Breakdown - The Weird World of "Saturday Night Live" Movies

       Hey guys, Chuck here. And, it seems like, with a handful of exceptions, it's not been an easy road to adapt popular recurring sketches from Saturday Night Live to mediums outside of the weekly late night sketch comedy series. 

       Now, the two recurring sketches from Saturday Night Live that DID find success in movie form were, of course, The Blues Brothers, a recurring musical act on Saturday Night Live with John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd, and also Wayne's World, a sketch about two friends named Wayne Campbell and Garth Algar who host a weekly public access show called, oddly enough, Wayne's World. Both The Blues Brothers and Wayne's World would have two feature films each, with 1980's The Blues Brothers and 1998's Blues Brothers 2000 being films I have talked about in the past. However, I haven't yet discussed either 1992's Wayne's World or its 1993 sequel Wayne's World 2, but I find both to be pretty funny. 

       Unfortunately, most of the other Saturday Night Live movies out there tend to struggle at the box office, and rarely win over audiences. Now, like all things, comedy and humor are entirely subjective. So, what some may find humor in, others may think poorly of. And, that, sadly, is true of a majority of the movies that have been made from Saturday Night Live sketches, many of which were so bad, they were either pulled from theaters early or never saw a theatrical release. For instance, movies like It's Pat with Julia Sweeney, Ladies' Man with Tim Meadows, Superstar with Molly Shannon, and Stuart Saves His Family with Al Franken all suffered from being either unfunny or just straight up poorly made, with It's Pat being arguably the worst of them. 

       Now, there is a Saturday Night Live movie that simply has the disadvantage of coming too late to resonate with audiences. And, that would be the 1993 film Coneheads with Dan Aykroyd and Jane Curtin. That's not to say that the idea of bringing Coneheads to the big screen was a terrible idea, but it probably came a decade too late to resonate with anyone. Had it come out in, say, the early to mid 1980's, it might have been able to stand out, especially with those familiar with the characters. But, by 1993, most everyone probably forgot about the Coneheads to make it worth seeing the movie. 

       This leave just two other Saturday Night Live movies that are, let's just say, the least bad. Not as memorable as either the Blues Brothers or Wayne's World movies, but not completely unwatchable abominations that most of the others were. And, those two movies would be 1998's A Night at the Roxbury, based on the Roxbury Guys sketch with Will Ferrell and Chris Kattan, and 2010's MacGruber, based on the action-comedy sketch MacGruber with Will Forte and Kristen Wiig, who took over for Maya Rudolph. Now, I may go more in depth with these two movies at some point, but just know that they are, at least, moderately entertaining, especially when compared to the myriad of just awful Saturday Night Live movies. 

        Even more interesting isn't the Saturday Night Live movies that got made, but the ones that either almost got made or didn't make it past the concept stage. For instance, Mike Myers had been working on a script for a film featuring his character Dieter from the Saturday Night Live sketch Sprockets, but famously scrapped the film due to being unsatisfied with his own script, which led to a massive set of lawsuits from both Universal Pictures and Imagine Entertainment, and forced Mike to take on the title role of the live-action Cat in the Hat movie, which was initially set to star Tim Allen before he dropped out due to scheduling conflicts with The Santa Clause 2. Also, there have been rumors and rumblings about the potential for Adam Sandler to bring his character Opera Man to the big screen, but nothing has ever came of it thus far. 

        So, I think that the biggest takeaway here is that, when it comes to comedy and Saturday Night Live, many of the characters they've created work best in small doses, and rarely translate well to the big screen. While, as I said, movies like The Blues Brothers and Wayne's World  were able to find cinematic success, and both A Night at the Roxbury and MacGruber were, at least, mildly funny and entertaining, there's just a black hole of unfunny misfires that have come from the efforts to bring Saturday Night Live characters and sketches to the big screen. And, I think we can all appreciate that there are just some Saturday Night Live sketches that will never expand to the big screen. I mean, can you imagine an entire movie version of The Californians with Fred Armisen, Bill Hader, and Kristen Wiig? Or even an entire movie with Rachel Dratch as Debbie Downer? I don't think so. Although, the Saturday Night Live character of David S. Pumpkins did get an animated made-for-television Halloween special, but that's different. 

      Alright guys, this is Chuck signing off, and I'll see you in the next review. 

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