[The Jewish Cunthead]

Talk about heavyweights... in their prime, nothing was funnier.

(5) Roseanne


vs.

(12) Saturday Night Live


Voting ends Tuesday 11/13

[The Canadian Content]

Fat people yelling at each other isn't funny.

[Lucky]

So you didn't like the Blues Brothers?

[The Canadian Content]

They didn't yell at each other. And only Jake was fat.

[Lucky]

Elwood was fat. Jake was fatter. Farley was fattest.

I loved SNL a little but probably like 40% of its run if that. The rest was crap. Roseanne sank HARD but was still great for like 85%. Its simple numbers.

[The Jewish Cunthead]

You obviously didn't see the sequel. Elwood ate Jake. True story.

Ahh this is tough. I love both shows but I gotta go with SNL. It's had off years but when it was on, it was ON. Belushi, Ackroyd, Murray, Eddie, et al.

[Jack Quinn]

Lucky pulls out splits. Excellent

Though my numbers say SNL was 90% hip while Roseanne was barely 30% hip. Simple numbers really, SNL gets the vote

[salmonjunkie]

Yet Roseanne had like 110% hips.

[The Jewish Cunthead]

salmonjunkie said:

Yet Roseanne had like 110% hips.

See... THAT gets an exalt.

[DevSop]

This is already depressing me. Roseanne was a monumental show in the comedy genre getting away from the everyone walks away happy typicalness that television was set-in to the things aren't always shiny and happy. Besides that, the show has some of the best characters in comedy. Even besides Roseanne and Dan. Jackie, Darlene, David, even Becky and DJ are just fantabulous.

SNL's okay, it highlighted some great guys who went on to do amazing things like Murphy, Belushi, etc. but it's also a show that spawned Kattan, Spade, and Fallon. Roseanne, had one bad season out of 8 I believe, in the last 20 years, SNL has had to have 6 or 7 BAD seasons.

Just play percentages

[Jack Quinn]

but I don't remember ever going to school and talking about Roseanne. I do however remember being in school on Mondays and talking about that weekend's SNL

[The Jewish Cunthead]

That's a lot of fuckin Mondays there Johnny.

[Jack Quinn]

exactly

[williamssl]

mooseheadjack said:

but I don't remember ever going to school and talking about Roseanne.

OK but if the you pretended that every fat chick you boned each weekend was named Rosanne, then you would need to revisit the above statement.

[Jack Quinn]

williamssl said:

OK but if the you pretended that every fat chick you boned each weekend was named Rosanne, then you wouldn't need to revisit the above statement.

fixed that for ya. School was not fun

[Lucky]

Ok, Dev. I love Roseanne and I think this to be yet another example of how I basically hate 80% of what this board enjoys but calling Becky and DJ great characters? A bit over the top. A creepy little kid whose only real purpose is to do something weird and give the girls a reason to freak out or Dan and Rosie a reason to stress over parenting? And Beckie's whose entire existence pre-Chalke was built on yelling real loud, being a complete bitch, and storming out of the house?

Its still a fucking great show and I really don't care that SNL produced maybe a dozen great comedy careers. It produced dozens of mediocre ones and God knows how many shitty or non-existent ones. For every 2 or 3 skits worth talking about Monday morning there were 10 or 12 horrible ones. Even during the good years you probably had half a show that sucked. Sketch comedy is pretty iffy in general and can be hit and miss. That SNL routinely changed writers and casts only makes it more iffy. I enjoyed one or two sets of SNL crews, sure. I do not enjoy SNL. That I liked one crew of SNL people in the '70s or '80s doesn't give me any reason to think the 2007 crew is worth a damn. Unless I think Lorne Michaels is the comic genius behind the show. And he's not.

Its basically stupid to judge SNL as a whole. Even the other sketch comedies in this showdown were short runs with a constant primary creative mind behind them. Kids in the Hall? 100 episodes of 5 guys' comedy (and I'm sure a few others). Chappelle Show? 2 years of Chappelle (and again, a few others). In Living Color? Keenan Ivory Wayans, his family, and a constant group of comics such as Tommy Davidson, David Alan Grier, and Jim Carrey (although the Wayans DID leave the show and it kinda went to shit). SNL has been 30+ years of ever changing casts and writers by design. Wiki lists 7 different "eras" without actually looking on my own to check.

You know all that debate about Cable vs Network and whether we should split? Fuck all that. What we should have done is had a "Best SNL Cast" showdown and taken it out of the Comedy Showdown that is about ACTUAL single shows.

[Jack Quinn]

but then wouldn't we have to split Roseanne into the "2 Becky's"? and have them face each other for supreme Roseanneness?

