Trump Bombs on Saturday Night Live

[CajunBlazer]

Saturday Night Live is known for it hilarious political skits; Tina Fey’s depiction of Sara Palin comes readily to mind. The show has been very successful in producing some good laughs with celebrity guests of all descriptions, including presidential candidates. Recently Kate McKinnon’s depiction on Hillary Clinton while Hillary played the bartender was really very funny. So there were great expectations when it was announced that Donald Trump had agreed to host SNL.

Those expectations produced the best ratings that the Saturday night late show has pulled in years, but by all accounts the show was actually a dud. I personally thought that Trump’s opening and his skits were at best marginally funny and at worst boring. Apparently I am not alone in that opinion:

TV critic Hank Stuever: “Donald Trump’s highly touted and almost certainly inappropriate hosting gig on NBC’s ‘Saturday Night Live’ turned out to be an anemic and halfhearted dud.”

Daniel Fienberg in The Hollywood Reporter: “As lifeless as Trump was for the majority of the show, the writers deserve every bit as much of the onus for entirely failing to work around Trump's limitations or finding amusing things to do with the lump in the middle.”

Ken Tucker of Yahoo TV: “Turns out, this really was just a craven move for ratings. There was no attempt by Lorne Michaels and company to use Trump as a critique of himself, no moment that did not feel vetted by the candidate.”

Many critics blame both Trump and SNL for the lack of sarcastic “bite” which normally makes the show’s political skits work so well. They point to the fact that Trump’s vetoed several skit ideas which he now says “went too far”. I think what he really means that they depicted him in a negative manner too accurately. Others critics have made the claim that the SNL writers and producers craved the ratings boost so much that they were afraid to push Trump too hard into agreeing to more edgy, and therefore funnier, skits.

I think that is probably an accurate assessment, but the problem goes deeper than that and centers on the character Trump portrays daily. ............

http://www.cajunscomments.com/trump-bombs-on…day-night-live/ ?

[valerief]

1. It's actually RARE that SNL has anything funny on it. It's pretty lame and has been for years.

That's because it's so right wing.

[CajunBlazer]

17. Strange, most media articles on SNL indicate ....

that it is it has always been fairly liberal. That has always been my impression as well However, I could see that it depends on where on the political spectrum you are. I guess if you consider anything to the right of Bernie Sanders to be conservative, SNL might fall into that category.

[valerief]

21. You mean the "liberal" media that the right wing oligarchy calls it?

No, for the most part and for ages now, SNL is and has been "protective" of right wing values. They may make fun of political personalities, but they won't make fun of the oligarchs' interests.

[Fred Sanders]

2. What happened to Lorne Michaels? When, and why, did he sell out to The Man?

[SoCalMusicLover]

3. Anyone Who Wasted Their Time Watching, Got What They Deserved

Of course it was a ratings grab.

Of course they let his majesty reject the skits he disliked.

Trump still came out ahead because he can brag about the ratings that were generated. You also won't see NBC or SNL complaining, again due to the ratings.

If you watched, they got what they were aiming for. Anybody expecting something remotely funny, or that put him in a bad light, were naive to have those expectations.

[LP2K12]

4. Sad thing is, he pulled in ratings...

It's scary to think that somewhere... someone actually wanted to watch him.

Donald Trump lifts 'SNL' to highest rating since January 2012

Donald Trump's hosting stint on "Saturday Night Live" lifted the NBC late-night program to its highest rating since Jan. 7, 2012.

The Saturday telecast averaged a 6.6 rating and a 16% share of the TV audience in the 56 markets that Nielsen tabulates for overnight ratings. It was the strongest overnight number for "SNL" since former NBA star Charles Barkley hosted the program.

http://touch.latimes.com/#section/-1/article/p2p-84966718/

[TexasBushwhacker]

6. Saying it's the highest rating in 4 years doesn't

say much if your ratings are abysmal to begin with. They only reason it's still on is that its broadcast competition is infomercials and Matlock reruns.

[CajunBlazer]

9. 6.6 Million households is a good ratings hit for a show on late Saturday night.

Most were there to watch Trump be humiliated, but they were very disappointed.

