Could Comedy Central's Sketch Shows Threaten Saturday Night Live?

It is a truth universally acknowledged that Saturday Night Live will occupy its berth at 11:30 PM Saturday nights until Lorne Michaels retires and/or dies, NBC ceases to exist as a network, or the heat death of the universe, whichever comes first. MadTV attempted to challenge SNL's supremacy, on Fox, at 11 PM on Saturdays, for several years, but it never really managed to get the same kind of buzz (and died before the advent of online video, which might have helped to buoy it). But if Comedy Central wanted to try facing off against SNL on its own time-slot turf...I think, maybe, it could mount a pretty serious challenge.

There was a time, not that long ago, when the majority of Comedy Central's original programming was cheap, tacky, forgettable, one-season garbage like Secret Girlfriend, I'm With Busey, and Kröd Mändoon And The Flaming Sword Of Fire (the last of which was admittedly a BBC Two co-production, but my point stands), with South Park and The Daily Show the only islands of quality. But in the past couple of years, Comedy Central has apparently decided to quit fucking around and gone hard after both stand-up (including hour-long specials this year from Kumail "Writing A Movie For Judd Apatow" Nanjiani, Pete "About To Host A Talk Show After Conan" Holmes, and Chris "Everywhere" Hardwick, among many others, plus John Oliver's New York Stand-Up Show), and sketch, with Key & Peele, Kroll Show, and quasi-sketch series Drunk History.*

All of these shows are great, and if you haven't been watching them, you need to start. It's easy to get on board with Key & Peele -- it just came back last night with a tremendously strong episode that featured two instant-classic sketches (the way-too-excited nonverbal rap-battle hype man and the Les Misérables parody "One At A Time") -- and the other two are also available online and have only aired one season each so far, so treat yourself. In a way, it's not fair to compare them to SNL side by side, because Comedy Central's sketch shows have advantages SNL does not. One is that CC's sketch shows aren't live, so a whole season could potentially be written in advance of shooting in order to take more time with each sketch, by which I mean cut the fat and give it a satisfying closer. Another is that they're each only half an hour long, so producers can be more discerning with what gets into a rundown and what doesn't. Thirdly, there's no expectation that any given episode is required to spoof very recent current events (er, this is particularly true in the case of Drunk History), so that when one of CC's shows does address something in the news, the response can be more clever and nuanced than the average SNL cold open. I'm thinking in particular of the very understated hoodie sketch in last night's Key & Peele, or this parody commercial for "Chikk Club."

WHAT IF, instead of airing these sketch shows at 10 or 10:30 PM during the week, Comedy Central stuck them back to back in a ninety-minute block on Saturday nights, directly opposite SNL? For the record, I am not a knee-jerk SNL detractor -- I still watch every episode -- but if the choice came down to watching it or CC's sketch shows live, there would be no hesitation on my part; SNL can wait. We all know that any given SNL episode is loaded with filler, from the filmed commercial parodies they sometimes reuse to the musical guests, always a waste of my time, even when I like (recognize) the artist/band, which happens less and less because I'm old. Kroll Show, Drunk History, and Key & Peele are unmissable the whole way through.

I know it sounds radical. But people doubted Fox when it put The Simpsons on opposite The Cosby Show, and a season later, The Cosby Show was gone. SNL is a show today's kids' grandparents watched; Key & Peele is now. (Drunk History is yesterday, true, but at least it's drunk.) It would be a bold move on Comedy Central's part, but the network could hedge it by re-airing the shows in their current primetime slots -- something that would be a lot harder for NBC to get away with on a weekly basis.

It's not that I want SNL to end, necessarily. But it would be good for the show if something came along to challenge its supremacy, and maybe this crazy-ass idea is it. I am NOT a crackpot.

*Lately I have heard good things about Inside Amy Schumer, and though I bailed after the pilot, it's on my radar for weekend catch-up, I promise.