Draft talk:History of Saturday Night Live

Useful sources and such

Miller, James Andrew; Shales, Tom (6 October 2015). Live From New York: The Complete, Uncensored History of Saturday Night Live as Told by Its Stars, Writers, and Guests (2 ed.). Back Bay Books. ISBN 978-0-316-29506-2. LCCN 2014943177.
Whalley, Jim (21 July 2010). Saturday Night Live, Hollywood Comedy, and American Culture: From Chevy Chase to Tina Fey. Palgrave Macmillan US. ISBN 978-0-230-10358-0.
Kaplan, Arie (2014-08-01). Saturday Night Live: Shaping TV Comedy and American Culture. Twenty-First Century Books. ISBN 978-1-4677-4795-0. Archived from the original on April 12, 2023. Retrieved March 9, 2023. (I consider this less valuable than the upper sources, but it might be useful.)
Adding more later, but this list may have some useful stuff.

There is also an upcoming movie and a few more documentaries in store for SNL50, though I'd prefer not to use the movie directly but as a frame of reference. Would recommend using WP:SFN for the books and research because some sources may be used repeatedly. Spinixster (trout me!) 10:08, 21 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Searching through Google Scholar and WP:TWL may also return more sources, especially older ones. Spinixster (trout me!) 10:22, 21 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for that, Spinixster. I don't usually use Sfn but it seems apparent it's the cleaner way to go here so I'm happy to go with it and I'll change the rest of the sources back. I am basically just polishing and refining what's there before adding significant amounts of new content -- for example I'd like to do a full section about the 9/11 attacks using a great Rolling Stone source in the article, and possibly fuller sections on political campaigns. Most of the article is currently very reliant on the Shales and Miller book -- understandable since it's basically the definitive source on SNL -- but I'm also trying to find additional sources so the article isn't so reliant on one source. I'm also thinking about potential ways to segment the article that don't border on WP:OR. I was thinking maybe the Internet era (2005-2020, starting with the Lonely Island) and the Covid era (since 2020), although that's not perfect. Still trying stuff out. StewdioMACK (talk) 10:43, 21 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I think once we add enough information, it's easier to find what should be split. There are unsurprisingly less scholarly sources for the recent years, so I think we might have to use normal news ones. Spinixster (trout me!) 13:05, 21 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed. Just published a major edit. Putting some more interesting sources here I plan to incorporate:

StewdioMACK (talk) 17:31, 21 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

This might be just my own concern, but I think that this article should only cover things about the history of Saturday Night Live directly, and the prose should also be succinct. Detailed information about certain sketches or events may be better in the main article or somewhere else. (WP:FANCRUFT, and possibly WP:TOOBIG) Also watch out for WP:WTW. Just needed to put this here in case someone questions any of my cuts of content. Spinixster (trout me!) 10:07, 22 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I reviewed your chop and agree with your cuts. I was about to say that Lonely Island's returns in 2013 and 2018 should be mentioned, but changed my mind because it's in the parent Lonely Island article anyway. I also moved the future section out to main article as you probably saw. StewdioMACK (talk) 10:18, 22 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Actually I'm still undecided on whether to keep that one sentence mentioning that they returned or not -- I'll revisit it at another point. I gotta step away for a bit. Thank you for your review/edits. StewdioMACK (talk) 10:31, 22 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I think it's probably not needed to mention; after all, we don't mention every single former cast member who has come back to host, and that information would probably be best kept at the article about the group. Spinixster (trout me!) 10:38, 22 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

You're probably right. Do you happen to have a copy of the Shales 2015 book to verify page numbers? I have a digital version but it doesn't have the actual page numbers so I'm kind of stuck at the moment. StewdioMACK (talk) 08:40, 23 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

There is one on Archive.org which I often use but it has limited pages, so if you want to go in other directions... Spinixster (trout me!) 08:49, 23 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]