I have a huge love for comedies, especially sketch comedies. Saturday Night Live (and MadTV, yes… I was a MadTV fan) has been a favorite of mine for as long as I can remember liking sketch comedies on television.

I don’t think I’m alone in saying this: Saturday Night Live has become less funny and relevant. The more talented and experienced cast members have moved on to other shows and movies, and the new members that have joined haven’t really proved themselves yet. I do enjoy the political sketches (which is why I watch The Daily Show religiously), but the rest of the show could just be replaced with Digital Shorts. But even the Digital Shorts are becoming hit-or-miss, with the majority of them being misses.

Even with these mixed feelings, I watch pretty regularly. On some weeks, I’ve seen them via an actual television (which let me see the f-bomb droppage in real time), but mostly I’ve caught them on Hulu.

As I’m writing this, I’m watching “SNL Presents: A Very Gilly Christmas” which aired this past Thursday in place of NBC’s comedy lineup. Gilly, a recurring character played by the talented Kristen Wiig, serves as a transition between the some of the better holiday sketches put on by SNL. (I really don’t like this recurring character, by the way.)

One of the main reasons I keep watching is the hope that the show will actually get better… Maybe even return to the good ol’ days when the show was hilarious from start to end.

But maybe this wasn’t the case. I wasn’t alive when SNL started, when the cast members were called “Not Ready for Prime-Time Players.” Really, the great sketches that I’ve come to love and respect have been passed through many filters of producers and critics. Maybe if I actually saw them all I would feel differently about the good ol’ days.

Nostalgia is such a strong force. And actually, I feel it already with the early 20th season of SNL, when I got introduced to the show back in middle school. It was around the time when I finally felt comfortable with the English language, as well as started to dive deeper into the American experience.

Oh those days… so much to write on those days…