Saturday Night Live Needs An Extreme Makeover

As a boomer who remembers the New York based "Saturday Night Live" from the beginning and watched the very first show, it has amazed me on the very, very few times I have tuned in since those first few seasons the "changes" which have occurred.

Known for its outrageous skits and occasional timely political commentary, it has taken a rather dark turn it appears as of late, and not in a good way.

Always, always liberal in its political focuses, that liberalism also has become simply irrelevance at this point in America's history, and its formerly "gross" humor not even very funny to a large segement of the population, it seems.

And some of the musical entertainment clearly even more far out and just as wacky and politically off the wall for any residing apparently outside New York (or L.A., its sister city).

Cases in point in just the few that I have watched for partial programs the last year (and this IS a show that starts at 10:30 or 11:30 in most of the country, but appears directed more so at a "youth" and younger audience with each decade who mostly are at home up late during the weekend - since as those young comics age also they routinely disappear into either spin offs of their characters in movies or eventual oblivion):

1. A skit in which Tina Fey as a teacher fantasizes over a pre-teenish "student" Justin Bieber(?), a Canadian pop star being marketed in the U.S. to pre-teen girls as "wholesome entertainment."

2. A skit in which a "loving family" mouth kissed mere strangers and extended family members (and their pets) to demonstrate their love for one another at the funeral of a relative, in which one of the family members licked and mouth kissed eventually the deceased laying in a coffin.

3. An entire segment on the Weekend Update segment this past week with Amy Poehler and Seth Myers addressing the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policies of gay men and women in the military in the name of "equality." I wouldn't hesitate to guess that the comics and writers on the program support unlimited abortion rights for women under the guise of "privacy," but believe that the "privacy" of gay individuals now serving in the military doesn't also come under those same Constitutional provisions of such a personal and private issue as an individual's sexual preferences?

I mean, just how many in the military who are gay truly want "big brother" to have such intimate and personal information documented in their enlistment papers on government databases?

The rest of the segment was dominated by the blind Governor of New York, inside jokes on the New Yorker-Jerseyite relationship, and the Governor's past term of office and irrelevance at this point in time during the upcoming elections, and his disability with the Governor, of course, then making an appearance alongside the "imposter." None of which I'm sure the other 49 (48 outside Jersey) states would have any interest in as "inside jokes."

4. And also on this particular program, a pop tart star ala another Madonna dressed to Bob Mackie rhinestone excess in glittery teenage cheerleader style mini-dress with backup football players singing a song devoted to having a back seat teenage sex session and while singing the chorus then rubbing her legs suggestively promoting her "skin tight jeans?"

I mean the Bees and Blues Brothers have a place in the history and television archives for this 70's ground breaking comedy, but I just wonder what new drug they are smoking during those writing sessions?

The only segment that appeared even remotely funny was the impersonator of Will Smith ala Eddie Murphy.

Maybe "Home Improvement" needs to do an extreme makeover," from the ground up with new writers. Or better still...

"Live from (take your pick outside New York) it's Saturday Night!" just might clue them in as to what is politically relevant and comic, and just what is just so, so New York, and not "out there" but "in there" in truly messed up New York Gomorrah-land.

Definitely not for that ever-growing Tea Party crowd, or former Republicans and Democrats who are now independent of any political party affiliation.

Those Indians clearly came out with the better deal on this one.