Growing up, I tried watching Saturday Night Live as much as possible. One of my favorite all time comedy segments (on any show) was the Kirstey Alley-hosted Bellissima skit in which the friendly staff of an Italian restaurant molest Alley’s character in front of her husband, played by Kevin Nealon. I recorded that skit on my VCR and saw it about 500 times. That probably makes me a criminal. I admit it. I’m a petty thief, a felon.
But of that 500 times, about 495 I played the skit to someone else, a friend, sibling, etc. who had probably not seen it originally on that fateful Saturday night.
I just tried looking for it on “the usual suspects” (YouTube, etc.) and nothing came up. Finding on NBC is not even worth the time.
Over the years, SNL began to suck and I got old enough to realize that there were better things to do on Saturday nights.
Over time, that all changed again, I no longer find myself out on the town every Saturday night (read: I no longer have a life…) and enjoy watching SNL when I can. The quality has improved too. I find there is at least one quality skit a week, sometimes more.
But, a lot of people have better things to do and don’t watch TV anymore. So even if SNL does not suck they might not be home to watch.
It’s a shame, because this past week, SNL aired a gem. The 6.5M viewers (according to Nielsen) who tune in on Saturdays know what I’m talking about. Here’s my initial post on the Dick in a Box digital short.
I was actually going to write this post yesterday, but I was not sure how much or how little Andy Samberg had to do with it. Samberg, for those who don’t know, it the common link between:
Chronicles of Narnia - Just Watch.
Natalie Portman Raps - Just Watch.
Dick in a Box - Just Watch.
Today I read something on The New York Times and it confirmed my suspicion:
1. Blogs are great but traditional newspapers have ACCESS and then some.
2. Andy is indeed the “brainchild” of the operation:
The common denominator in “Special Treat” and “Lazy Sunday” — as well as another “Saturday Night Live” favorite on You Tube featuring the actress Natalie Portman and her supposed bad-girl side — is a performer on the show, Andy Samberg, and a supporting cast of producers he brought with him to “Saturday Night Live” from a pioneering Web site called Lonely Island.
The idea for “Special Treat” was hatched, Mr. Samberg said, when Mr. Michaels called him into his office last Tuesday and asked that he try to write something funny that would showcase the singing skills of Mr. Timberlake, who was both the host and musical guest.
Mr. Samberg and his colleagues — including Akiva Schaffer and Jorma Taccone — presented a rough draft of the song to Mr. Timberlake on Thursday afternoon, and after they reworked it to his specifications, they recorded the voice track on special equipment in Mr. Samberg’s office around midnight. They spent Friday and much of Saturday filming the video in and around New York, and not until 4 p.m. Saturday — less than eight hours before the show was to go live — was the video in sufficient shape to be shown to the NBC executive responsible for late-night programming, Rick Ludwin.
Of course, the same NYT article also talks about censorship and drawing the line between TV and the Web:
While the show’s producers had already concluded on their own that the video would have to be bleeped to be broadcast, they had a special request for Mr. Ludwin: Would he permit the uncensored version to be made available on the Web?
“My first instinct, without having seen anything, was that we probably shouldn’t do that,” Mr. Ludwin said later in an interview. “My thought was that even though it’s going on the Internet, it’s still representing NBC. But I hadn’t seen it yet. So I said it would depend on how dirty it was.”
Giving credit to NBC, they realized that:
“We were all laughing,” said Mr. Ludwin, who had been accompanied by a representative from the NBC legal department. And then Mr. Ludwin said he had a change of heart.
“Those people who go on the Internet will not be shocked by this,” Mr. Ludwin recalled thinking. “Obviously there are some people who will be offended. Those people are probably unlikely to go searching for it on the Internet. It’s just funny.”
Still, the material was touchy enough, Mr. Ludwin said, that he sought final approval for the Web version of the video from the highest echelons of NBC, including Kevin Reilly, the president of NBC Entertainment Jeff Zucker, and chief executive of NBC Universal Television Group.. Both approved the idea, he said. Another executive suggested that a disclaimer be placed before the Web-only version of the video that warned of its explicit content, a proposal that was immediately accepted.
Clearly, with Samberg, SNL has got a tremendous opportunity. And, the fact is, so does NBC. As NBC has been tackling the issue of what to do online, it would be good to think, well, out of the box.
After all, unlike other funny guys like Howard Stern or Tom Greene who push the envelope, when Samberg uses a profanity, it’s not the punch line. When he does something that is risque, it’s not the funniest part of the “big idea.” The same concept could have been an office setting where a colleague offers another colleague a “special treat in a box.” But instead, when challeneged by Michaels, Samberg and his two partners in crime Akiva Schaffer and Jorma Taccone really went all out: they wrote a 3 minute rap tune, borrowed from the “legends” of yesterday and crafted something to fit Timberlake’s strengths. Oh, did we mention, he was the host (he was really good, by the way).
So, here are 3 simple steps we recommend:
Step 1. Status Quo on SNL
SNL needs all the help it can get, so keep Samberg on NBC. And, TV is a $75B ad industry, online just $15B.
Step 2. Unleash the Trio Online
The fact remains that one time is timing, two times is luck, but the third time is brilliance. Take their twisted but brilliant minds, give them an online soapbox and trust me, we promise you you have a hit on your hands. Call it SNL Nights, SNL Uncensored, whatever you want. Or, simply sign the trio to an online development deal, independent on the SNL brand.
Point is: having to worry about the FCC is not the best environment to be creative. And their talents will be wasted on SNL because while an audience of 6.5M viewers is great, it could be so much more, especially when the word “dick” is tame by online standards but it makes the FCC cry foul (might not help that Tittiegate-involved Timberlake was involved, I guess).
Step 3. Clean up NBC.com
While you are at it, clean up NBC.com. The site can be easier to navigate. Here’s my initial post on how NBC can do that.
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December 21st, 2006 at 12:00 pm
[…] Like many people my age (don’t ask), I remember Saturday Night Live from way back — John Belushi, Dan Aykroyd, Gilda Radner, etc. — and slightly less way back (Dana Carvey, Mike Myers), and I have periodically enjoyed newer versions of the show including such “stars” as Adam Sandler, Chris Farley and Ben Stiller. But like Ashkan Karbasfrooshan at WatchMojo, I have probably paid more attention to the show in the past year or so than I have in a decade, and that is almost single-handedly the result of Andy Samberg (and Chris Parnell, who got booted from the show in a recent purge). […]