Donald Trump supporters really, really don’t like “Saturday Night Live.”
NBC’s variety show has faced threats of cancellation or Federal Communications Commission backlash since pretty much the first show aired in the mid-1970s. But angry complaints have accelerated since Donald Trump became president in 2016.
Not surprisingly, many of Trump’s supporters don’t approve of how their dear leader is displayed on TV, and they’ve been very quick to let the FCC know. Roughly 360 pages of anonymous grievances from “SNL” viewers dating back to 2017 have been published on Government Attic, thanks to FOIA requests. And wow, they’re a doozy.
One person writing in called “SNL” creator Lorne Michaels “Lauren Michaels,” which leaves us to wonder if he has a long-lost twin sister hidden from the public. The same person called “SNL” a “formerly enjoyable television show.”
Most are just mad that Trump and his cabinet were the butt of mean jokes, and called on the FCC to make “SNL” play nice. One person from Fate, Texas, thought Trump’s Secret Service should have been allowed to approve “SNL” scripts before they aired.
“The Comcast owned stations continue to malign President Trump and shows like SNL refer to assassination potential and that the President will not live more than two years (not stating why). These activities are not only uncivil toward our President, but border on treason and potentially inciting some unstable person to carry out these acts,” they said. “I think the Secret Service should visit the show’s writers to verify these offensive scripts and evaluate if the writers are promoting harm to the President. It is past time for this crap to stop. I will no longer watch or purchase any show or product associated with Comcast and their affiliates.”
We scanned them all and noted one of the most common objection beyond the anti-Trump content was related to the use of “goddamn” in particular.
It’s one of those curse words that’s got a history of being clean enough to use on TV without being censored, unlike more visceral obscenities like, well you know what they are. But some “SNL” viewers were mad that this word was used repeatedly over the years as, in their view, “God’s holy name was taken in vain.”
There was also a healthy dose of racist content from Trump’s MAGA crowd, especially people who thought Weekend Update anchor Michael Che using “cracker” to describe white people was equally as racist as someone using the n-word (which appears in multiple complaints). It’s definitely not, but angry messages that claimed a “racial slur” was being used on TV poured in anyway.
“Segment on Saturday Night Live referred to President of US as a ‘cracker’. This is a racist term to describe a white person and was said by a black anchor for show who continued to speak divisively,” a complainant from Montgomery, Ny. wrote in 2017.
One complainant explicitly asked “SNL” to publicly apologize for using “cracker” on TV, which, well they didn’t and pretty surely won’t.
Dave Chappelle didn’t sit well with many pro-Trump viewers. One person called his monologue a “hate crime” and we’re going to assume this person has never had experience directly dealing with an actual hate crime in their life.
Then, out of nowhere, there was an objection to “SNL” making fun of allergies. Yep, allergies.
“Saturday Night Live opening episode on Saturday Jan 25th, 2020. Scene was set up in Hell and Mr. Peanut was in Hell…one of his lines was that he was in Hell for knocking off a bunch of first graders,” a person from Sherburn, Minnesota, told the FCC.
They continued: “This is a serious matter and shouldn’t be used as a joke as every 3 minutes someone in America is sent to the ER due to allergies. I am being the voice of 32 million Americans with food allergies. My oldest kid is a first grader with air borne peanut allergy.”
Of course there were also few complaints about the “Superspreader Event” sketch from last October’s episode hosted by Chris Rock, where Ego Nwodim played a character interviewed on local news named Edith Puthie (if you’re confused by this one, just find a quiet spot and say it out loud).
“SNL took parody way too far into the realm of disgusting obscenity which shows at 8pm on the west coast on October 3, 2020, with use of innuendo names such as Edith Puthie and many other names which were not funny just gross,” a person from Beverly Hills said. “The names used were obscene, disgusting, and not funny. Please investigate and fine to deter such stupid and obscene content. I don’t want a response, I just want to report and for the FCC to do something!!”
Check out more of the wild, wacky and downright outraged filings here.
“SNL” will begin its 47th season this fall.
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