ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, January 22, 1997 TAG: 9701220008
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ROBIN DOUGHERTY KNIGHT-RIDDER/TRIBUNE
``Saturday Night Live'' takes a lot of heat for not being funny. But the program's real problem is that, over the years, it's been too good at being funny. It has spawned so many imitators that, today, there are countless places to find the brand of humor that was once unique to ``SNL.''
When it debuted in 1975, the show was groundbreaking for the sole reason that it made fun of baby boom culture. Nobody had done that before. But suddenly, postwar Americans - John Belushi, Dan Akyroyd, Gilda Radner, to name a few - had come of age. Their lives were ripe for comic exploration. TV shows, commercials, hairstyles, parochial-school experiences all became fodder for a new kind of humor. Remember Canis, the Calvin Klein cologne for dogs?
But 20-odd years later - largely thanks to ``SNL'' - pop-culture humor is a mainstream item.
In fact, you don't need to stay up late to see a black-out sketch that parodies the bland TV families of the 1950s. Or a skit about a group of aliens navigating the strange customs of Earth. Or advertisements that parody themselves.
The audience that grew up on ``SNL'' is now out there writing its own TV shows and ad campaigns.
The result: It's an ``SNL'' world.
Indeed, when Roseanne does a ``Rosemary's Baby'' skit on her show, or when an episode of ``Chicago Hope'' features a videotape that mimics the slick cinematography of rival drama ``ER,'' or when ``Seinfeld'' characters imagine themselves in a parallel universe that resembles the ``Seinfeld'' show, it's obvious that the ``SNL'' late-night vision of the world has not just spilled over into prime time, it's keeping prime time alive.
You don't need to wait till 11:30 Saturday night to experience the subversive thrill of sketches featuring the hilariously unhip cheerleaders played by Cheri Oteri and Will Ferrell, or Molly Shannon's hall-of-fame character, Catholic school girl Mary Katherine Gallagher.
Instead, you can tune into ``Family Matters,'' the 8 p.m. sitcom on ABC structured around Urkel, a character who could have been invented by Martin Short. Or the new game show ``No Relation'' on fX, a send-up of TV game-show conventions that's begging to be hosted by Phil Hartman.
And then there's ``Third Rock From the Sun.'' For reasons having little to do with one-time trouper Jane Curtain, the show resembles a half-hour-long ``SNL'' sketch featuring characters a little too wacky to actually be on TV. (Surely John Lithgow is the missing cast member from ``SNL's'' Golden Age?)
Indeed, while a late-night show like ``Politically Incorrect'' takes the ``Weekend Update'' idea and turns it into a 30-minute item (with Arianna Huffington stepping in as a kind of real-life Roseanne Roseannadanna), it's actually the hours between 8 and 10 that are infused with ``SNL'' attitude.
These days, the anti-establishment tone of ``SNL's'' classic sketches infuses ``The Simpsons'' and ``Married ... with Children.''
The fake commercial - the kind that used to run right after the ``SNL'' opening monologue - has evolved into a real commercial, the one featuring the Energizer Bunny.
And Roseanne, well, whenever her writers are truly inspired (or lately, whenever they come up short on ideas), they imagine themselves as ``SNL'' writers, conjuring up such pop-culture parodies as having Roseanne gather - as she did in one now classic episode - Barbara Billinsgley, Jane Wyatt and other veteran actresses to talk about the inane ways '50s and '60s sitcoms portrayed mothers.
When Dana Carvey tried his own prime-time effort last year, the one thing he neglected to do was transform the ``SNL'' variety-show black-out sketch format that had worked so well on late-night into a sitcom. He should have gone for a sitcom.
Not coincidentally, ``SNL's'' one-time trademark political edge has disappeared along with it's late-night sensibility.
In 1975 and for a good five or six years, the idea that you would make jokes out of Julia Child's cooking or lounge singers or people with big butts was still subversive and therefore dangerous. It was something your parents didn't want you be laughing at. That's why it was on late at night, where only those in the know would find it.
These days, ``SNL'' humor is everywhere and commonplace. Anyone looking for the cutting edge has moved on.
LENGTH: Medium: 83 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: File. In ``SNL's'' first five or six years, much of theby CNBshow's humor was still subversive and therefore dangerous. That's
why it was on late at night, where only those in the know would find
it.