I’ve been wondering about this for a little while now. I watch Saturday Night Live every week to review it. I watch every skit, no matter how overly long or unfunny it may be. I often marvel at how long the show seems as I’m watching it.
I recently came to the Earth-shattering realization that the show feels so long because the show is so long. At one-and-a-half hours run time, the show is longer than any of the variety shows, sketch shows, talk shows, dramas, or sitcoms on the air these days. This all leads me to ask the very obvious question: why???
I remember back when I was in high school and Comedy Central showed repeats of old SNL episodes all the time. I always looked back at them with nostalgia, thinking about how much better SNL was then than it is now. Eventually, I was watching repeats of the shows that I had initially been lamenting over, and they seemed so much better than they ever did live. Do you know why? Because the repeats on Comedy Central were only an hour long!
Of course the show seems so much better when a half hour of humorless crap is excised. You would think that Lorne Michaels would have seen this and taken the hint. If it’s so easy to cut a half hour of material out of every episode, as Comedy Central did, clearly there’s no reason to keep the show so bloated and long.
I don’t mean to be that mean-spirited about this, because there really is something funny about every episode of SNL. I do, however, think that the show would be tighter, funnier, and more popular if they just chopped off the last half hour.
What do you think? Am I wrong, or do you think SNL would be better as an hour long show?
Clacked by Bob Degon
on Jan 20, 2009 @ 14:30 EST5EDT
The Tonight Show was 90 minutes long when SNL premiered, so NBC probably wanted to keep the 11:30-1:00 time slot consistent from Monday through Saturday and never changed.
I always thought it was that long because they needed time to change between sets. It seems like there are commercials after every single skit, which makes the show painful to watch live.
No no. You are spot on. Watch it the way I do, fast forwarding. It’s tons better…
The show will still suck if I fast forward.
It should only be 90 minutes, you have the open, then the monologue, then a commercial, next set, musical guest, next set, commercial next set, Weekend Update, next set, musical guest, and so on. It should be a half an half because the witting team MIGHT be able to write one good sketch a show, so why try to fill another 30 minutes?
I meant 60 minutes.
When I watch I usually start at 11:45 so I can zip through the commercials and usually awful musical performances by groups I’ve never heard of. Cuts it all down to about 40 minutes!
The reruns on Comedy Central were usually devoid of the musical act, if I remember correctly, probably due to music rights costs. I can imagine the Weekend Update was probably removed from those broadcasts as well since it was no longer topical years later. That’s a good 20 minutes right there.
*POST AUTHOR*
I remember them leaving both the musical guests and weekend update in the repeats if you can believe it. You could tell that sometimes they edited the weekend update sections down, and they usually included only one of the musical guest performances to the best of my recollection.
I’ve seen some syndie versions of the show that had the musical guests completely cut, but you’re right, I have also seen edited version where one song is left in the show.
Either way, once you take out the commercials and musical guests, the show really is only an hour long. I’d rather they keep it as is, scan through on the DVR, and enjoy it in half the time! Besides, we might end up with Poker After Dark – Director’s Cut: Extended Edition! I’m sure NBC wants to keep control of that ad revenue time for as long as they can.
Your ideas are valid, and the show’s quality would improve if it was 60 minutes. But, really, do you think that a major network would lop off 6-8 minutes of advertising $$ (or promos for other network shows), for the sake of quality? I think not. They would likely have to give that 30 minutes back to the local affiliates who would show informercials or other crap.
Not going to happen.