Legendary comedian and actor Kevin Nealon performed on "Saturday Night Live" for almost a decade, acting in some of the series' most iconic sketches. After 40 years in the business, he recently spoke with Fox News Digital about the current state of stand-up comedy and where he feels the industry is headed. Though the medium has evolved into something bigger than ever before, Nealon described the attention spans of modern comedy audiences as much shorter -- something that those involved in the business of humor have had to cater to. "When I started comedy, it was totally different. And it was a totally different time and generation. And it was not as much short attention span. Like, I look back at some of the sketches on'SNL,' and they're a lot longer than they are now because of the short attention span, and a lot of people don't watch'SNL' at that time. They watch it on YouTube, snippets of it," said the comedian, pointing to social media as something that's gotten hundreds of millions of people accustomed to consuming content in short clips and blurbs.

The season finale of "Saturday Night Live" went out with a bang last night, featuring its traditional joke swap segment on "Weekend Update." Hosts Colin Jost and Michael Che were forced to read jokes written by the other, making for some uncomfortable moments. A little ways into the segment, Jost uttered an, "Oh God," after realizing he'd have to take a crack at his wife, Scarlett Johansson. "ChatGPT has released a new voice assistant feature inspired by Scarlett Johansson's AI character in'Her,' which I've never bothered to watch because without that body, what's the point of listening," Jost said, much to his embarrassment. Colin Jost was forced to make a joke about his wife Scarlett Johanssons body during the "Weekend Update" segment of "Saturday Night Live." (SNL YouTube) The 2013 flick stars Joaquin Phoenix as a man who falls in love with his AI device, Samantha, played by Johansson.

After a long hiatus, "Saturday Night Live" returned with guest host Aubrey Plaza and musical guest Sam Smith. In the 10th episode of Season 48, the NBC sketch comedy show wasted no time in mocking congressman George Santos, the embattled New York Republican who for weeks has generated headlines over false statements about his background. The episode also featured cameos from President Joe Biden and former cast member Amy Poehler. Other cameos included actress Allison Williams, along with Jonathan and Drew Scott, otherwise known as the "Property Brothers," as well as skateboard legend Tony Hawk. German singer Kim Petras joined Smith in the first musical segment and actress Sharon Stone appeared in Smith's second performance.

Over the weekend, Elon Musk used the occasion of his Saturday Night Live opening monologue to announce that he has Asperger syndrome, a form of autism. Musk claimed to be making history as, "the first person with Asperger's to host--or at least the first to admit it." At Newsweek, opinion contributor Peter Fox described it as a "small but significant milestone in the history of neurodiversity." There aren't that many openly autistic writers out there, and we tend to know each other, so I want to be clear that I respect Peter deeply. However, I could not disagree with him more on the nature of this "milestone."

This week's episode of Saturday Night Live, hosted by Jason Bateman, featured two different kinds of sketches that felt inevitable the moment they aired. First there was the cold open, which became obligatory the moment that Melissa Carone did her uncanny Cecily Strong impersonation at a Michigan hearing about voter fraud, necessitating a Cecily Strong impersonation of Melissa Carone. But this week also featured "Stu," an instant-classic Christmas sketch, which felt inevitable and surprising, because it's a perfect synthesis of the cast members' individual interests and strengths. Everyone is cast perfectly here. Meanwhile, Pete Davidson has been making goofy comedy rap videos since lockdown started, to somewhat mixed results. In "Stu," though, he's in top form lyrically and has reached deep within himself to find aspects of his role--a mentally ill young man who enjoys rap music, video games, and impulsive tattoos--that he could somehow relate to events in his own life.

