When people say that something isn't quite right about this season of Saturday Night Live, whether or not they know it, they're saying that they miss Will Forte.
While it's true that Forte was far from the only member of the cast and writing staff to leave SNL over the summer, his departure left a void that the show has yet to fill several episodes into its 36th season...
But in his last few years on SNL, Forte provided a necessary counterbalance to almost every live episode by bringing that one element that SNL always has needed: the wildcard...
Forte was more the "weird and crazy" type. The guy whom you could count on to prove why late-night TV is different from primetime TV. The guy who brought a sense of danger, although based in just enough silliness as to not be scary...
MacGruber was always good for a laugh... because in those short sketches on SNL, there was just enough time for Forte to say something highly inappropriate before the explosion.
Forte also could be equally creepy as Hamilton, the guy who showed up to woo celebrities, or as a pedophile using Halloween as a cover for trick-or-treating. He could be just as equally weird as Sen. Tim Calhoun, a masked man getting pummeled by things as the "Closet Organizer," an office worker shouting "Fart Face!", singing about Model-T cars and spaceships with Wiig, or a NASA scientist arguing over a potato chip with Jason Sudeikis.
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http://www.thecomicscomic.com/2010/12/appreciating-will-forte-snls-missing-ingredient.html
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I think all that is true, but I always laughed more at Jason Sudeikis when Will and Jason teamed up, and Will mostly just played an everyday man in his skits. However, Will's Weekend Update songs, MacGruber, his dancing coach skits, the Chips skit above, him playing a bad guy in an old Drew Barrymore monologue, and him playing a young Jack Black at a spelling bee all made me laugh out loud. But more often than not I didn't find him funny.
However, Jason's definitely going to need to team up with others more (or do more original, single characters) to fill the void of Will's absence.
What do you think?
Enjoy!