[Lucky]

Only if we were stupid and didn't realize that the show was basically the same exact show just with a different actress and a diminished role for the character.

Somehow I think the difference between Bill Murray and Chris Kattan is a bigger issue.

[The Jewish Cunthead]

I guess in hindsight we probably should have excluded SNL, Chappelle, ILC, Mad, etc from this showdown but it DID gets the votes to warrant a 12th seed. Besides, should this even surprise you? This is a board where Serg made a case for Empire in every movie showdown we've done so far.

[Lucky]

It didn't even occur to me. I briefly considered sketch comedies as something else but then I said fuck it. They're shows. It wasn't a "sitcom" showdown. And if you cut out sketch comedies then what about the animated stuff? SNL's just unique. 30+ years and at least 7 VASTLY different eras, casts, and crews (and I went and read all the wiki history of SNL last night because I'm a weirdo and I'd say there's more than 7). Like I said, the other sketch shows were short runs with mostly singular visions and crews. Chappelle Show 2 years of Chappelle and Co. KITH 5 years of those guys. In Living Color was 5 years, most of which were the Wayans' and that memorable cast. Monty Python's Flying Circus those guys. MAD Tv is more like SNL, I guess, since its been around for over a decade and (according to Wiki again) has gone through 3 "eras"

SNL's just different. Roseanne sucked for a season. Other shows went through bad lulls, "jumped the shark", had primes, etc. But SNL was really just a bunch of VASTLY different shows. The only common threads were the name, timeslot, basic format, and for the most part Lorne Michaels. And since Michaels isn't the writer or a featured performer that's pretty tenuous. I loved the "Not Ready for Prime Time Players" and the Murphy/Piscopo days. That 90's fraternity crew had its memorable stuff and can't be forgotten. I've hated the 3 generations since. I hated most of the stuff between the original cast and the '90s crew. So how do I judge? Some people are happy to ignore the 10-20 years they HATED and focus on the 10-20 they enjoyed. Some are playing it like percentages. And some simply only managed to watch the last 5, 10, 15, or 20 years of the show and can't judge it on stuff they never really watched.

SNL's simply not comparable to anything in this showdown besides MAD TV, which can't compare since its run 1/3rd of the time. I'm not blaming anyone. I didn't think of it either. It just seems clear to me know that it just doesn't belong and will continue to piss me off until it gets eliminated.

Same as RAW did in the Cable showdown. It didn't belong and it annoyed me. It wasn't a "show." Its a featured showcase of an ever changing company with an every changing cast, crew, and vision. Some eras of it rocked. Some blew chunks. Comparing it to a 5 season show with one basic vision just seems absurd.

[williamssl]

Then why did you nominate Raw?

luckylopez said:

Told ya.

1. The Wire (HBO)
2. Oz (HBO)
3. The Shield (FX)
4. Burn Notice (USA)
5. Psych (USA)
6. Masters of Horror (Showtime)
7. Highlander (Syndicated)
8. Le Femme Nikita (USA)
9. Sopranos (HBO)
10. Rescue Me (FX)
11. Playmakers (ESPN)
12. Poltergeist: The Legacy (Showtime)
13. Lucky (FX)
14. 4400 (USA)
15. WWE RAW (USA/Spike)

[Lucky]

SNL didn't occur to me until last night. You expected RAW to occur to me when I wrote up my ballot? Plus I was the only person with you who thought it was silly to break up Network and Cable and I couldn't come up with a full ballot from such a weak damn field. I think I had 5 nominees I actually felt comfortable with and the rest were just shows I kinda enjoyed but felt idiotic calling the best of anything. I believe I tossed RAW at the end just for a laugh. How was I to know it would advance to the damn Final Four over actual shows?

I mean, fuck. Poltergeist the Legacy? That show blew. And I watched it on Channel 5. And there were 2 shows between it and RAW.

Did I say 5? Now that I relook at that ballot there are 3 shows worth noting on that ballot. 4-15 are utterly silly. But the showdown was a narrow field and I didn't feel compelled to nominate every HBO show ever made.

[National Champion Chris Cole]

luckylopez said:

Plus I was the only person with you who thought it was silly to break up Network and Cable

ONLY??? I was bitching about it from the start. I think I was the FIRST one to bitch about it.

[Lucky]

Sorry. I guess Tex and I were just the last two bitching at the end trying to talk folks out of it. Or just the loudest ones, most likely. I'm sure there were more than you and us two in reality.

[The Jewish Cunthead]

metallikid said:

ONLY??? I was bitching about it from the start. I think I was the FIRST one to bitch about it.

Calm down Tinkerbell