The Ryan Gosling episode of Saturday Night Live in Season 51 continues to be a lightning rod for controversy. A former SNL cast member, among the highest ranked former cast members in the history of the show, has an opinion on the constant laughter from cast members during that poorly received show.
Kevin Nealon spent nine years on Saturday Night Live, during arguably the best era of the weekly late night program, from 1986 to 1995. He was briefly the anchor of Weekend Update, and was famous as part of the Hans and Franz sketch with Dana Carvey.
As a longtime SNL cast member with a dry sense of humor and an offbeat stage demeanor, Nealon as the pedigree to talk about comedy. Earlier this week, Nealon shared his thoughts on what happens when sketches are interrupted by laughter from the cast or host.
“I never broke character on SNL,” Nealon said in a Tweet he published on March 24. “I knew how much time the writers put into those scripts. You don’t want to be the one who throws it off.
“Lorne [Michaels] 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.”
In the Gosling episode on March 7, the host broke character and laughed in no fewer than four sketches. At times, Gosling couldn’t get through even simple lines that didn’t contain jokes. He and cast member Mikey Day seemed to go off-script in a sketch titled “Cyclops” in an effort to make Ashley Padilla laugh.
In a sketch called “Passing Notes,” SNL actually embraced “breaking” and purposefully inserted unexpected lines into a scene where Gosling and Padilla were required to read notes. The show even posted a caption on the screen to tell the audience about the slight of hand. It was the first time in show history that SNL subverted its own written material in order to make sketch members laugh off-script. It was a blatant rip-off of an improv game called “Blind Lines,” where members pull pieces of paper from their pockets and read lines they had never seen.
Some fans liked the Gosling episode, which was rated a D by SNL Rankings. But many fans couldn’t help but note that the constant (encouraged) breaking during sketches led to a miserable night of comedy. Some would say it was unprofessional, self-serving, lazy.
I’d agree with that.
Nealon clearly feels the same way. Nealon points out that he feels the writing is not served well when the cast members or host can’t do their job on screen. And that’s what we saw in the Gosling episode.
Ryan Gosling has now become “the host who laughs in his sketches.” It goes back to earlier hosting gigs. But in his most recent hosting appearance, Gosling (and his pal Day) took breaking to a new level. It’s unclear what the writers think of that. But, considering Season 51 is shaping up as one of the most mediocre in many years, maybe it would be better to write funny material and have the cast stick to it.
