AURORA — I agree completely with [Steve Johnson’s] overall assessment of “Saturday Night Live” (An “SNL” to make you wish you lived in Iowa,” Dec. 8). I appreciate the sacrifice that [he] must have made to watch it on Saturday (12/6/2003) and tell us about it.
I have to admit that the appearance of Al Sharpton tempted me to watch it for the first time in years. Your column told me all I needed to know about it without having to endure it again. I have consciously tried not to watch it because it is so consistently bad.
And yet, its excellence from the 1970s and early 1980s still draws me so much that occasionally I will tune in to see if the old thrill is back. It never is.
This distaste has also altered my movie-going and renting habits. I will absolutely not watch any movie that has in it anyone from “SNL” since 1984 (this allows me to see Eddie Murphy movies but I am reconsidering that having seen “The Haunted Mansion”).
Every so often, there is a grass roots movement to save a good television show from cancellation. I sometimes consider trying to start a grass-roots movement to get rid of “Saturday Night Live.”
Thanks for your views.
— Mark Ediger
A distorted view of sports
SCHAUMBURG — I don’t understand the squeezed, distorted TV picture. All manner of broadcasts run a banner across the bottom of the screen without doing that. Sure is irritating, but then it was SSN that started that (Schlox Sports Network).
And then there’s Tim Green, who thinks we want to know what he talked about earlier. “We talked earlier about the defense. Etc.” And he has to preface the explanation of a play with, “What happened there was. . . .”
Why not just tell us what happened there? Seems like he has to warm his mouth up before he says what’s on his mind. He’s a boon to the play-by-play on the radio.
— Chuck Stevenson
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