Years ago, I remember staying up late to watch Saturday Night Live. Dan Aykroyd, Chevy Chase, John Belushi, Gilda Radner. Jane Curtin, Laraine Newman, and Garrett Morris. It was funny. It was cutting edge. It was great.

After 1980 or so, I pretty much stopped watching it. Other interests, playing on my Apple II and Z-80 CP/M systems, tinkering on the car, etc. Every so often I’d catch an episode and think “It’s just not what it used to be…”

So this weekend, Sarah Palin and Tina Fey were on. I thought I’d give it a watch, since I’d seen one of the Tina Fey segments in a YouTube video, and Sarah is pretty hot. So I tore myself away from an ARM7-based embedded Ethernet project I’ve been working on, and plunked down in front of the tube at 23:30.

The opening segment was funny. The next half hour, of which 15 minutes was commercials, absolutely sucked. Not just bad, but BAD. Stupid bad. So bad, I let TiVo finish recording it, and wandered off to bed, hoping that it will look better in the morning.

Sunday evening I decided to watch the rest, or at least fast forward through it. More total suckage. More commercials. Even MORE commercials. And then there were some more commercials. Oh wait, here’s some more SNL. The ‘Weekend Update’ (still running, after Dog knows how many years) was mildly amusing. Not much Sarah action in it, and I despise rap “music”, but it was cute.

And the more commercials. A 3 minute SNL segment, surrounded by 10 minutes of commercials.

Then I realized SNL was simply so bad that they had to run lots of commercials, because the commercials were more entertaining than the show! In fact, two of the commercials actually made me laugh. Unlike the idiotic “MacGruber” sketches. Of which I had to suffer/fast-forward through three. Insanely stupid, and I swear I saw the same ones 3 years ago by accident.

And some crap of businessmen sitting around the table calling each other ‘Fart Face’ or something. After 30 seconds of that, I fast-forwarded to the next segment, er, I mean, commercial break.

The rest of the show is seriously unmemorable. I’d rather have a migraine than sit through and hour and a half of this garbage. Why is it even still on the air?

I understand that SNL experienced it’s best ratings in 14 years. *14* years. The last best rating was in 1994. That was so long ago, I can’t even remember what happened in 1994. Wikipedia says Burt Lancaster died in 1994. Maybe that’s why there’s been no better ratings since then…

I doubt Lorne Michaels will ever read this. I’m sure he gets plenty of hate mail and doesn’t have time to read blogs. I can only assume that having been in the television industry as long as he has, the “this is funny” judgment brain cells have died. Because if he had functional brain cells, he’d realize the crap he’s allowing to be produced under the title “Saturday Night Live” is complete disrespect to the comedic geniuses that built the show.

Lorne, cancel SNL now. No one will miss it. In fact, consider broadcasting a test pattern. It’s funnier, and far less annoying. Or run more commercials (preferably ones with kittens and puppies, people like those). Or run the old shows. But get these no talent-hacks off the air and back to the Wal-Mart cashier positions you stole them from.

After the agony of watching this episode of SNL, be assured I won’t be watching any more. I’ll stick to sitting in the front of the PC with my dog at my feet, swilling Diet Coke.