Saturday Night Live’s detractors have a petty, pointless case

Saturday Night Live is all but its own category among scripted entertainment programs. It is not a 30-minute sitcom or an hour-long drama, which each have a rigid set of main cast members and characters. It is not like a soap opera, which may run for decades and maintain a revolving door of personnel, but sustains a continuous storyline.

It is not even the same sort of sketch series that Comedy Central produces with titular creators, stars and centerpieces (e.g. Inside Amy Schumer, Key & Peele). Nor does it, alongside the British classic Monty Python’s Flying Circus, constitute mere apples of a slightly different color or cultivar.

Unlike the rest of those programs, SNL is an institution whose DNA is conducive to a run of 42 seasons and counting. Establishing that distinction is a crucial first step toward alleviating undue the attacks on the brand’s longevity.

You know those attacks (and if you generate them, this read is just for you). They are the ones that appear in virtually every comment thread on a given news story, social media post or video clip pertaining to the show.

That is where disgruntled fans or veteran contrarians snort, “This show hasn’t been funny since Chevy Chase/Gilda Radner/Bill Murray/Eddie Murphy/Dana Carvey/Chris Farley/Will Ferrell/Amy Poehler/Bill Hader left.”

Granted, no one can force anybody else to alter their taste in comedy. Nobody can be made to find a comedic actor or team of comedic actors worth watching.

But why do these irascible Internet imps then feel the need to scream for the series’ cancellation? How is anyone that riled by the fact that the same franchise continues to occupy an NBC time slot that constitutes conventional East Coast sleeping hours at the halfway mark of the weekend?

Heck, Monday Night Football has been running for five years longer, yet hardly anyone is calling for its demise due to the irrecoverable exit of legendary on-air or on-field talent. Why should Lorne Michaels’ brainchild be any different?

Indeed, SNL is more comparable to a sports entity or an entire television network than it is any other individual scripted program. The brand and the quality of the product it holds have no natural expiration date, especially since the latter is an entirely subjective matter.

A lasting sports franchise will fare better in the standings, in the postseason and at the gate at some points in its existence than it will in others. Likewise, a lasting sketch show will perform better at the Emmys and the Golden Globes in one year or era than another. Ditto any collective network.

A time-honored major sports league will enjoy peaks and valleys of popularity in individual markets and around the country as a whole. The fortunes of that league will fluctuate with those of their national TV abodes. In the same vein, SNL has, and will continue to be, considered more hip in some stretches than in others.

But when was the last time an estranged NHL fan took to an online forum and vented “This league stopped being great when the high-scoring Oilers and Islanders stopped winning Stanley Cups and everyone started playing defense like the Devils! The NHL SHOULD FOLD!”?

Maybe more to the point, when was the last time anyone posted a message to that effect and garnered substantial assent rather than ridicule?

You could just as easily look at the evidence of baseball’s receding popularity among younger demographics. Just like SNL, Major League Baseball is in no immediate danger of losing substantial quantities of fanfare. But it does have its share of one-time or would-be supporters who are not seeing its appeal the way they would have in a previous era.

Again, though, no one can expect to be taken seriously if they lash out and call for the sport to cease operations. Odds are one would not even get far in an attempt to establish a competing body, hoping that enough people are somehow tired of MLB but would find a sustained taste for top-notch baseball under another governing heading.

The other three major sports have already seen that premise fail with the World Hockey Association, United States Football League and American Basketball Association. And the SNL form of organized American sketch comedy had its own short-lived barnacle in the form of Mad TV.

To its credit, Mad TV (which is now attempting a reboot on the more obscure CW network) lasted 14 years on FOX, whereas the ABA, WHA and USFL all failed to break the decade plateau. Then again, the same 14 seasons (1995-96 to 2008-09) also constituted Darrell Hammond’s time on the SNL cast. And if he chooses to return this coming autumn, Kenan Thompson will break that record.

In that respect, one could argue that some cast members hang around too long and hurt the show that way. But one could say the same about some pro athletes and some other forms of TV shows that have a finite storyline.

Like it or not, SNL is tried, true and tough. Its studios, like so many stadiums and arenas in pro sports, remain a coveted location where the field’s most promising aspirants look to prove themselves by living up to their legendary predecessors.

The Russell Gettises of the world may insist with uncompromising intensity that LeBron James will never reach Michael Jordan’s level of greatness. But this author doubts they are boycotting the NBA altogether, let alone refusing to live and let live so that the Shawns can enjoy the present in peace.

Why, then, should anyone waste their time and energy bitterly interrupting the soon-to-come discussion as to who the next Kate McKinnon will be?

For your own sake, cool it. For something this inconsequential, pretending it does not exist ought to assuage you just as much as it if ceased to exist for real.

Just choose another one of the countless available means to entertain yourself from 11:30 on Saturday night through the first hour of Sunday morning. Or, if all else fails, try to get some shuteye. Looks like you could benefit from a little more of that.