The penultimate episode of Saturday Night Live season 46 having wasted the talents of special guest host Keegan-Michael Key raises the question of whether or not it's time for NBC to shut down the long-running sketch comedy show. While SNL has often joked about its best years being behind it, these self-deprecating jabs have become less funny in recent years, as the show has become more dependent on stunt-casting celebrity hosts and formulaic sketches than the avant-garde comedy that once defined it.
First airing in 1975, Saturday Night Live grew from a simple comedy show aimed at a young, hip crowd into an American institution. Butting heads with the censors as it presented unapologetically political skits, the show also offered a platform for eclectic performers such as Jim Henson and Andy Kaufman. This earned it a cult following, as the show went on to redefine sketch comedy in America during the final decades of the 20th century. However, in recent years, Saturday Night Live has been eclipsed by cable sketch comedy shows like Key and Peele, which didn't face the stricter standards of a broadcast network and could go further in pushing the envelope.
Fans of Key and Peele hoped some of that energy might be carried over into Saturday Night Live when Keegan-Michael Key hosted the show. Sadly, while Key was his usual energetic self, the material he had to work with was anything but A-grade. Perhaps the best example of this was when Key played basketball legend Michael Jordan, in a skit that was presented as a cut scene from the 2020 documentary The Last Dance. The sketch, which can be viewed below, was a one-note joke about Jordan's gambling addiction and the lengths at which he went to keep winning a game of quarters against the members of his security team.
Another lackluster sketch centered around a parody of The Muppet Show and featured Key as a security guard who tried to wrangle Statler and Waldorf, the two old men who got balcony seats for every show, just so they could heckle the performers. Most of the sketch centered around Key beating up Statler after he refused to quiet down and stop cracking wise. Muppet fans roasted the skit online as the show was going on, calling the sketch mean-spirited and unfunny, particularly in comparison to when Keegan-Michael Key appeared (with Jordan Peele) on The Muppets and helped Kermit The Frog in dealing with a manipulative branding guru.
The fact that the writers of Saturday Night Live could think of nothing funnier to do with a comedic talent like Keegan-Michael Key than have him beat up an old man suggests a serious lack of creative talent in the writing room. It is also worrying that the show has become increasingly dependent on "stunt-hosts" like Elon Musk, who only attract viewers who want to see just how awful the show is with a non-performer trying to do comedy. Given all that, it seems increasingly clear that it might be time for NBC to close up shop at Studio 8H.