TV Special: Lazy Sunday and SNL

Now let me just say this: SNL has sucked, badly, for years. It's sad when the funniest moments of the last few years have quite possibly been provided by a guest-hosting Ben Affleck. Now, let's face it, the Will Ferell - Jimmy Fallon - Molly Shannon Era had its moments. Celeb Jeopardy, for one. But it also had lots of clunkers. So my ruling is that the conventional wisdom is wrong. No, old-school SNL eras are not always merely looked upon nostalgically. The fact is, some eras were great, some were okay, and some flat out blew. Two eras in my opinion were great. The original era with the original cast, and the 90's renaissance with Mike Myers, Dana Carvey, Phil Hartman, Sandler, Spade, Farley, Kevin Nealon, and, eventually, Norm McDonald (greatest Weekend Update Host ever). I would call the Will Ferrell / Darell Hammond in his prime (As Clinton, Al Gore, etc), very good to good, though it wwent increasingly downhill after the 2000 presidential election, and once the show became the Horatio Sanz / Jimmy Fallon "we're funny because we laugh at our own jokes" hour, things were pretty bleak. Now, the show is mostly unwatchable. Sure, some of the performers are good, but the writing is 95% crap, with even the once-reliable political satire reduced to boring drivel, and a lame lame lame weekend update team that is simply not right for the job. That being said ...

Here's to "Lazy Sunday," easily the funniest, most memorable SNL sketch of the post Will Ferell era, and probably the singular most standout sketch since the instant-classic Cowbell sketch from a few years back. And I know, what I'm saying is nothing new, as this faux rap music video has now been all over the 'net and everyone's seen it. But I guess you'll just have to take my word that immediately after seeing this sketch last Saturday, I proclaimed it to be hilarious and the best thing SNL's done in a while. Hey, I recognize trends as they happen - I ain't no bandwagoner (I am still proud of the fact that I saw Napoleon Dynamite on its opening weekend).

So yeah, Lazy Sunday, basically a mixture of a Run DMC / Beastie Boys style rap track with lyrics that mock the middle class white-boy lifestyle, is hilarious. It was just a great satire and hilariously absurd. Is it as classic as Cowbell? Too early to say, but probably not, as Cowbell is just transcendently, timelessly funny. But hey, kudos to SNL. That's one small step back to relevance ... (and no, being talked about for an Ashley Simpson screw up doesn't count).