Michael Keaton hosted Saturday Night Live this week and in his monologue he mentions that his new film, Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, is out in theatres.

The theatrical film business being what it is – you might not know this.  But suffice it to say it is the sequel to what else – the 1980s megahit where he reprises his ghostly title role because, well, why not?  For once it makes sense and shouldn’t at all be seen like a cash grab.  If only because ghosts in heavy white makeup can believably go 35 years without showing their age. 

Especially if they remain as funny, trim and committed to playing a character and, thus, earning a laugh, as he is.

Keaton’s always been a really great actor – equally outstanding and believable in the broadest comedy and darkest drama (Note: On the latter score, rent the film he just directed and stars in, Knox Goes Away, on Amazon and you’ll see just how talented he really is.  Or watch his recent Emmy-winning turn in the terrific Hulu miniseries, Dopesick (2021) ).

It’s worth noting we’re sort of running out of these type of movie star/actors. 

The kind that maintain a career over forty years and whose work in iconic roles span multiple generations.  The self-deprecating stay-at-home dad from Mr. Mom,  the first and second modern-day, darkly tortured Batman, the crazed or not-crazed, depending on your POV, actor/bird in Birdman, even the straight down the middle newspaper editor in his other Best Picture Oscar-winning, Spotlight.

Still, there’s something about Beetlejuice that was evident on Saturday night.  Keaton’s opening wasn’t merely a cheap promo for his new movie, but rather a moment that gave an opportunity for 2024 SNL cast member Mikey Day and former SNL cast member Andy Samberg (2005-2012) to both come out in the heavy white makeup, dressed in the bold white and black striped suit and wearing the crazy green wig, doing their best Beetlejuice doppelgangers. 

For the comics, who were aged 10 and 12, respectively, when the film came out, it looked like a fantasy come to life, and they couldn’t curtail their enthusiasm for getting to dress up as one of their childhood touchstones next to the guy who created/IS him. 

To that end, they confessed the tribute was really designed to goad him into once again at least doing the Beetlejuice voice, which the slightly embarrassed Keaton finally does, sort of, by the end of the bit.

The same way Jennifer Anniston did when former SNL cast member Vanessa Bayer did her Rachel from Friends bit in 2016.

The same way Nicholas Cage appeared to be when Samberg did his overwrought Cage persona on SNL in 2012.

The same way Jerry Seinfeld couldn’t help doing when then SNL’s Jimmy Fallon did his sing-song Seinfeld star/character in 1999 and…

The same way Joe Coker performed alongside one of SNL’s original Not Ready For Prime Time Players, John Belushi, when the latter sang as an impeccable, soundalike/lookalike Joe Cocker in 1976.

Which is to say nothing of all the real-life politico drop-ins.

There is a new four-part MSNBC documentary entitled My Generation running on consecutive Saturday nights covering the baby boomers (born 1946-64), Generation X (born 1965-1981), millennials (born 1981-1996), and Gen Z (born after 1997). The promo material states the eight-hour series “will document the iconic events, people, and media that shaped each generation” and describes it as “a dose of nostalgia for those who lived through these times and a primer for those who did not.”

I guess.

But I watched some of them and couldn’t help wondering — who makes up these categories anyway? 

I can tell you as a baby boomer that there is a huge generational difference between those born in 1946, 1955 and 1963.  For instance, in 1948, only 1% of U.S. households owned a….TELEVISION.

It wasn’t until 1957 that the first passenger jets were in use.  And in 1964, The Beatles made their first stateside appearance on television, mere months after Pres. John F. Kennedy was assassinated.

I’m old enough to vaguely remember the debut of The Beatles but a world where almost no one had a TV or flew on a big airplane, well, that’s a product of someone else’s generation.

Still, I do get I’m kind of old.   Which, if you get to be the age of any baby boomer, you will realize is really a privilege.

At least that’s what one old person told me some years ago.

This is all to say that if you really want to reflect on generational differences, just go to nbc.com or YouTube and watch a bunch of SNL clips through the years.  That will take you to what once was and you will also appreciate the passage of time AND get a few chuckles, or at least a couple of nostalgic, Oh my Gods, in the process.

To that end –-  shameless self-promotion – VERY shameless – you can get a copy of: The SNL Companion: An Unofficial Guide to the Seasons, Sketches, and Stars of Saturday Night Live on Amazon.  Here’s the link: https://a.co/d/888Dhde

I wrote it, along with my better half, Stephen Tropiano, and, along with a bunch of fun history, quips and pithy historical observations, it has an episode guide where you can pick and choose your pleasure or…poison. 

What you will fondly relive and remember or what you will skip over, ignore or forever choose to deny.

Mere documentaries do not allow you to make that choice.

SNL Michael Keaton Monologue (10/19/24)