Saturday Night Live is way more fun if you watch it like a sport

Vulture

"Comedy isn’t a sport, but you sure can follow Saturday Night Live as if it were. And doing so will make you enjoy it so much more," says Jesse David Fox. "You’re probably drawing the parallels already. Each sketch is an inning, quarter, or period in a game. Each episode is a game in a season. Season and season are the same word. The cast members (and the writers) are the players on a team, each with a different skill set and talent level. Lorne Michaels is like a fusion of a coach, general manager, and commissioner. It’s easiest if you don’t get wrapped up trying to apply the idea to one specific game and instead just think of it as its own abstract hybrid of a team/individual sport." Fox adds: "Especially when you watch Saturday Night Live live, a given sketch similarly operates through anticipation, resolution, and occasional surprise. SNL, like sports, has extra oomph in the 'don’t know what will happen next' category, because it literally hasn’t happened yet. For SNL, this means watching a sketch as both a piece of comedy and feat of human performance."

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