. I’m not complaining about him. He’s good in everything. Bill Hader is not the reason that SNL sucks. Same thing for Kristen Wiig. I’ve never seen her not be genius in anything she did.

So, if I may be so impertinent to ask, why are we wasting time building skits around Jason Sudekis? Sudekis is not exactly the reason that SNL is bad, but then, I wouldn’t really lose sleep if he died and couldn’t come in to work. He’s medium-funny and medium-talented. He’s like a funny version of Drew Carey. Look, why bother having people on who aren’t geniuses? There are enough geniuses out there to employ. And you only need a couple to make a great show. Think about the ’75 cast: four legitimate geniuses: Belushi, Akroyd, Gilda Radner, and Chevy Chase. Chevy quits the next year and they bring in another genius to replace him, Bill Murray. Two medium talents that didn’t bother anyone – Laraine Newman and Garrett Morris – sort of rounded out the bunch and created a nice pleasing harmony for the next four years. Sounds like the magic genius number is four. We’re getting somewhere here.

I don’t get it – were people actually funnier in the past? Or has Lorne Michaels lost sight of the fact that you need four geniuses and not a lot of dead wood. Right now we’ve got a lot of distractions. Usually they build the show around a shitty host (which is a bad idea to start with), and then you have Fred Armisen in every other sketch, plus Will Forte (who’s often very good, but certainly no genius), Moynihan (fat, but not quite genius, either), Abby Elliott (cute but not geens), Seth Meyers (I can’t stand him and can’t think of a worse newsman except Colin whats his name, who was legitimately terrible and definitely, absolutely, not a genius.)

Let’s think back to Farley’s glory days of hanging man-boobs. Now there was a no-dead-wood cast. You had Sandler, Farley, Chris Rock and David Spade, just for starters. And then a solid news man of Dennis Miller, versatile uber-genius Phil Hartman (Rest in Peace), tall person Kevin Nealon (who’s sort of funny in the same way Samberg is funny – he’s just got a funny face) and then also Dana Carvey and Mike Meyers. I don’t get it. Were people funnier then? Were the writers better? Who do I blame, exactly?

I’d like to see Kristen Wiig take over the show, completely dominate it, sort of the way Eddie Murphy did to the ’82-83 cast. (He actually hosted one show while he was a cast member, when slated host Nick Nolte got sick – he’s the only cast member ever to do it while currently “on” the show.) Do you think viewers got mad in the early 80′s because there was too much Eddie Murphy? No. He saved a floundering cast (led by Tim Kazurinsky and Gary freakin’ Kroger) and they loved it when he was in every sketch. Wiig is the funniest woman in SNL history. She’s right up there with Gilda Radner and Cheri Oteri. Am I forgetting anyone? Nora Roberts? I just saw her on an Entourage re-run; she’s aged thickly, like a goat cheese.