Trump Made SNL Relevant Again

I’ve actually started watching Saturday Night Live again. That’s a statement I didn’t think I’d say ever again.

Thanks to the very timely death of the Jon Stewart’s Daily Show and Steven Colbert being bought out to move to his desperately unfunny standard late night show and several lame imitations (Samantha Bee, namely) there is a huge gap for politically orientated comedy shows. Now of course we have John Oliver’s Last Week Tonight which is a blessing – but honestly it’s already come to be a news program that is funny – not a comedy show that talks about politics. As a journalist that works on long form investigative work – I’d name Last Week Tonight as one of the most important news programs on today. Which is both a statement on the state of TV news and a compliment to the researchers on the show.

But back to SNL. In a year that live feed video of Trump rallies and the GOP debates act as their own humor many of the regular comedy programs have been struggling to figure out how to mock them. Most have failed.  Maybe it’s the format, or maybe it’s the new staff of players and writers but SNL has somehow found a way to be funny again. First it was with Larry David’s fantastic spot on Bernie Sanders that found a way to make fun – but not mock the outsider Senator. Same goes with Kate McKinnon stressed out Hillary Clinton. The addition of a non SNL actor in Alec Baldwin as Trump was the perfect addition.

But what do you think? In a year like this – we all need the extra laughs.

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