I'm watching the Saturday Night Live season two boxed set on DVD, since I still don't have cable that works (which is more painful than I thought it would be), and I had really forgotten how absolutely brilliant Gilda Radner and Bill Murray were. Gilda was iconic - every character (Emily Litella, Baba Wawa, etc.) was thoroughly drawn and clean and hilarious. I saw a sketch in the Candace Bergen episode where she advocates for "extremely stupid people," and Candace starting breaking up within about a minute; Gilda just kept going, adapting her lines to what she had to say. It was beautiful. She deserved a far bigger career than she got; she should have done movies and TV shows and books and whatever. Why Hollywood didn't clamor for her, I really don't know. She was a real gem. Maybe she was TOO talented. That happens. Look at Andy Kaufman (who I'm watching right now), and many others. If you're mild and tame (see Tom Hanks), you make millions; if you have a wild, untamable talent, you can't get a job.

Bill Murray, on the other hand, has had a stellar career, from Caddyshack to Lost in Translation and beyond. But, on SNL, he was everything - he played such a variety of characters it was dizzying. He was a true comic talent (and still is), just showing off what he could do for the first time. Even in a bit part he could steal the stage.

Where are today's Gilda Radners and Bill Murrays? Today we get Dane Cook and a bunch of other "comics" who know nothing about improv, and nothing about acting, and everything about being a celebrity. I'm so tired of celebrities...I want to see somebody with TALENT. We're in danger, I think, of losing American Humor to people who know nothing about it, but who know how to walk a red carpet. Where are the Woody Allens? The Johnny Carsons? Some may say it's an evolution. Sorry; in this case Darwin is wrong. It's a Devolution. We're making a move back to dumbass humor, and that's not a good thing. How many films have you really laughed at lately? We are letting humor become less of an art and more of an assembly line jokefest. It's sad.

I love American humor. It is a unique art form. But we have let it sink into a miasma of jokes and goofiness. When do we get our intelligence back?