Wasn't That Special: 50 Years of SNL

2 weeks ago | wasntthatspecial.com | Christian Schneider

Season 45 of Saturday Night Live was one of the most unusual and pivotal in the show’s long history, defined by both the disruption of the COVID-19 pandemic and lingering creative stagnation. In this episode, we each described the season with medically themed words—“viral” and “infected”—capturing its literal interruption by the coronavirus and the metaphorical symptoms of deeper artistic problems. The pandemic played a defining role in this season, with production halting in March 2020.

1 month ago | wasntthatspecial.com | Christian Schneider

Current time: 0:00 / Total time: -24:22Audio playback is not supported on your browser. Please upgrade. Among the many complaints you always hear about Saturday Night Live these days is that the show is saturated with celebrity cameos. The actual cast members don’t get their chance to shine because the show is overstuffed with big names showing up to play the week’s newsmakers.

1 month ago | wasntthatspecial.com | Christian Schneider

Current time: 0:00 / Total time: -25:00Audio playback is not supported on your browser. Please upgrade. We have said it in prior seasons - sometimes, huge political and cultural shifts push Saturday Night Live to rise to the occasion. It happened with the Monica Lewinsky scandal in the late 1990s. It happened when Sarah Palin joined the Republican presidential ticket in 2008.

2 months ago | wasntthatspecial.com | Christian Schneider

As always, for those who have signed up for the podcast at the Executive Producer level, we send out notable video and newspaper clips that aided us in preparing for the episode. Below are some of the Saturday Night Live sketches and media clips we reference throughout the episode, to enhance the listening process.

2 months ago | wasntthatspecial.com | Christian Schneider

Current time: 0:00 / Total time: -24:48Audio playback is not supported on your browser. Please upgrade. Since its inception, Saturday Night Live has been political. But rarely has the show delved into politics more deeply than in Season 41, when President Barack Obama had one foot out of the door, Hillary Clinton was taking a presumptive victory lap, and a group of Republicans was battling to see who would challenge Clinton in 2016.