Due to social distancing and stay-at-home orders, each performer broadcast remotely from his or her home. The crew members had to do their jobs remotely also, which was a difficult process for many of them. Overall, there were difficulties in coordination, timing, connectively, etc. Some parts of the show were not live, they were pre-recorded due to the obstacles that I mentioned. Tom Hanks was the guest host, and the musical guest was some newfangled, modern-day "entertainer", a man whose name escapes me because I not only did not recognize it when it was announced, I cannot remember it now.
Normally, I wouldn't even have tuned in to watch it, but the onscreen programming guide showed that it was supposed to be a rerun from April 16, 2016. As such, it would have been long before the US presidential election took place, and it was not the epoch in which all the show could do was bash Trump, regardless of whether or not their content was humorous. I am NOT making a case that Trump did or did not deserve the bashing, I merely contend that in addition to not being funny, it had also grown excruciatingly monotonous. After having seen the programming guide, I was looking forward to see an example of their shows prior to all of their Trumpatred (Trump-hatred), but alas, it was not to be.
Instead of the April 2016 episode, they played a new one. It did not start out with their usual skit before the opening credits, it went straight to the guest host's monologue. Without a studio audience present, the producers opted to use canned applause and canned laughter, which Hanks immediately acknowledged as being trite, and from that point, there was less of it throughout his monologue. That resulted in a few lame jokes that fell flat, but worsened by the fact that there was no response to them, not negative, not positive, not neutral. The rest of the show was equally dry, unfunny, and ultimately so boring that I only lasted through about 20 to 25 minutes of it before turning it off.
The morning zoo radio program that I listen to every Monday to Friday usually has a segment about things like this, especially when they are either very, very good or very, very bad. They often include listeners' phone calls and/or email/tweets from listeners. Today, however, the SNL episode wasn't even mentioned.
For those of you who saw it, either in part or in full, what are your impressions, please?
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2020 - 20 = 2000.
Nope, not the 60s, 70s or 80s, you young whippersnapper!
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I had it as broadcast first and changed it. Thank you for the correction.
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