The Offical Saturday Night Live Thread

[Dr. Evil]

So why is Katy Perry not doing double duty?

 

[Gold Samurai]

The Jason Segal episode was very......decent

-The gross family with Paul Rudd cameo
-The undisturbed sleep commercial
-Andre the giant at an ice cream shop. I had a feeling Segal would bring back his Andre the giant impression from "I love you man"

 

[Hypestyle]

... when is Eddie Murphy going to host, now that he's okay with the show again..

 

[Dr. Evil]

Maya Rudolph.

 

[Havok83]

How great was last night's show? They definetly ended the year off on a good note. Fallon as host was genius and how awesome was it that many of his cast members from his season did cameos? Rachel Dretch, Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, Tracy Morgan, Horatio Sanz and Chris Kattan....I loved that cast! If only they were all still on.

 

[Pink Ranger]

Chris Kattan looked a bit messed up last night, somehow. Can't put my finger on it.

 

[RetroNaz]

Awesome episode! One of my favourites!

 

[TMC1982]

Ranking every "SNL" cast member, from worst to best
Nerve.com ranks 92 "Saturday Night Live" cast members, with Victoria Jackson rated as the very worst.

 

[Homer J. Fong]

Sweet, an arbitrary list to nitpick the crap out of! I'll start with this: Victoria wasn't great, but she wasn't that bad. She wasn't bad at all.

 

[Havok83]

Chris Kattan looked a bit messed up last night, somehow. Can't put my finger on it.

I noticed that. He didnt look like he wanted to be there. The others looked happy and it showed through with their comedy but he looked pissed for some reason and was going through the motions

 

[Pink Ranger]

Sweet, an arbitrary list to nitpick the crap out of! I'll start with this: Victoria wasn't great, but she wasn't that bad. She wasn't bad at all.

She's a disgusting human being (which is why she's the worst in that list) but on pure objective reasons there have been far more useless cast members in the show's history than her.

 

[PyroChamber]

I noticed that. He didnt look like he wanted to be there. The others looked happy and it showed through with their comedy but he looked pissed for some reason and was going through the motions

I thought the same thing, but with Tracy Morgan; considering that he didn't even do anything.

Also, I'm surprised they haven't gotten Robert Downey Jr. to guest host; I would just love for him to bring up the fact that he was a SNL cast member for a season.

 

[Drizzle]

Looking at that list, I first thought that Rob Schneider was ranked a bit too low, but then I realized I can't for the life of me remember any other characters he had on the show besides the "Makin' Copies" guy.

 

[Homer J. Fong]

She's a disgusting human being (which is why she's the worst in that list) but on pure objective reasons there have been far more useless cast members in the show's history than her.

Well, I won't necessarily argue with you, but yeah, I'm only considering her time on the show.

 

[Pink Ranger]

Looking at that list, I first thought that Rob Schneider was ranked a bit too low, but then I realized I can't for the life of me remember any other characters he had on the show besides the "Makin' Copies" guy.

I also liked his Sensitive Naked Guy and the Greek Gyro "Da Juice" Chef. He's annoying, but I didn't mind him.

 

[Max J Power]

Pretty good list on the whole. There wasn't anyone in the top 10 that didn't deserve to be there, although I'd have probably put Will Ferrell in the 6-10 range.

 

[HighFivingMF]

Their reason for putting Sandler so low was because there wasn't an Opera Man movie? At least half of the actors ahead of him have never had one of their characters adapted. Plus, Waterboy was just a renamed Canteen Boy.

 

[Gold Samurai]

I thought the same thing, but with Tracy Morgan; considering that he didn't even do anything.

Also, I'm surprised they haven't gotten Robert Downey Jr. to guest host; I would just love for him to bring up the fact that he was a SNL cast member for a season.

I thought it was funny that he stuck his head out when the camera focused on just Jimmy and Horatio.


And Robert downey Jr did host in the late 90's

 

[Havok83]

I almost didnt recognize Horatio. Man has he lost alot of weight

 

[Incrediblejeff]

I wonder if there was any awkwardness between Chris Kattan and Tracy Morgan.

