Fun
Frisky
Nostalgic
Intense
Adventurous
Choked Up
Curious
Romantic
Weird
Of all the great things about television, the greatest is that it’s on every single day. TV history is being made, day in and day out, in ways big and small. In an effort to better appreciate this history, we’re taking a look back, every day, at one particular TV milestone.
IMPORTANT DATE IN TV HISTORY: October 6, 2012
PROGRAM ORIGINALLY AIRED ON THIS DATE: Saturday Night Live, “Daniel Craig / Muse” (season 38, episode 3). [Stream on NBC.com.]
WHY IT’S IMPORTANT: Election years are historically good seasons for Saturday Night Live, which is the ray of hope that everybody on the current season must be holding onto. Back in 2012, SNL was undergoing a bit of a cast revamp, as Kristen Wiig and Andy Samberg had just left the previous May, having been replaced with newbies Cecily Strong, Aidy Bryant, and Tim Robinson. Two out of three ain’t bad! (And honestly, Tim Robinson doesn’t deserve our mockery; he’s been a writer for the show and is responsible for the wonderful Z-Shirt sketch.) Anyway, the 2012 Obama-Romney election was of great help as the show was ushering its newbies into the show. Cecily Strong, for example, made some great hay as The Girl You Wish You Hadn’t Started a Conversation With by (mis)using several election soundbites.
Strong is also the first face you see in the fake ad “Low Information Voters of America,” a faux non-partisan political ad from undecided voters who are so haughtily harder to please than the rubes who had already picked a side. These voters have some questions, and they want answers. Like, for starters, who is running in this election?
SNL is occasionally under fire for being more one-sided towards one candidate or another, but this particular sketch takes aim squarely at the voters themselves, particularly anybody who could possibly have still been undecided after months of endless campaigning. The self-importance of these ignoramuses cuts deep, particularly at modern political notions that the voters know best, and that undecided voters are most worthy of courtship.
