Michaels’ cloud

Saturday Night Live” creator Lorne Michaels picked up the seventh annual Mark Twain Prize for American Humor at the Kennedy Center on Monday, but the buzz “SNL” created when singer Ashlee Simpson left the stage midsong Saturday threatens to overshadow the honor.

The singer’s father, Joe Simpson, claims his daughter was suffering from acid reflux that night and needed a backing track to smooth out her scratchy voice. Miss Simpson, meanwhile, took her own stab at damage control Monday evening by jokingly pretending to have begun the wrong song during her performance on NBC’s Radio Music Awards telecast.

Yet “SNL” alumnus David Spade said he was “surprised” by Miss Simpson’s vocal malfunction.

“When I was there, everyone had to be live,” Mr. Spade said at the Kennedy Center ceremony. “It scared off some groups.”

The caustic comic declined to give Miss Simpson a pass.

“There’s something fishy going on whenever you walk off the stage,” he said. “It’s like Scott Peterson dyeing his hair [before police accused him in the murder of his wife, Laci Peterson].”

The man of the hour, Mr. Michaels, gingerly told reporters before the program that the backing track going off unexpectedly “disoriented everyone.”

A seasoned performer would have had the presence of mind to carry on, Mr. Michaels said, but Miss Simpson is all of 20 years old.

In an interview with Associated Press Radio, he said this wasn’t the first time an act used backing vocals on the show.

“Saturday Night Live,” the 59-year-old honoree would later say in his acceptance speech, “is stuck in adolescence,” a time when defying authority comes naturally.

But is a show rooted in counterculture comedy now following the safe, least common denominator path toward slickly packaged performers? And was Miss Simpson the first singer to use backing vocals — or just the first to get caught?

“SNL” began in 1975 as an antidote to tightly scripted, conventional comedy. It broke social taboos, alarming censors and delighting its youthful demographic.

Revelations that the show coddles its musical guests could tarnish that legacy much more than a bad cast or weak season ever could.

Monday’s KenCen presentation did everything it could to remind us of “SNL’s” glory days.

The program, scheduled for broadcast on PBS early next year, packed plenty of vintage “SNL” bits as well as a few clunkers — a fair reflection of the show as a whole.

How quickly we’ve forgotten how strikingly funny Dana Carvey was both as President George H.W. Bush and Ross Perot, and how unnecessary to revisit the “cheeseburgah, cheeseburgah” sketch.

Still, few could complain after seeing Steve Martin, Paul Simon and Christopher Walken offer their salutations to the guest of honor.

What an enormous impact “SNL” has had on our comedy culture. The Church Lady. Hanz and Franz, whose “girly men” tag line even popped up again in the current presidential campaign. Mr. Robinson’s Neighborhood. The Blues Brothers. SNL has injected more recognizable comic figures and memorable buzz phrases into the pop cultural bloodstream than any show before or since.

Mr. Simon, a frequent SNL host and performer over time, sang “Still Crazy After All These Years” — a choice that gained ironic resonance from the imbroglio surrounding Miss Simpson.

The program’s biggest treat came with a series of screen tests of the show’s original Not Ready for Prime Time Players. The montage showcased the endearingly raw talents of Gilda Radner, John Belushi and Jane Curtin before they became household names.

Mr. Michaels himself isn’t very funny, at least not during his various appearances on “SNL,” but he proved a gentleman Monday evening when he invited the current cast onstage at the program’s end for a final, collective bow.

Those “SNL” closings always come off as casual, unscripted and real.

Let’s hope for the show’s sake that its musical guests don’t betray that spirit.