"Things have changed over the years, and technology moves on," Lee said. "When we first started 'SNL,' we didn't even have a fax machine, but now most everything is done on computers."
Lee explained how the photorealistic sets for the recent presidential debates could only have been done through computer printing, an asset that the show uses constantly today. Nonetheless, he laments the loss of the handmade artistry in the old "SNL" set designs.
"There was a time in the country when everyone painted billboards, and now computers print them," he said. "When you look at early shows in the backgrounds, we used a company in California that had really elegant painted backdrops, and they were actually kind of beautiful.
"They had a really interesting reality that is better, I think, in a way," he continued. "But now we just do everything on the computer."