Obligatory #SNL50 Post

If “Saturday Night Live” is to continue, I think some changes might be in order

From 1976, after Bill Murray had replaced Chevy Chase. Clockwise from top left: Jane Curtin, John Belushi, Gilda Radner, Laraine Newman, Dan Aykroyd, Bill Murray, Garrett Morris.

Let’s get this out of the way first: Complaining about “Saturday Night Live” is a national pastime. Everyone believes the show was at its peak in that person’s teens or 20s, whenever they first started watching it, and that it is now crap. Everyone.

The fact is, even the first five years had hits and misses, good sketches and bad ones. Often, we revisit older seasons through edited-down 60-minute reruns from which the dud sketches have been removed. We also tend to remember the good sketches from the glory years and forget the bad ones, so when we see a new episode — which has both good and bad sketches — it’s always going to come up short.

Also, SNL is aimed at younger viewers. If, like me, you are 62 years old, a new episode of “Saturday Night Live” is going to make cultural references you don’t get. There will be times you have no idea who the host is, and times when you’ve never even heard of the musical guest. You’re old. I’m old. Get over it.

Now that we have that taken care of, “Saturday Night Live” celebrates its 50th anniversary year this weekend with a huge star-studded special. There were rumors a while back that the show’s co-creator and executive producer, Lorne Michaels, would retire…