🎙️ Voice is AI-generated. Inconsistencies may occur.
When it comes to earth-shattering historical events that have occurred during my lifetime, the questions most often asked are, "Where were you when JFK was assassinated?" and "Where were you when the planes hit the World Trade Center?" And now we must add another question: "Where were you when Saturday Night Live became a bad show that's not funny or smart? "
What makes this news particularly sobering for me, a proud former SNL writer, is that it was being delivered by someone widely admired for his brilliant comic wit: Donald John Trump. I mean, it's one thing when some hack TV critic or embittered comic with a podcast accuses Saturday Night Live of being unfunny. That literally happens every week. But when a former reality TV star (and one-term president) declares that SNL has become "a bad show that's not funny or smart...and will probably be put to rest," those who have worked on the show know they should lay their pens down for good.
Professionally speaking, the sudden realization that the show I worked on for seven years isn't funny was obviously devastating and made me question my own self-worth. I jest, but personally speaking, I do think his October 19 statement is hilarious. Because as everyone who watches the show knows, Saturday Night Live writers have always shared one simple goal: to write sketches that never, ever offend or hurt the feelings of public figures.
To address Donald Trump's attack on SNL, it's helpful to provide a little background on my experience working there. You're forced to get used to all types of people criticizing the show and how quite comfortable they are sharing their criticism. I'll never forget the time during a live show, while standing next to Eagles manager and legendary music producer Irving Azoff. He turned me and asked, "Did you write this sketch?" I told him that I didn't. Azoff replied, "Good, because it sucks."
Or the time Dr. Zinner, my elderly dentist informed me that a sketch I wrote starring Britney Spears didn't work because it "had no ending." Unsurprisingly, my dentist had no idea who Britney Spears was. Or the time the Anti-Defamation League protested a sketch I wrote for being both unfunny and anti-Semitic, even though the sketch got huge laughs, and I'm Jewish.
I'm no stranger to writing sketches that have p***** off politicians. A few years before SNL started doing Trump sketches, I wrote a sketch for SNL's guest host, then Mayor Rudy Giuliani. Remember him?
In my sketch, Giuliani played himself opposite comedian Tracy Morgan, who portrayed Washington, D.C. Mayor Marion Berry. The real Mayor Berry happened to watch the episode and was so offended by a joke I wrote about his crack cocaine use, he wrote a letter to the New York Times and demanded an apology. Of course, 25 years ago, who could have predicted that Giuliani would eventually become a bigger punch line than Marion Berry?
It was during my first season at SNL when I met Donald Trump. I was performing at the New York Friar's Club Roast of Kelsey Grammar in 1995. He made his way onto the dais, shaking everyone's hand, repeatedly saying, "Donald Trump, good to meet you."
I'll never forget thinking to myself: One day this guy's going to have his own line of discontinued steaks, open and close his own failed university and then get impeached twice by the U.S. House of Representatives.
To adequately critique Trump's taste and comic timing, I watched every single SNL episode Trump hosted; all two of them. And in my expert opinion, Donald Trump is among the greatest hosts in SNL history, right up there with renowned comedy geniuses Steven Seagal, Paris Hilton and Jonny Mosley. For those unfamiliar with the groundbreaking humor of Jonny Mosley, he's a skier who competed in the 2002 Winter Olympics.
So how do I see SNL now, compared to the time when I worked on it? Well, Donald Trump declaring that the show isn't funny anymore puts him in good company. When the late, great Norm MacDonald (for whom I wrote numerous sketches) returned to host SNL after being fired, here's what he said during his monologue: "How did I go, in a year and a half, from being not funny enough to be even allowed in the building, to being so funny that I'm now hosting the show?...It occurred to me, I haven't gotten funnier. The show has gotten really bad!... So, let's recap, the bad news is I'm still not funny. The good news is: The show blows!"
Norm's monologue reminds me that there are always people who will cr** on the show, even people who've worked on it. In August, former cast member Rob Schneider said he knew SNL was "over" and "it's not gonna come back" after Kate McKinnon performed "Hallelujah" as Hilary Clinton. I found this criticism poignant, especially coming from the star of Deuce Bigelow: Male Gigolo.
Ultimately whether I agree with critics of the show depends on the messenger, not the message. In this case, nobody can deny that Donald Trump is an accomplished performer who knows how to get a laugh. Whether it's skewering a war hero for being captured, mocking a physically disabled reporter, or ridiculing a Senator's wife for her looks, Donald Trump regularly leaves his audience in stiches.
I don't think my SNL colleague Seth Meyers realized it at the time, but he made a prescient observation during his 2011 White House Correspondents' Dinner speech: "Donald Trump has been saying he will run for President as a Republican, which is surprising since I just assumed he was running as a joke."
Whether Donald Trump is right when he says, "It was once good, never great, but now...it is over for SNL—A great thing for America!", there is one thing that's never been more clear to me. If Donald Trump runs for president again, and becomes the 47th leader of the free world, the joke's on America.
Hugh Fink is an Emmy Award-winning writer-producer and comedian who wrote for SNL from 1995-2002 and created The Showbiz Show with David Spade. He's Executive Producer of The Writers Guild Awards. When he's not writing or performing, he's teaching comedy writing as an adjunct professor at Harvard and Chapman University.
All views expressed in this article are the author's own.
