‘SNL’ legend Kevin Nealon explains the big change in comedy over last 50 years

Legendary comedian and actor Kevin Nealon performed on “Saturday Night Live” for almost a decade, acting in some of the series’ most iconic sketches. After 40 years in the business, he recently spoke with Fox News Digital about the current state of stand-up comedy and where he feels the industry is headed.

Though the medium has evolved into something bigger than ever before, Nealon described the attention spans of modern comedy audiences as much shorter — something that those involved in the business of humor have had to cater to.

“When I started comedy, it was totally different. And it was a totally different time and generation. And it was not as much short attention span. Like, I look back at some of the sketches on ‘SNL,’ and they’re a lot longer than they are now because of the short attention span, and a lot of people don’t watch ‘SNL’ at that time. They watch it on YouTube, snippets of it,” said the comedian, pointing to social media as something that’s gotten hundreds of millions of people accustomed to consuming content in short clips and blurbs.

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Aside from proliferating the shortening of attention spans, social media has also provided up-and-coming comedians with an opportunity to reach audiences on a scale that would be nearly impossible otherwise.

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“People want little snippets now. They want more and more and more as quickly as possible. It’s like a buffet. You know, you don’t take that, take that, take that. And yeah, I think without social media, these comics wouldn’t be known. They wouldn’t be selling out arenas, and so I think social media has been a big part of the growing numbers of comedians and people enjoying comedy and having that accessibility to it.”

The quality of the comedy has also deteriorated, according to Nealon, with many stand-ups forgoing the typical set-ups and punchlines, and opting to air their personal grievances instead.

“I think, also, comedy may have gotten a little more snarky or, you know, as far as that goes. And it seems like it’s not as well crafted anymore. Like, if you’re doing stand-up comedy, it’s more venting and attitude instead of, you know, set-up, punchline, you know, like that,” claimed Nealon.

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Another recent phenomenon within stand-up comedy has been the popularization of “crowd work” material, where comedians interact with members of the audience to elicit funny reactions and anecdotes. Nealon said he feels that this trend has become popular among comedians because it allows them to get hilarious snippets for social media, while not revealing or releasing any material for their upcoming specials.

“Well, the reason they’re posting them is because they don’t want to eat up their material for their next special. And people like, I mean… I’ve even started doing that to catch on to the trends,” said Nealon, adding, “I think spontaneity is really the funniest thing I could be doing [in] my act, stand-up, and if I do some crowd work for laughs, I notice they’re much more powerful than anything I had planned or written because it is happening in the moment.”

Nealon also touched on the subjectivity of stand-up comedy, noting that just because a comedian is selling out arenas doesn’t necessarily mean that you’ll find them funny, even if many others do.

“You know, comedy is subjective. And I remember somebody asking me, ‘Hey, is so-and-so, do you think someone’s always funny?’ I said, well, they’re, you know, for selling out shows. I don’t particularly like them, but I don’t think they’re funny. But obviously other people think they’re funny. So is that person funny to them? Yeah, but not to me,” said Nealon.

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