Parenting & Family Quote by Rachel Dratch

There’s a sly honesty in the way Rachel Dratch frames Saturday Night Live: not as a sacred institution, but as a messy trophy from childhood. The line “it’s not always great” punctures the fan mythology around SNL with the kind of casual deflation comedians love - a small jab that reads like affection precisely because it refuses to flatter. She’s acknowledging what viewers already know: the show is uneven by design, a weekly live-wire that regularly misfires. Saying it out loud is a quiet flex of credibility.

The real payload is “this leftover childhood dream.” “Leftover” makes ambition sound almost accidental, like something you find in the back of the fridge and realize you still want. It’s a deft way to admit longing without turning it into a grand narrative of destiny. Dratch is also smuggling in a generational truth about comedy careers: you can work your way into the biggest room and still carry the kid who watched from the couch, believing that room was the whole point.

Context matters here because SNL is both a workplace and a cultural stamp. To “be on SNL” isn’t merely a job; it’s entry into a national memory bank of sketches, catchphrases, and alumni lore. Dratch’s phrasing suggests the dream survives even after the reality shows its seams. That tension - between the imperfect machine and the perfect hope you once attached to it - is what gives the quote its bite and its tenderness.