You can usually tell how out-of-touch a conservative comedy “fan” is by how much stock they put in the opinions and comedy choices of Saturday Night Live. (See, for instance, Donald Trump’s general obsession with the show.) Although the long-running NBC sketch series tends to skew left-of-center in its political swipes, its overwhelming instinct is a sort of mainstream populism; the show is far more likely to hit Trump as a blowhard idiot with bad hair, after all, than it is to dig into his misogyny, fascist impulses, or tacit support for racist ideologies. (Also, while the series remains successful enough, in both a ratings and a critical sense, it hasn’t felt like a driving force in the political conversation for years.)
So when a conservative writer suggests that Republicans need their own SNL—and especially when the sample sketch ideas for it are as amusingly weird as the ones put forward in this recent thinkpiece by Townhall columnist Mike LaChance—to counter the one currently on the air, our natural instinct is to say: “Yes, please! We would love for this weird monstrosity to arrive on our TVs.”
First off, LaChance suggests that his hypothetical red state Lorne Michaels not beat around the bush: this potential Saturday Right Live would copy the existing show’s format and even its time slot entirely, directly competing with the original with a regular cast led by a weekly guest host and musical act. (Suggested hosts: Ann Coulter, Fox News’ Greg Gutfeld, and, of course, James Woods, with Kanye West and Kid Rock handling the music.)
The real pleasure here, though, is LaChance’s list of ideas for sketches, which takes a look at the constantly moving target of political and cultural comedy in modern America (something SNL struggles with all the time) and then does an about-180 and fires off in whatever random direction seems to have filtered into his brain. We’ve got gems like “Very Deep Thoughts With Joe Biden,” apparently combining a man who’s been out of public office for more than a year with a classic SNL bit that’s been off the air for 20. Or “The Social Justice Warriors,” in which college kids try to effect social change but “can’t get anywhere because they’re constantly at war with each other over pronouns.” (A joke that might be older than the vast majority of the real SNL’s target demographic.) Our favorite is his suggestion that the show hire Sarah Palin to impersonate Tina Fey for a sketch, which at least has the potential to be watchably weird as fuck. To quote LaChance: “The possibilities are endless.”
Dear Koch Brothers: Please make this bad TV show. We promise to watch!