Mr. Six on SNL, in 2022

Well, it's 18 years late, but here we are.

I found the slapstick in that skit funny. It was a funny idea to explore what it means to be Mr. Six's grandchild.

But do the young kids who watch SNL even know who Mr. Six is?

SNL lacks something these days. I only laugh a little bit. Maybe one skit a week is really funny. The new guy who imitates Trump is hilarious. Kate McKinnin and Kenan Thompson can make me laugh without even trying sometimes.

Find me just one young kid who watches that show.
Anyway, 18 years maybe but no less creepy.

It was a solid episode overall. I think that was Sarah Sherman in the Mr. Six outfit, who has a lot of potential if they let her go for it. I don't think you need to know about where this came from, they name him right away and that's enough context.

That episode had quite a bit of "older" material in it. I thought it was funny, but was also wondering how many people would understand it.

Now, maybe's the time for Six Flags to bring him back! :)

I must be too old for SNL. That skit wasn't funny at all to me.

As a 30+ year-long fan of SNL, even I stopped watching it. This skit (and the 2 other recent amusement park skits) are just bad. I do find Che and Jost doing the weekend update to still be hilarious, but only when actually doing headlines, which seems to be less and less in favor of "guest commentaries." Oh well.

Meh.

That was pretty bad...but on par with most of their skits.

SNL has always been a little hit or miss with most of the hit coming before the first musical guest performance and a lot of the miss after Weekend Update. These days, I watch the cold open, the monologue, Weekend Update, and the music segments unless it's something I can't stand. I'll catch any highlights on social media. Che and Jost are pretty good on Update, but the segment has been horribly neutered this year. It used to run well over 10 minutes with 1 or 2 guest commentaries. It's now down to around 9 minutes and closes with a single guest. I'm waiting to see if they close their last Update of the season with their traditional offensive cue card swap.

I generally agree with you. It never works out how you expect either. I expected the Musk episode to be a disaster, and it was pretty solid start to finish. I think they're trying to match the right writers with the right talent, and they're being too cautious about letting the talent bring stuff. Mellissa, Heidi and Bowen seem to have great ideas but they don't surface enough. Among the featured cast, Sarah clearly has enormous potential. Letting the young writers do their pre-taped bits actually seems to be working, too.

SNL has always sucked and been awesome at the same time. Since day one.

I think people remember their favorite characters and sketches, but they also (for good reason) don't remember how many bombs there were even in what many people consider "golden ages" of the show (the Sandler/Farley/Spade days, for one). Half the sketches bombed on every show ever taped, but Youtube shows us the hits that our brains encoded.

Please Don't Destroy is taking the baton from Lonely Island and making it their own, and has been pretty consistently solid.

If you find yourself fawning over the "good ol' days" of SNL, they made a joke for you once upon a time...

It's true. People romanticize their favorite era of SNL and naturally everything else doesn't hold up. Go back and watch full episodes and you will find that only a small handful of skits are actually funny from each episode. The show is still just as good as it has always been, the good parts that is.

This is a great take on the "my favorite era of SNL was great, anything that came after it sucked"

I love the current cast. Colin and Michael on Update are even better than Seth and Amy, and I *love* Seth and Amy. Kate McKinnon is easily one of the all time best ever on the cast. And Kenan can make absolutely anything funny, and someday I'd love to see him host an actual game show in his SNL game show host persona.

And for the record, some of those early years that folks call "the golden era" are tough for me to sit through. And even the early 90s David Spade/Chris Farley/Adam Sandler clips are dated and "meh" to me now, even though I loved them when I grew up watching them. It's kind of like lots of old sitcoms, sometimes the material just doesn't hold up no matter how good it is and how good the performers are.

I think Chris and Kevin are correct though, that the show is always a combination of bombs and scores. Unless Justin Timberlake hosts, then it's pretty much all good.

That's what I meant by "hit or miss". The show has always had its duds. One thing I feel like that's missing now is recurring character bits. You could always count on Wayne's World or Matt Foley or Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer showing up a few times a season. There's just not near as many in recent seasons. The closest thing they have to that is Keenan as the host of random game shows and that is genius.

John Mulaney's recent episode was one of my favorites this season. Probably doesn't hurt that he was a writer on the show.

Yeah, the same has always been true for music. Anyone who says today's music is garbage sounds like an old fart who doesn't know where to look for good music. For every good song/artist, there are hordes of terrible ones, and it's always been that way.

Totally agree. There's some real talent out there in music, if you find the right stuff. Just because someone is over-produced or overplayed doesn't necessarily mean it's covering up a lack of talent.

Perks of having a teenage kid - she listens to good modern music, which gets us exposed to it, and I'd generally never even think twice because I've only ever heard their "hits"

I started watching SNL from its first day on the air. As theatre nerd college kids we thought it was the hippest thing going and stayed home every Saturday so we wouldn’t miss it. Then once on a long weekend in NYC we talked an NBC usher into letting two of us hold places in line. He said as things stood we wouldn’t be on the first floor but we would likely be seated upstairs. Or we could attend the dress. Two of our group said they’d stay all day if they needed to and let’s go for the actual show. We were thrilled, it was like a dream come true. That afternoon we saw Gilda Radner (rest her soul) at a midtown crosswalk. Good sign, right?
Turned out the guest host, Madeline Kahn (rest her soul), invited a bus load of friends to watch the show. The downstairs people were sent upstairs and the upstairs people were out. We were crushed. So we ran back to the hotel room like fools, got high, and turned on the tv.
Everyone agrees that SNL has had its ups and downs but nobody agrees on when those were. There have been tomes written about it. I quit watching some time ago and only recorded it when I knew someone good would be on. (Like Betty White. Rest her soul).
This clip happens to demonstrate what I think is wrong with the show. Lizzo is a popular gal, and a great entertainer. But she’s a terrible actress. The weak situation and the bad lines didn’t do much to help her. I also get so sick of watching great entertainers blatantly rely on cue cards to get them through a five minute sketch. As a performer myself I have no patience for someone who won’t take the time to memorize lines before they get up in front of a live audience. Seriously, it means everything and failure can mark you as a rank amateur.
Having said that- the show is known for flying by the seat of the writers’ pants and cancelling skits and adding new ones at the dead last minute. There’s a good possibility that the lines you memorized will be cut. This skit looks like it was in from the start, just on costumes and makeup alone.
Lizzo should have shown up for rehearsal or been either/or that night, but not both.
When Jimmy Fallon was on the show he was hated by everyone because he refused to be serious and couldn’t hold a straight face, cracking himself up practically every sketch. That’s also hard for me to watch. The only one who may possibly be excused is Carol Burnett when she’s opposite the greatest stone-faced ad-libber of all time, Tim Conway. (Rest his soul).

Y'know, your thoughts about Lizzo reminded me how tragically bad De Niro has been on SNL (no, I'm not comparing their acting ability). He's such an amazing talent, but give him cue cards, ad-libs, and limited prep time before going live and he just isn't in his element.