It took the British publication “The Economist” to finally point out the fact that “The Daily Show” has replaced “Saturday Night Live” as the standard of American political satire. I was cooking dinner for Valerie, Ella and I when I read this in the column “Lexington” and sort of skimmed past this comment. But since the Simpsons were replaced by the dreary Oscars my mind kept sort of going back to this point. For most of us, for most of our ‘adult’ lives, Saturday Night Live has set the pace. In my memory, that usually revolved around Reagan, Bush I, and Clinton… after which I sort of dropped out of the club. Thinking about why I rarely watch SNL anymore tonight I first attributed it to age (“never trust anyone over 30”) but that didn’t really work the more I mulled it over.
I’m going to cross the Rubicon here: I don’t watch SNL very often any more because their skits drag. Particularly their political skits. They repeat the same joke over and over for like 10 minutes. They beat the point into your skull until you just want to throw a brick at the screen. Horatio and his inability to keep from laughing during a skit is the exception to the rule. The Daily Show is more random… more Family Guy and less Flintstones. Quick in every sense of the word. With Daily you have to “play up” like with a tennis player whose better than you… like good old Letterman in the 80’s. SNL has failed to make the leap.
By the way, RIP to Don Knotts… I’ve had Andy Griffith and Three’s Company on all weekend in the background.