Word: snl
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...show has successfully weathered SATURDAY NIGHT DEAD headlines in the past, but this year it is facing its gravest crisis yet. Last season SNL was bombarded with fierce criticism not only from the public and the press but also from unhappy performers and network executives like NBC West Coast president Don Ohlmeyer, who deemed the cast members too distracted and the writing "weak." His complaints were mild compared with those of many longtime viewers, whose memories of last year's endlessly puerile sketches are still vivid...
Adding to SNL's challenge this fall is the presence, for the first time, of serious network competition. On Oct. 14th, Fox will launch Mad-TV, a sketch-comedy show based on Mad magazine. The one-hour program, which will air at 11 p.m. Eastern time (half an hour earlier than SNL) looks unpromising--crass, pointless skits, like one in which homeless people forage for breakfast food in Dumpsters, seem to be favored here too--but if it fails, Fox already has a potential backup in the works: a sketch-comedy hour being developed by Roseanne...
Michaels, meanwhile, has spent the summer overseeing SNL's most sweeping overhaul in a decade. After conducting nationwide auditions, he has hired five new cast members, most of them unknowns. Such stalwarts as Chris Farley and Adam Sandler will be gone. Except for a couple of lower-profile players (Mark McKinney and Molly Shannon), the only major returnees are Weekend Update anchor Norm MacDonald and David Spade, who will have his own regular commentary spot...
...turnover in writing staff has been just as drastic. Of the 17 writers on board this year, 12 are newcomers. (Most come from performance rather than print backgrounds; Michaels this time has generally avoided raiding his usual source, the Harvard Lampoon.) In some ways, SNL is a victim of its own success. Writers can now find many other markets in prime time for their talents, at least in part because of the SNL influence: several of last year's younger writers have left for shows like Seinfeld, The Simpsons and News Radio. "The sensibility of SNL is all over...
...SNL's transition summer hasn't been smooth. The show's new team was to begin work on Aug. 14, but Michaels didn't secure his last few writers and final two cast members (returnee Shannon and newcomer Darrell Hammond) until last week. Moreover, despite the influx of new faces, veteran SNL watchers are wondering just how much of a rejuvenation the show will get. Four of the five new performers come from the Goundlings and Second City--the same comedy troupes Michaels has mined for years. In addition, SNL's notoriously male-dominated culture seems likely to continue unchanged...