SNL was never my bag

While I love watching documentaries about the history of comedy - people talking very seriously about very silly stuff is always a kick - I always glaze over for large sections of any such documentaries produced in America, because I just never gave a damn about Saturday Night Live. 

It's obvious what the show inspired, but it has meant nothing to me. While New Zealand has always sucked up content from other parts of the world, SNL has never been on local, and was certainly no institution around here. It was just a weird thing that would pop up in a Spider-Man comic every now and then, just another American joke I could never really understand.

In-jokes about American culture were an issue for me a lot when I was growing up with US comic books. Still are, to be honest.

I still knew all the stars that the show produced, because they fucking ruled the cinema screen when I was a kid. You couldn't avoid films from Bill Murray, John Belushi, Dan Ackroyd and Chevy Chase; and Jane Curtin was on TV every Tuesday night in the excellent Kate and Allie.

And while I will always ride or die for Wayne's World, I also thought The Blues Brothers was always the best film from anybody in that crew, with all that fine music and even finer motorcar destruction. 

In the wake of seeing that for the first time when I was 12, I got to see my first Saturday Night Live, when a tape of The Best of John Belushi showed up a the local video store. But when we got it out for some family fun, it was embarrassing to watch. Just incredibly unfunny, and none of us could figure out why the hell was Belushi was fucking around so much in a bee costume.

SNL certainly didn't need my approval to become an absolute institution, and has produced comic talents of enormous stature and humour. But sometimes I still stumble across a Twin Peaks skit or something on YouTube, and I just don't get it, in any way. 

All the comedians who show up on those documentaries and profess their love are obviously speaking from the heart, and that love is real and I wish I could feel the same. But Saturday Night Live just doesn't mean anything to me.