Lorne Michaels announced a major cast shakeup for the 51st season of Saturday Night Live.
Michael Longfellow, Emil Wakim, Heidi Gardner, and Devon Walker head for the exits. And some equally anonymous comedians, to include Tommy Brennan, Ben Marshall, Jeremy Culhane, and Veronika Slowikowska, take their place.
That four-out-the-door-replaced-by-four-more trade does not make for the shakeup.
Kam Patterson does.
Patterson looks like Eddie Murphy and sounds like Redd Foxx.
Patterson arrives as the first Kill Tony golden ticket winner to join the Not Ready for Primetime Players. Patterson looks like Eddie Murphy and sounds like Redd Foxx. He is not the funniest Kill Tony alum. He does exude more star power (and that blindingly bright aura, rather than his physical appearance, is what really resembles a young Eddie Murphy) than any name to come out of Tony Hinchcliffe’s bucket. (RELATED: The Estonian ‘Killer’)
And the biggest names in the history of Saturday Night Live — think Chevy Chase, Eddie Murphy, Chris Farley — were usually not the funniest performers in their casts. They were the ones the cameras loved the most. This guy looks like a star.
Beyond this, ratings dictated this unexpected yet “duh” move. Shane Gillis, not a Kill Tony creation but certainly in its orbit, jacked up the ratings in his appearances on the program in recent years. It made sense to snatch someone from that same world of comedians who pull a crowd without the benefit of television or mainstream media attention. (RELATED: Shane Gillis Made SNL About Funny — And Progressives Hate Him for It)
Johnny Carson once acted as the gatekeeper for stand-up comedians. And Lorne Michaels once mined improvisational talent from The Groundlings and Second City. (RELATED: Politically Incorrect Comedy Still Survives)
Patterson gained a following through a more democratic venue: YouTube.
Kill Tony, a sort of samizdat showcase for comedians without filter, paradoxically gained popularity as cancel culture gained power. Tony Hinchcliffe, who you may recall from jokes about Puerto Rico being a garbage dump and immigrants eating cats at a Trump rally last fall, randomly (supposedly) picks from a pool of aspiring comedians. The rules give them about a minute to “kill” — i.e., induce hysterical laughter — Tony. (RELATED: In Defense of Tony Hinchcliffe)
Most fail to do so in this Gong Show meets American Idol meets Make Me Laugh internet phenomenon. And laughs, if not the intentional ones sought by the wannabes, often greet the failures, too. Patterson — and Ari Matti, Fiona Cauley, and David Lucas, to name a few — succeeded. Every few weeks, some unknown comic becomes as famous as the Unknown Comic.
Anything goes. Whites joke about Asians. Asians joke about blacks. A handicapped guy jokes about Big Bird. And this Belgian guy jokes about himself.
Audiences flock to all that and not the bowling-bumpers-up, boring comedy of late-night television. And now, finally, Saturday Night Live acknowledges that audiences increasingly flock to — shhhh — Kill Tony for laughs.
SNL infamously fired Shane Gillis for past edgy humor before he ever appeared on the program. He became more successful than anyone on the show in recent years. Although cops in the United Kingdom recently detained comedian Graham Linehan for trans tweets, that cancel-culture, hall-monitor mentality no longer prevails in the United States. So, SNL did not hire Patterson to fire Patterson. But it occasionally buries very funny people (Gilbert Gottfried and Sarah Silverman come to mind) by limiting their time in sketches.
That would be stupid to do to Patterson. But so much that makes it to air on SNL is stupid and politically motivated. A new audience likely joins the dwindling one to watch Patterson. If they Gilbert Gottfried Kam Patterson, then that new audience soon dwindles, too.
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