I can admit that I’m a thousand years old and don’t understand a lot of trends. For example, the six-seven thing was weird to me, but it wasn’t geared towards my particular taste. It was a trend for a younger generation, and they seemed to love it. The same can be said for a ton of music, comic books, and television. The latter is something that Saturday Night Live alum Kevin Nealon seems not to understand or like.
On Twitter (or X), Nealon wrote, "I never broke character on SNL. I knew how much time the writers put into those scripts. You don’t want to be the one who throws it off. Lorne doesn’t like when the cast breaks. Even if the audience laughs, it doesn't work for the sketch. If I could get through the Chippendales sketch, I could get through anything."
It can’t be a coincidence that this comment comes after season 51, episode 14, with host Ryan Gosling. And, if I had to guess which bit was the problem, it’s likely the one where the lines were changed (that you can see below). And while I understand his point, and that he has a right to his opinion, he's probably wrong.
I tend to watch SNL weekly unless someone is on the show that I’m totally against for one reason or another. When Ryan Gosling hosts, you can believe it will be watched. His most recent appearance wasn’t the best, but the sketch in question was hilarious. And not just from the people watching it in my household. The audience seemed to be enjoying themselves too. And not because the laugh track was on; there seemed to be genuine joy coming from the crowd.
In Kevin Nealon’s defense, breaking character goes against the classic rules of live TV. Part of the experience is people staying in character while something outrageous is happening. For example, the aforementioned Chippendales Audition sketch. No one broke character despite it being both ridiculous and hilarious. Nevertheless, certain rules change as time goes on. It's also not as if this cast is among the most egregious offenders of this rule.
In the "Short Shorts for USA" sketch above, the only people who didn’t completely break character were Horatio Sanz and Seth Meyers, who still had a few moments where you could tell they were struggling not to laugh. There are also the multiple times Jimmy Fallon did it throughout his career, even though the moment wasn’t that funny.
In the end, this is a new era for Saturday Night Live. While things still aren’t the best, they seem to be better than they once were. For instance, in writer Maureen Ryan’s book Burn It Down: Power, Complicity, and a Call for Change in Hollywood, she notes that “For decades, SNL has been a frequently terrible, punishing experience for a lot of people who worked there or ended up in the show’s orbit.”
Maybe the cast breaking shows that there is a level of comfort that the previous crews didn’t have. If that’s the case, it’s good that Saturday Night Live is no longer the drug-fueled, oppressive place that it was once known for.
Saturday Night Live airs Saturdays at 11:35 pm ET time and the next day on Peacock.