I could have lost my research job today. The professor I work for was ragging on Sarah Palin today, along with another graduate student. Now, let's get this straight - I'm not a huge Palin fan. I think she's inexperienced and choosing her represents a hail-Mary pass for McCain, but as they were ripping her up and down for her stupid answers during an interview with Katie Couric, I was getting more and more angry.
I think the thing that saved me from accusing them of all being leftist media elitists out of touch with the average person or reality was they started talking about Saturday Night Live. They chuckled about the sketch from this last weekend where Tina Fey was a dead ringer for the VP candidate and took most of her material directly from the Couric interview. Thankfully, I had just seen the sketch the night before online because remembering how I had laughed at Fey's Alaska-by-way-of-Minnesota accent made me realize politics needs a sense of humor, and anything that gets this nation talking about the issues can't be a bad thing. When you boil it all down, that is what SNL has done best for the 20-plus years it has been on the air. Those of us who choose to watch it do it so we can have something funny to talk about the next day.
The Internet's ability to offer individual sketches may have even enhanced SNL's ability to remain relevant because you don't need a water cooler to stand around anymore to talk about them. You can just embed the sketches in your blog and wait for the comments to roll in.
The season premier was the first time I have seen SNL in a while. My wife and I only watched because Michael Phelps was on. He was pretty good. Hulu, which is an NBC venture has only a couple of his clips (the Michael Phelps Diet, and some weird T-Mobile commercial that doesn't make much sense). It's missing the one where he acts like Napoleon Dynamite, which is a shame. That's the sketch people are talking about, even the one their imitating. Merilee and I wrung laughs out of that piece of comedy for days by just looking at each other and saying, "Uh uh!"
That's all SNL has really ever been good for, really. Most of the sketches aren't all that funny, but there's always one that strikes a cord. When I think back to my heyday with the show (the mid-to-late 80s, the waning Mike Myers, Dana Carvey years) I remember dumb old Hans and Franz, of course, not because it was so funny, but because I can't get their stupid catch phrase out of my brain. Let's say it all together now: "Hello, I am Hans ... And I am Franz ... And we are here to PUMP (hand clap) YOU UP!"
Thanks to the Internet and despite Lorne Michaels attempts to control every piece of content with the SNL label, I can experience pure pumpitude any time I want. If NBC and Michaels were smart, they'd open the floodgates. They've tried with the nearly 400 some odd clips they've archived, but they're missing some of the obscure classics in my book. Where are the synchronized swimmers, or Willie and Frankie (who I couldn't even find on YouTube) or even the Christopher Walken "more cowbell" sketch that has become such a phenomenon?
When you think about any of the sketches or even any of the 400 Hulu has by themselves, they're not really that funny. They're only funny when you're sitting around with a bunch of your friends and someone blurts out, "Ooooh, I hate when that happens!"
This is something NBC, Lorne Michaels and anyone associated with SNL should capitalize on, but they haven't. Yes, Hulu allows you to embed a clip now, but their library is limited to recent stuff and a bunch of Will Ferrell era junk, including Celebrity Jeopardy.
I shouldn't call it junk really because I laugh whenever someone adopts an Irish brogue and says, "Trebrek, you suck!" Fortunately for my family and my career, I chuckled when my professor said, "I want to use my lifeline!" I might keep watching SNL just so I can have something to talk about with those around me who are of such different political persuasions. I just hope NBC keeps giving me that opportunity.