Tag: Saturday Night Live

Lorne Michaels Plans On Retiring In 2025: Who’s Likely To Succeed Him?


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Lorne Michaels gave an interview recently where he said 50-ish years at SNL was enough. The show first aired in 1975, so it’s reasonable to assume he’s going to retire in 2025. (He DID step away from the show for a few years in the 80s, so I guess he has some wiggle room if he wants to hang on longer.)

So, who is going to replace him? I keep writing about this because I love SNL and Michaels is such a specific-type person that it’s difficult to imagine anyone doing the show in the same way he has over the decades. But, here goes. I’m going to try to be a bit more detailed in this post than I have in my previous half-assed posts on this subject.

Tina Fey
Fey seems like the tough-as-nails broad who could keep the post-Michaels SNL humming along as if nothing had happened. And, yet, should would probably be a transitional figure. She has a Hollywood career and running SNL would be a career topper for her. She knows the show inside and out and, despite a weird tone deafness sometimes on race, her comic sensibilities are pitch-perfect for modern America.

Amy Poehler
She’s another bad ass bitch who would strike fear into the hearts of the young comics who are the heart-and-soul of the show. She did well working with Broad City and, as such, is probably a pretty good manager.

Seth Meyers
He’s young and knows SNL really well, so he might see running SNL as a real step up from languishing in late night TV. I mean, it’s not like he’s going to take over the Tonight Show — Jimmy Fallon has that gig wrapped up until the sun goes dark. Meyers seems like the “cool dad” who could step in to SNL longer term and remake it into something more modern.

Kenan Thompson
He’s perfect to take over running the show but for one thing: he just seems too nice. He would be a perfect person to replace Michaels in those skits where he hams it up, but I find it difficult to imagine Thompson being able to herd the cats of SNL each week. But he definitely knows the show, having been there 20 years. So, I dunno?

Wildcard: Lin Manuel Miranda
Usually, when TV execs find themselves in the position of replacing a legendary figure like Lorne Michaels, they do something really weird that makes no sense. So, it’s easy to imagine someone young and talented like Miranda being tapped to replace Michaels. I think he would do a great job, but he does have a burgeoning Hollywood career, so, who knows.

Wildcard: Phoebe Waller-Bridge
But for her being British and having a huge Hollywood career ahead of her, I would say Waller-Bridge would be the perfect person to run SNL because she’s young, hip and could really take the show to the next level. But, I think this suggestion has more to do with me stanning her than any real possibility of it happening.

Wildcard: Someone We Don’t Know Who Knows The Show
Since SNL has been on for 50 years, there are probably many, many people who could take over for Michaels and the show would continue on as if he never left. It’s just they’re not name-brand people, they’re behind the scenes types who just have worked there long enough — and are strong enough managers — that they could take over without anything really changing.

Identity Politics — Lorne Michaels & SNL As The Taylor Swift Of American Comedy


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Upon the news that Lorne Michaels will be feted as part of upcoming Kennedy Center Honors festivities, I saw someone complain on Twitter about how Lorne Michaels hasn’t promoted enough POC comics over the years.

That’s a fair point, and, yet, it also misses a crucial aspect of what’s going on: that’s not SNL’s function. SNL is not meant to be The Chappelle Show. It’s not meant to be edgy or challenging or go way out of its way to introduce mainstream audiences to unknown POC comics. Though the show has begun to promote non-white comics more of late which is good, SNL is meant to be the exact center of American comedy.

In this respect, SNL is similar to Taylor Swift. Tay-Tay serves a function. And that function is to be the exact center of American pop music. If you want songs about WAP, turn your ears elsewhere.

So, in a sense, woke complaints about Lorene Michaels and SNL are more attacks on the idea of any sort of “mainstream” at all. There’s nothing wrong with simply being mainstream. There are so many other off beat, edgy venues for people to enjoy non-mainstream content that it’s annoying when people attack something for being mainstream for simply being mainstream.

Ugh.

It’s this type of thinking that aggravates the culture wars and makes MAGA New Right cocksuckers want to burn the whole thing to the ground. Welcome to the New Right, as Jesse Kelly keeps say. (Double ugh.)

There are no easy answers to any of this. We’re careening towards a moment in time when either we have a MAGA autocracy and everything goes to shit, or we have a civil war and there’s some sort of culture “reset” where we all agree that having a “mainstream” this or that thing is fine. (Because once such a horrific civil war is over, people are going to cling to the traditional again — at least, that’s my thinking.)

Good luck.

Of #SNL & The Novel I’m Developing & #Writing



by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

A re-occurring theme in this novel I’m working on is how much I want people to really love a place. I want particular place in the setting of the novel to be almost a character unto itself. I’m fascinated by how people love the office politics and history of Saturday Night Live and struggle to figure out how to use that dynamic in the novel.

It’s really interesting that people enjoy hearing old behind the scenes stories from SNL that sometimes that’s Jimmy Fallon’s entire show. I’m still only on my first draft, so there’s a lot of nuance that I’ve yet to figure out how to impart into the novel’s text.

