Speak On It
I’ve been watching the late night comedy show since those early days in 1975 with the likes of John Belushi, Dan Aykroyd, Jane Curtin, Gilda Radner, and Chevy Chase — although I never thought that guy was funny.
There were great sketches like the Killer Bees, the Coneheads, and the Jaws parody about the landshark.
There have been ten presidential administrations since SNL debuted on Oct. 11, 1975, and that first episode is now the subject of a Netflix film I’m planning to watch.
The show has also spawned a British adaptation, SNL UK, which premiered on March 21.
Interestingly enough, Curtin said in a 2023 interview with People that she had watched an early show and “not one thing was funny.”
“I think it was just one of those, you had to be there in the moment things,” she says. “That's what happens with live TV, and with topical TV. It gets dated after a while. Remember, this was almost 50 years ago. But after we rewatched, I was like, ‘That really wasn't a very good show. It was terrible!’”
I haven’t stopped watching the show out of any kind of boomer based nostalgia. I want the show to thrive. I just can’t stay up that late anymore.
Fortunately, we have YouTube — and that’s how I got to see the “Fashion District Robbery” sketch.
The plot involves a bank robbery near New York’s Fashion Institute of Technology and a hapless NY1 reporter who has the misfortune of interviewing — or trying to interview — a group of students from the school and their teacher, D'Artagnan Meringue, portrayed by Colman Domingo.
Cuff Those Jeans
“I don’t teach,” Domingo declares early on while puffing on a cigarette. “I show. I am the lesson.”
Instead of giving a normal, helpful description of the suspect, Meringue and his crew make sarcastic remarks about the robber’s clothes — or his “drip,” as they put it.
“Be on the lookout for a mess,” Domingo says when asked for a description, noting the gunman’s style was “boho derogatory.” When asked to be more specific, the instructor says, “Why? He sure as hell wasn’t.”
His students — except one — are equally harsh in their criticism.
“The colors flirted with boldness but couldn't get her in bed,” one says.
The school’s dean, Tully Point, periodically sweeps by the camera to deliver his own biting remarks, including one zinger about the hoodlum’s choice to wield a black gun with a brown belt — in spring.
“Oh, no, baby,” he says. “Unalive yourself!”
The sketch was written up in several entertainment publications, and social media users — including some who mentioned having daughters at FIT — found the satire of intense, critical fashion students to be “spot on.”
“Omgg, I can't help watch it at least once or twice a day,” another wrote.
“This was a skit that feels like it can go down in SNL history,” yet another said.
I know I’ll eventually get tired of watching this sketch, but I’m not quite there yet. I get the feeling it’ll be a while before I find something I enjoy just as much.
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