“Saturday Night Live” has had a difficult time finding humor in the last couple of years because they, like other late-night comedy shows, have a tendency to forget the funny and are instead conforming to the liberal narrative of politics.
In the opening of their 48th season on Thursday night, SNL host Top Gun: Maverick star Miles Teller warned of the show's tendency to be liberal while playing the character of Peyton Manning talking with his brother Eli (played by Andrew Dismukes).
Teller stated that they'd watch the first sketch in the new season in order to see what the writers and cast have spent all “entire summer coming up with.”
“Oh it's a good Trump sketch. It's a great way to play with it,” Teller said sarcastically as the cast members performed an action scene that was staged at Mar-a-Lago.
“I gotta mention, where's the balance politically?” Teller was reportedly a bit agitated in an NFL critique following a member of the cast making an impromptu joke about Columbus. “They're making Trump-Columbus jokes, meanwhile Biden's lost his damn marbles.”
They also noted that the show was losing people who could make impressions similar to McKinnon and how what they did was not amusing.
They also discussed McKinnon's departure from the impressionist world at the moment that Teller suggested that the sketch be greater “fun” with impressions like Anthony Fauci, Rudy Giuliani, and Lindsey Graham – all of which were played by McKinnon.
The two then analyzed the sketch's “stats,” noting that out of 14 jokes, there was “one mild laugh and two chuckles.”
“Thank God they've got [musical guest] Kendrick Lamar because that's the only reason anyone is tuning in.”
Fellow Top Gun star Jon Hamm made a surprise appearance, saying “I don't know, but it's not a comedy” when asked by Teller to provide his view of what he had seen during the show.
Naturally, Teller was right on the right track. They're still discussing Trump in the midst of “Biden has lost his damn marbles.” What are your opinions on this? Biden and Harris are walking comedy sketches. There was Biden talking about dead folks this week and you could have done a sort of “Sixth Sense” bit. Is his wife knocking him off stage? Kamala Harris said that we were in a solid partnership with North Korea. Where is the hilarity on this matter? What do you do to let it pass? When you have Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, they're an example of a material for comedy, but it's usually left to the stage in the case of SNL.
It's a good sign about the way in which Teller was prepared to let SNL admit to their biases. While it's true that they were able to recognize the problem, the entire episode wasn’t particularly entertaining. What was the part about Biden getting his marbles thrown away? This would have been a truthful way to follow up.
