YOU CAN ONLY BE AVANT-GARDE FOR SO LONG BEFORE YOU BECOME GARDE: Kenan Thompson: ‘It might not be a bad idea’ for Saturday Night Live to end.
“There could be a lot of validity to that rumor, because 50 is a good number to stop at.” Thompson went on. “That’s an incredible package. [Lorne Michaels] will be, probably, close to 80 years old at that point, and you know, he’s the one who’s had his touch on the whole thing.”
The “Kenan and Ken” star continued: “So, if somebody tries to come into his shoes, you know it’s a good opportunity for NBC to save money as well, you know what I’m saying?”
“[NBC] might slash the budget and then at that point, you can’t really do the same kind of show. So that’s unfair to watch it just really go down kind of in flames for real because of those restrictions…. so capping it a 50 might not be a bad idea,” he said.
Flashback to 2015: Report: Hillary Clinton ‘Negotiated Limits’ With NBC News to Avoid ‘Vicious Humor’ On ‘SNL.’
Contrast SNL producer-creator Lorne Michael’s kid glove treatment of Hillary with how Gerald Ford’s press secretary Ron Nessen was demolished when he stupidly volunteered to host the show in its first season. Michaels’ then-wife (and a writer on the show) admitted afterwards, the goal of the show’s writers was “The President’s watching. Let’s make him cringe and squirm” — and he certainly did.
A big difference though: despite many of them being Democrats, NBC’s elite old guard upper management were genuinely shocked by the tone of Michael’s then-new show; for that same reason, Johnny Carson would have little to do with them, despite sharing virtually all of their politics.
These days, Lorne Michaels, as the producer of both SNL and the Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon is NBC’s upper management, and the tone he instilled via SNL is the tone of NBC-MSNBC-Comcast.
But then, as original Saturday Night Live writer Anne Beatts liked to quip, “you can only be avant-garde for so long, before you become garde.” Or palace guard, in the case of Michaels, who last year was accused by one of his writers of giving Mr. Obama veto power over SNL jokes. Wouldn’t want the president cringing and squirming or anything.