SNL 40th Anniversary Special

I dunno...her "Colonel Angus" sketch was up for a Peabody!

 

If the purpose of the list is to rate the performance of cast members, it doesn't make sense to give Tina a high place on the list based on her work as a writer. Evaluated solely as a cast member she was at best a bit above average. She presided over a very good Weekend Update, but she rarely did anything else as a performer. Overall, I'd say she deserves to be rated around the same level as Dennis Miller. Her Palin impression technically shouldn't count, as she was not a cast member when she did that.

The list is of course relentlessly subjective. I agree that the writer has significantly several overrated cast members from the past decade... I mean, Bill Hader at #13? Wow. I guess that shouldn't surprise me though... anyone who doesn't appreciate Norm McDonald obviously has a sense of humor that's quite different than mine, and is someone whose opinions about humor are absolutely worthless to me.

 

Curious if you feel Seth Meyers did better

 

During Fey's time at SNL the show was criticized week after week for how bad it was. She has always been one of Lorne Michaels' favourites, but I never understood how during her tenure there, especially as head writer, she was praised while the show and its poor writing was criticized. I think she found her calling as the show-runner of a sit-com.



Back in a couple of 2008 threads I wrote something similar:

Squealy: It does kind of amaze me that Tina Fey got off scot-free for supervising SNL's generally terrible writing for so long.

Jack White: I've posted that exact sentiment several times in different threads here on the Forum. Her talent seems to have bloomed though on "30 Rock".

*******

Dragun: I love 30 Rock and I always enjoyed Tina Fey's appearances on shows like LN with Conan O'Brien. But I never cared for the show [SNL] while she was head writer. Not sure if it was her fault, since Fey is clearly talented.

Jack White: Quite frankly I was surprised I like "30 Rock" as much as I do - and that's a lot - since I was always of the opinion that the writing on SNL while she was there ranged from mediocre to absolutely horrible. And Fey was the head-writer for several years, but always seemed to escape any accountibility for the wretched quality of the show. (IMDB gives Fey a writing or co-writing credit for almost all of the episodes of "30 Rock", which I would grade from very good to excellent as the norm.) Her acting on "30 Rock" is also a great improvement over her performances while part of the SNL cast.

 

SNL has always been, and always will be, often pretty terrible.

 

Inconsistency is pretty much built into SNL it seems. The show was no better under Seth Meyers and certainly not under Colin Jost. Tina's big contribution in retrospect was making the show more woman-friendly, offstage and on.

 

Bill absolutely belongs in the top 20 in my opinion. Certainly he's one of the top two or three people of the past 15 years.

 

Maybe I'm just assuming Tina's writing was better when I see the clips wth the great women in the cast at that time Maya, Amy etc. I wasn't really watching the show then so I just have seen highlights.

 

I remember the first time I saw Dennis Miller... it was prior to his tenure on SNL.

He was on David Letterman - and it might have been his first appearance on national TV.

I think it was the night Phil Collins (and/or Eric Clapton?) sat in with the Paul Shaffer band... I think that happened just prior to Live Aid... so this was approximately June of 1985. I know Clapton played "White Room" at the request of Paul Shaffer, but now I'm starting to wonder if both Phil and Clapton sat in with the band on the same night.

I taped that night with my dad's VHS recorder. I watched Miller's performance repeatedly - when I watched the tape to catch the musical segments (which were just commercial intro/outro instrumentals).


Anyway - I thought Miller killed that evening...

I remember laughing at his comment about how he refuses to travel on trains, because "he doesn't trust a form of public transit, where the general public is given access to the brakes... call me crazy, but I don't want to feel like what it goes from 70 to zero because Gus thought he saw a wood chuck..."

That was the funniest thing I ever heard come out of Miller's mouth... he never matched it on SNL - and he was absolutely horrible on Monday Night Football... I thought a comic would have done well on a sports broadcast, but he never had anything funny to say - and he seemed to spend most of his energy trying to work a large word into the conversation.

 

Dennis Miller's Weekend Update was very good, the best it had been since Lorne Michaels had left in 1980. Much of the credit for that goes to writer Herb Sargent (who returned with Michaels in 1985) but Miller did create a funny persona and had a fine delivery. I'd say his Update was among the top three the show has ever had. The problem with Miller now is not that his politics have changed, but that he's decided to place partisanship ahead of humor when he writes his material... he's a pundit first and being funny seems to be a distant second. And it's never a good idea for a topical comedian to declare 50% of the political spectrum to be "off limits."

 

I agree with this - I saw Miller doing standup in '95 or so in Las Vegas, and he killed it. He was his typical topical self, but not overtly political. He skewered everyone and everything then.

 

Here is that exact performance. Note at the end when Dave thanks Phil (Collins) for sitting in with the band:

 

I think it's one of the best eras. Tina has a great comedy mind. Her book, Bossy Pants is hysterical & is still a best seller years later.
As important female writers go - I put her up there with Dorothy Parker.

 

Really? I'd consider it one of SNL's true golden ages. Her post-SNL work has been strong IMHO too. I get that people don't like her because comedy is so subjective, but the outright dismissal of her accomplishments is just ridiculous.

dan c

 

I do like her and I didn't dismiss her accomplishements. I like Mean Girls, 30 Rock and her new show, but I just didn't think SNL was good when she was the head writer.

 

Read all of these posts and I am amazed! I thought they did a great job... so many eras to represent, so many different musical styles, so many different current events that colored the humor... very hard to do! So loved the bass-o-matic... again... loved it the first time and if I could have chosen anything to reinact it would have been that! Sir Paul is Sir Paul... his voice is as it is... it has character and if it was Loren's favorite song, then that is why he chose it. And I agree with the long applause for Guilda... gone too soon, and not of her own hand. Of course I missed those who did not / could not be there... I was hoping for Don Novello ... buy you can't have everything. Yes... everyone was older.... duh! We are too!