[Logical]

13. You don't know much about sat night ratings I assume. Nt

[CajunBlazer]

15. Okay, since you're the expert....

.....other than football, what are good ratings for shows late on Saturday night and which other show readily achieve them?

[Action_Patrol]

18. Saturday Ratings

A late night repeat of SNL was last Saturday’s top scripted show. A primetime repeat of SNL was last Saturday’s top scripted show in primetime.
Saturdays, Sept. 19-Oct. 31, 2015
(Adults 18-49; repeats in gray; previous weeks in parentheses)
3.1 (---) (2.3) (1.2) (---) (---) (---) MLB Baseball
1.5 (1.6) (1.6) (1.0) (2.4) (0.7) (0.8) College Football ABC
1.1 (0.9) (2.4) (1.5) (1.4) (1.1) (2.8) College Football ESPN
1.1 (1.2) (2.0) (1.9) (2.0) (1.0) (1.1)
SNL
0.7 (0.9) (0.8) (0.7) (0.7) (0.9) (0.7) 48 Hours
0.7 (0.7) (---) (0.4) (0.8) (---) (---) SNL Primetime
0.6 (0.8) (---) (---) (---) (---) (---)
Dateline
0.6 (---) (---) (---) (---) (---) (---) Supergirl
0.5 (0.5) (0.6) (0.6) (0.5) (0.4) (1.7) SportsCenter
0.4 (0.6) (0.6) (0.5) (0.5) (0.5) (0.6) Akame Ga Kill
0.4 (0.3) (---) (---) (---) (---) (---) Ghost Adventures

[davidpdx]

5. I watched the opening monologue on Yahoo this morning

It wasn't that funny at all. Apparently the critics panned it (as one would expect).

[Gothmog]

7. I refused to watch this show

[LynneSin]

8. SNL Scorecard totally trashed this week's SNL

http://uproxx.com/tv/2015/11/snl-scorecard-donald-trump/6/

SNL actually has some funny stuff out there and I found this website a great way to watch the good skits and skip the really bad ones. And the guy who writes it is pretty good at knowing what is funny and what isn't.

The Miley Cyrus show was pretty bad and yet Trump was even WORSE! What's sad is a few weeks ago SNL was totally awesome when they had Tracy Morgan on the show.

The Morgan show was the last one I watched. Not interested in SNL anymore. If they are giving Racist, Homophobic, sexist Presidential Candidates full shows to host (not skits but shows) then sorry, the show is dead to me.

[Warren DeMontague]

10. With the sole exception of the Sean Connery on celebrity Jeopardy skit, SNL stopped

being funny when Dana Carvey left.

And it had a good bunch of seriously un-funny years between then, and Bill Murray.

[cwydro]

11. It's been a crappy show for years.

I never watch it anyway.

Back in the glory days though, that was a great show!

[ryan_cats]

12. Trump

Trump writes for SNL?

[tavernier]

14. I watched. I'm allowed; it's my house.

His appearance was a complete dud and I turned it off about 20 minutes into the show, as I surmised that I would. I have been of the opinion that his novelty has worn off, and I suppose that I watched mainly to see if he would prove me right. He did. I have a feeling that many others watched, however shortly, for the same reason.

I have to laugh though at some of the holier than thou finger waving today at those of us who were curious enough to see whether this particular clown car had developed flat tires.

If Trump chooses to believe that good ratings for this stinkeroo episode have anything to do with the presidential race, so what? The longer he goes, the crazier he gets, and he seems to be shining the crazy light on all the rest of them as well.

[Arugula Latte]

22. Me too. I made it until a little before midnight and gave up.

It was just lame ... and then somewhat depressing.

I'm not a Nielsen house so my watching or not watching it doesn't affect anything.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

16. I did notice that the people who were pushing Trump on my Facebook page were completely silent.

Which means either they themselves have gotten bored of Donald Trump, or there was nothing really good that came out of it in Trump's interest.

AV Club bashed it pretty hard:

http://www.avclub.com/tvclub/donald-trumps-appearance-shows-snl-its-nadir-228101

[geardaddy]

19. I refused to watch it.

And I generally watch SNL.
I heard he sucked hard.

[DrDan]

20. highest viewership since Jan 2012

http://variety.com/2015/tv/news/donald-trump-saturday-night-live-ratings-1201636005/