But in general, I want several main characters to have an emotional attachment to a place so when something happens to it, the audience knows it’s a big deal. Being able to actually show that on the page is a lot — a lot — of work. I’ve discovered the hard way that my imagination and my ability to lay what I can think up on the page are two different things. It’s been a two year struggle to get to this point.

Anyway, I’m going to have to give this a lot of thought to evoke the emotional attachment I need.

#CoronaVirus Scenario: Two Weeks’ Notice — ‘Saturday Night Dead’

Shelton Bumgarner

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

This is just a back-of-the-envelope scenario. Could go a lot of different ways.

Friday, February 28th
Iceland reports a massive COVID19 outbreak that effectively brings the country to a standstill within 24 hours.

Saturday, Feb 29th
The Democratic Primary in South Carolina occurs. No Mayor Pete.

During a Saturday Night Live, popular Not Ready For Prime Time Player Pete Davidson passes out in the middle of skit and begins to writhe uncontrollably on the ground.

This is a media explosion and it becomes apparent that COVID19 has, at last, struck the United States in broad daylight after weeks of a “shadow pandemic.” But the only information we get on the subject from the Trump Administration is a pained expression from Mike Pence. Larry Kudlow appears on Fox News that same night and waves the event off, saying Davidson was probably drunk.

Sunday, March 1st
We learn that Mayor Pete doesn’t just have “a cold” but has COVID19 and will be out of the race for some time. This is the talk of all the Sunday shows. We learn that Davidson is in critical condition with COVID19. Pressure builds on the Trump Administration to be more transparent and pro-active but they ignore this because, lulz, Davidson for his BDE, is a liberal and fuck that guy.

That afternoon, we begin to hear reports that a number of well-known elderly celebrates have died in quick success after a “brief illness.” There are reports of panic buying here and there across the country. There are also isolated reports that hospitals are growing overwhelmed with people with “the flu.”

March 2 — March 6th
Each day, things grow worst for the States. Even the Trump Administration can’t message the base about how bad things are by the end of the week. The number of elderly people reported dead, rich, poor, power and powerless, grows larger and larger by the day. By the end of the work week, the economy collapses because not only are too many people sick, but parents are afraid to let their children leave the house.

March 7 – March 13
Things by this point may go one of two ways. Either there is a continuation of government issue or Trump finally completely fucking loses his mind and starts ordering the Air Force to shoot passenger planes out of the sky.

I dunno. This is just a scenario. And no one can predict the future. But people are getting sick in the States and we’ve only tested 500 people out of 335 million.





Novel Status Update: The Influence of SNL & Pitchfork On My Political Guilty Pleasure For Woke Park Slope Moms

Shelton Bumgarner

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

Today’s big concept is something very obvious and simple: “plot” is a verb. This has been a major problem of mine since I starting developing, then writing, the developing again, this novel. In the past, I’ve thought up scenes that were static. They presented information, but had zero action or connection to other scenes.

Now, as I have repeatedly said in the past, I have no friends and no one likes me. I didn’t have a wife or a girlfriend to point out some massive problems with the universe I’d thought up and so I’ve repeatedly wasted months of my time by not seeing the obvious, only to abruptly have to re-calibrate the entire novel. I am functioning in a complete vacuum, with only seeing the occasional movie being any outside source to help me with this obsession.

But things are slowly beginning to bounce back. I have vowed to myself not to start writing again until I have some semblance of a complete scene summary that I can use as a guide to write the next draft of the novel. There’s a lot — a whole lot — going on with this novel right now. While it has a lot of layers (if you know me well enough and know how I think) it also has ZERO literary aspirations.

I’m graze-reading an essential book — at least for me — on scene and structure that I need to snort if this novel is to be any semblance of a success. Knowing how to develop both a scene and the plot that it would be a part of is crucial.

Having said all that, two things are really beginning to influence this novel, which I jokingly within my mind call a “political guilty pleasure for woke Park Slope moms.” This is not at all a real description, for no other reason than my background, personality and political views are maybe not Ken Bone bad, but they at least don’t easily fit the narrative that Blue Check Liberals are so fond of on Twitter. In fact, on an emotional level, this novel is essentially me running around naked to see if anyone notices what’s going on.

Two things are really at the forefront of my mind as I struggle to finish a second draft scene summary as quickly as possible so I can get back to writing — SNL and Pitchfork. SNL is important because it’s an organization that has a storied history and legacy that people love, love, love to hear about. I’ve only encountered one place in my life that was as intense about something creative that a team did together — in a sense — and so I’m leaning into that as the heart of this novel. It’s the thing that connects the whole universe together, at least from my point of view as the “prime mover.” It has to do with music, so maybe that might catch someone’s eye at some point when such attention is needed.