The news industry is more dependent upon search-engine generated traffic than ever these days, which means when Saturday Night Live invites Game of Thrones star Kit Harington to host Saturday Night Live the week before Game of Thrones returns with the final season of Game of Thrones, then that same Kit Harington appears in a Saturday Night Live Game of Thrones sketch about upcoming Game of Thrones spinoffs that includes cameos from Law & Order: Special Victims Unit stars Mariska Hargitay and Ice T, Slate is going to make sure you Game of Thrones fans searching for Game of Thrones news find out about it, even if the sketch doesn't include plot details and spoilers for Game of Thrones' last season, a list of everyone who dies in the Game of Thrones finale, or confirmation that the Night King wins the Game of Thrones. We don't care if you use abbreviations like GoT or SNL or spell it Gaem of Throns: The important thing is that you typed something into a search bar and landed on this page of the internet. While you try to figure out why Google thought you'd find "Stairway to Heaven easy solo tablature" here, on a website that would not typically publish "Stairway to Heaven easy solo tablature," and indeed, has still not published "Stairway to Heaven easy solo tablature," perhaps you'd enjoy watching a Saturday Night Live sketch about Game of Thrones: Any sketch that lets Kyle Mooney deploy his 1990s sitcom delivery is a winner, but obviously Hodor's House is the spinoff to watch, because how could the second episode live up to the pilot? But there's a lot to love here for fans of Game of Thrones, Saturday Night Live, Pee-wee's Playhouse, Kit Harington, Ice T, Mariska Hargitay, HBO, Daria, Arya, the Game of Thrones finale, Beck Bennett, Heidi Gardner, the final season of Game of Thrones, Cecily Strong, Game of Thrones, Kyle Mooney, Game of Thrones final season spoilers, Pete Davidson, Game of Thrones, Game of Thrones, or even Game of Thrones. The final season of Game of Thrones begins on April 14.

How do you know when a gadget has become part of the American cultural zeitgeist? When it gets its own Saturday Night Live routine, apparently. The comedy show ran a skit (US-only) on May 13th pitching the "Amazon Echo Silver," an imaginary smart speaker aimed at the "greatest generation." Not surprisingly, that means lots of stereotypical jokes about seniors: the Silver is extremely loud, repeats itself and will answer back if you say any name that sounds even vaguely like Alexa. Naturally, you can only order it with a check or money order.

Like many tech enthusiasts, I've been using a $180 Amazon Echo intelligent speaker at my home for a year or more. And, while I love using it for some things -- playing music and podcasts, setting timers, and re-ordering items from Amazon -- I've come to realize that, like Apple's Siri and all other virtual assistants, its Alexa voice-driven artificial intelligence system disappoints a lot. So I was excited to test Google Home, the $129 Echo competitor that puts the search giant's much-touted new Google Assistant intelligence technology inside a small, but powerful Echo-like speaker and microphone unit. Surely, I thought, after collecting all that info about the world (and about me) for years and years, Google would crush Amazon in the home-intelligence race. But after nearly a week of using two Google Home units in two different rooms, my conclusions are decidedly mixed.

"Saturday Night Live" kicked off its 42nd season, and all eyes were on Alec Baldwin as he played Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump for the first time. The show's cold open played off the first presidential debate and featured Kate McKinnon as Hillary Clinton and Michael Che as moderator Lester Holt. The sketch, which NBC had promoted earlier in the week, interspersed references from the candidates' real lives with the show's signature comedic zingers -- this time about Trump's taxes, Clinton's sometimes-impersonal demeanor and what some have called the general absurdity of this election. Near the beginning of the bit, McKinnon hobbles on stage, cane in hand and coughing. But once the cane gets stuck, she somersaults into a more invigorated state, a riff on recent concerns about the Democratic presidential nominee's health and a nod to the late Gene Wilder, whose Willy Wonka did the same move in the 1971 movie.

The presidential election campaign and Alex Baldwin's impersonation of Donald Trump gave the season premiere of NBC's "Saturday Night Live" a big ratings lift. Saturday's 42nd season kickoff averaged a 5.8 rating in the 64 overnight markets measured by Nielsen. The figure is 29% higher than the season premiere on Oct. 3, 2015. It was the highest overnight rating for an "SNL" season opener since Sept. 13, 2008, when Tina Fey brought her spot-on impersonation of then-vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin to the show. "SNL" pulled out the campaign stops this year with Baldwin as Trump and Kate McKinnon as Hillary Clinton in a parody of the first presidential debate last Monday (which averaged a record 84 million TV viewers).