Proof Of Mencken's Deathless Dictum

The NBC TV comedy sketch show Saturday Night Live (SNL) had its first airing in 1975 as America's response to the BBC's transcendent comedy sketch show Monty Python's Flying Circus (and we use the term transcendent advisedly; once exposed to the world as seen through the eyes of the Pythons one could then never see the real world in the same way ever again) which aired on the BBC from 1969 through 1974 and was first aired in the U.S. on PBS in 1974.

Even at its very best — namely, its first two or three seasons — SNL never achieved the heights and the penetrating depth of the Python show, and after SNL's third season it declined rapidly into the crude, simpleminded American TV comedy show it remains to this day. To our way of thinking, no American TV show in history that survived beyond its initial few seasons has ever been better proof of Mencken's deathless dictum that "nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public." Witness, for instance, this SNL take on last week's first presidential debate:

Q.E.D.