Meanwhile, I’m also interested in using the music Website Pitchfork as a cheat sheet for the musical aspect of this novel’s plot. I haven’t done it yet, but given what’s going on in the novel and when it’s set, it would make sense if I started to study Pitchfork to get some sense of what people who read it would think is “good” modern music. If I don’t do that, I really risk being bit too conspicuous about what I’m REALLY doing with this novel and that might be off putting. If I can hide behind updating the musical reference, that might help a lot.

Again, I have no idea what I’m doing. I’m operating in a complete vacuum. This novel’s problems are MY problems. It’s just I’ve gotten better as a storyteller and so I’m growing a little bit more confident that at a minimum I won’t embarrass myself. The great irony is I do have a few very, very, very tenious connections to showbiz…but none of these people take my seriously and think of me as just a dreamer loser. So if I have any type of success with this novel, these people might have a few eyepopping surprises down the road.

I’m being really delusional on that one as of right now, though.

It could be that at the end of this process I still suck and I have to self publish. At least I will have gone through the entire process and can say I’ve written a “real” novel on my own terms.

Maybe I’ll write a screenplay next if that happens.

The Female Persuasion — SNL, Feminism & The Novel I’m Developing

Shelton Bumgarner

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

I am — by nature — a generalist. I know a little bit about a wide spectrum of things. So, I am often fascinated by people who know a lot about one thing. I also find the passion that things like Saturday Night Live can generate very intriguing. There’s only been one time in my life when I felt that much passion for a group of people and that was in Seoul. With that in mind, I’m at least trying to lean into that experience as the cornerstone of the novel I’m developing.

It’s a prime example of “write what you know” in action. But there’s a fine balance between writing about a fictionalized version of a place that you love and writing a lot of verbiage that many people in your potential readership will find tedious, at best. But I think if I really go into what makes the place special and how it has come to change the lives of the people connected to it and the community around it, then I think potential readers will enjoy it once they get into it.

One thing I have to really think about it establishing that such a place actually believable exists in the first place where I am determined to put in in my universe. My hope is that if I write about the place with a lot of obvious love that that will come across on the page and people will get into it. Or, put another way, I don’t care. This novel is for me and fuck you you don’t like it. Wink.

The universe I’ve created is very detailed and well thought out. Extremely so. Like, we’re talking Star Wars levels of backstory on the interaction between characters. But that comes more from how personal the story is than anything else. In a way, the plot of this novel is me running around emotionally naked. That is, of course, if you understand the inspiration for the people and places I’m writing about.

One fun part of all of this is having a vast amount of information that I have to explain to the reader in a simple, cogent fashion that makes the premise of the novel believable, even though, in a sense, it follows some of the conventions of science fiction. You might call the novel a “political science fiction novel.” I have referred to it as a “political fairy tale guilty pleasure for woke Park Slope moms” in the past. But I’m not a woman and don’t pretend to know anything more about women than any other man. I’m not an “ally,” but I am good-natured and empathetic. I try not to get too wrapped up in how you might suggest I have a vested interest in the patriarchy given that I am a member of it. Meh. I generally believe the more agency and happiness women have on a personal level the better off society is. If that makes me some sort of feminist “ally,” so be it. But that doesn’t mean I don’t like T&A and won’t try to chat a woman up with sex on my mind if she’s hot.

I have numerous political views that don’t fit the narrative advocated by Blue Check Liberals on Twitter. Fuck that and fuck them. I’m my own person and I know what I believe. But I am generally compassionate and empathetic — or at least try to be.

You can’t please everyone.

‘Saturday Night Love’ — #Lyrics To A Pop Song In Honor Of Pete Davidson & Ariana Grande

This is completely ridiculous and will never be produced, but it was a fun little challenge.

Saturday Night Love
lyrics by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls
please give credit if you produce or perform

he was working at SNL
met girl that did him well
she had a voice like angel you could tell
things went great
two weeks after their first date
they were engaged

people were surprised at the news
didn’t expect it to happen so soon
but they decided to wish them well

love is fast as can be you feel it
it’s a whirlwind wedding
so say with me what we got here, it’s
Saturday night love
Saturday night love
Saturday night love

others note they can’t get a text back
but Ariana Grande snagged a man
in two weeks flat
just when you think things are doomed
love shows its head
it’s best not to dwell on it all
everything is going to work out swell

people are left scratching their heads
wondering what it all means
but there’s no deeper meaning
love conquers all if you just have the gall
at least that’s the writing on the wall

people were surprised at the news
didn’t expect it to happen so soon
but they decided to wish them well

love is fast as can be you feel it
it’s a whorl wind wedding
so say with me what we got here, it’s
Saturday night love
Saturday night love
Saturday night love

[bridge]
who knows if they’ll succeed
before you know it we’ll be talking babies
the people will be cooing
thinking of the family that’s brewing

Lorne Michaels will officiate
bless the the two crazy kids
as they fly away to Ibiza
to dwell in their love
don’t worry it’ll end up well

people were surprised at the news
didn’t expect it to happen so soon
but they decided to wish them well

love is fast as can be you feel it
it’s a whorl wind wedding
so say with me what we got here, it’s
Saturday night love
Saturday night love
Saturday night love