Just when you thought Saturday Night Live couldn't tarnish its own name any more ... it did. After the presidents of Harvard, UPenn, and MIT drew intense backlash for their congressional testimony on Jewish genocide, SNL decided to mock not the presidents, but Republican Rep. Elise Stefanik. And the result might just be the least funny thing SNL has ever done. Glenn says that if he's being kind, the skit was comparable to "a high school talent show." And Stu "can't believe that was comedy."
Transcript
Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors
VOICE: Well, we are serious about stopping all forms of hatred, anti-Semitism, Islamophobia.
VOICE: Not the second one. And my tea lady, change the steel.
And keep in mind, if you don't say yes, you're going to make me look good, which is really, really hard to do.
So I'll ask you straight up. Do you think genocide is bad?
VOICE: Could I submit an answer in writing at a later date?
VOICE: Am I winning this hearing?
Somebody pinch me. Ms. Stefanik, your time is up.
VOICE: Oh, thank God. The chair recognizes the gentleman from Michigan.
VOICE: Thank you. I yield my time back to Ms. Stefanik.
GLENN: Okay. Stop. I mean, is this even funny?
STU: I hadn't even seen that. I have read about it. A lot of people were writing about it, saying, can you believe they tried to make fun of the Republican congresswoman, instead of making fun of the fact that they would not say anti-Semitism is bad? But what's more jarring to me is how unfunny that was. I cannot believe that was comedy.
GLENN: No.
STU: That was an attempt at comedy is what you just heard.
GLENN: That was, maybe, I'm being kind. A high school talent show.
STU: Yeah. With the crowd reacting the same way. Like, they don't know when to laugh. They don't know what's supposed to be funny. They can tell she's trying to make an idiot out of the congresswoman, but that's about it.
GLENN: But the whole thing is reversed with the audience. Even the SNL audience laughs at, can I put that in writing?
STU: Right. That's the only time they understood.
GLENN: Only time they understood. A.
Because they're trying to figure out, how is -- is Stefanik, the bad guy?
What is -- it is off the rails.
STU: It is bizarre.
GLENN: And you know what is really exciting. Comedy is making a comeback.
More and more, there are comedians, that are just no longer playing this game. How long before NBC/Saturday Night Live gets the memo?
STU: Oh.
They got the memo already. They decided to go the other way.
Was it Shane Gillis, who was on the show.
And then they said, he made a -- I don't know, a comment years previously that was bad. Or he said a bad word.
Or, I don't even remember what the controversy was.
So they threw him out. And now he's thriving outside of this. Online. This massive following.
And it's probably doing much better than he ever could have done as some faceless member of the SNL cast.
Now at this point, no one knows who any of them are, outside of Kenan Thompson. The only guy. And my kids know him, as the guy from Good Burger 2. Not even Good Burger. From Good Burger 2. So I don't know.
The SNL thing. You would think they would be able to sense this. They were at one point, on the cutting edge of comedy. I mean, they really were. A long time.
GLENN: Yes. But that was squashed by political correctness.
STU: Yeah.
GLENN: Squashed by -- I think it's probably the same thing that was happening by Disney.
We were just talking about it. You can't just fire the top. You can't fire the top.
It's -- it's all the way down into the system now.
You would have to clean house from top to bottom on Saturday Night Live. And you couldn't do that, because you would also have to clean house at NBC.
STU: Hmm.
GLENN: Unless you're cleaning house --
STU: Yeah. What's the motivation to do something like that?
GLENN: None. None. They're still leading the way. We're still leading the way on wokeness. We're still right.
STU: Look at the Elon Musk thing. Right?
Reading that book. He's been in my mind a lot because of that book. But you remember that he was like the most popular person in the world.
GLENN: Uh-huh.
STU: Everyone loved the guy, except for maybe some on the right.
GLENN: Yes.
STU: This is as recent as 2021.
It's not that long ago. It's not that long ago. Yeah.
GLENN: It was just 2021.
STU: I was -- this is -- I was going through the part of the book, where they talk about him, and they mentioned it. This was the peak of his popularity.
And they talk about his move toward. I guess you would call it the right on some of this stuff.
Though, it's not exactly true.
But it was May 2021.
When he -- when he hosted Saturday Night Live.
Does that seem at all plausible. That right now, they would ask Elon Musk, to host Saturday Night Live?
GLENN: No.
STU: The reason they did it, he was so popular, so well-liked. Everybody liked him. Most of the people on the left. They loved their Tesla.
He was a mega hero. Then right after that, he opened his factory. And became a terrible person. Or something. I don't even remember what started it.
Now they're to the point to where they think, he's Satan. Because he wants people to be able to say things.
GLENN: It's crazy.
STU: I can't even follow it anymore.