 

[Dr. Evil]

Ranking every "SNL" cast member, from worst to best
Nerve.com ranks 92 "Saturday Night Live" cast members, with Victoria Jackson rated as the very worst.

Ellen Cleghorne ranked that low is the reason why I think the show hasn't had much success in the African American female cast department. In her four years, she had no memorable characters and yet there was opportunity for her to have played Oprah, Whoopi Goldberg, Whitney Houston, Diana Ross, Tina Turner or other African American females. Instead African American men (Keenan Thompson, Tracy Morgan) and a Mulatta (Maya Rudolph) have had to play African American women.

Also, some notes:

- Dennis Miller sans Facial hair always creeps me out.
- Chris Rock has been on SNL a few times since leaving the show. I think he would have been better off as an original cast member though of In Living Color and then have gone to Saturday Night Live. Instead it was the other way around (and probably the reason In Living Color hired him in the first place).
- I think Garrett Morris was ranked a bit too low.

 

[Homer J. Fong]

Ellen Cleghorne ranked that low is the reason why I think the show hasn't had much success in the African American female cast department. In her four years, she had no memorable characters and yet there was opportunity for her to have played Oprah, Whoopi Goldberg, Whitney Houston, Diana Ross, Tina Turner or other African American females. Instead African American men (Keenan Thompson, Tracy Morgan) and a Mulatta (Maya Rudolph) have had to play African American women.

She was definitely underserved; as was Chris Rock, as was Tim Meadows, as was Garrett Morris. The writers of the time(s) would say - have said - the same thing. I think Robert Smigel talked about that in the "SNL in the '90s" special. Anne Beatts talked about it in the "SNL in the '70s" special, in relation to Garrett. I will say, I think she had a couple of memorable characters; Queen Shenequa and Zoraida the NBC page weren't up there with the Coneheads or the Church Lady, but I like those characters. She did play Whoopi Goldberg a few times, and Tina Turner once, but she doesn't have much a list of impressions. She didn't not get black woman roles like Oprah or Whitney because the men were getting them, because at that time, it's not like they were giving Rock and Meadows drag parts. They did that stuff later. Still, every part for a black woman since Maya left has been played by Kenan, and if they do a parody of "The View" or "The Talk," there's inevitably an explanation that Sherri Sheperd or Holly Robinson Peete is on vacation or something.

 

[Pink Ranger]

SNL has had a terrible record dealing with minority cast members. It smells like the writing team's fault, when it's so consistent across different casts.

 

[Homer J. Fong]

Now that I've actually read that list and not just done a quick perusal, I have to - well, I don't have to, but I will - mention that it's not complete. I kind of hate to be this guy, and it's not a big deal, because these are minor participants in the SNL cast, all of them, but when you call your list complete and it's not, you invite this.

These people weren't included:
Tom Davis (featured player from '79-'80)
Al Franken (featured player from '79-'80, and then from '86-'95)
Don Novello (featured player from '79-'80, and then again from '85-'86)
Jim Downey (featured player from '79-'80)
Paul Shaffer (featured player from '79-'80)
Peter Aykroyd (featured player from '79-'80)
Brian Doyle Murray (featured player from '79-'80, and then again from '81-'82)
Tom Schiller (featured player from '79-'80)
Alan Zweibel (featured player from '79-'80)
Patrick Weathers (featured player from '80-'81)
Matthew Laurance (featured player from '80-'81)
Yvonne Hudson (featured player from '80-'81 - the first black woman in the SNL cast, by the way)
Laurie Metcalf (featured player on one episode in '81)
Emily Prager (featured player on one episode in '81)
Damon Wayans (featured player from '85-'86)
Dan Vitale (featured player for some episodes in the '85-'86 season)
A. Whitney Brown (featured player from '86-'91)
Ben Stiller (featured player on four episodes in '89)
Siobhan Fallon (featured player from '91-'92)
Robert Smigel (featured player from '91-'93)
Beth Cahill (featured player from '91-'92)
Jay Mohr (featured player from '93-'95)
Sarah Silverman (featured player from '93-'94)
Laura Kightlinger (featured player from '94-'95)
Fred Wolf (featured player from '95-'96)
Jerry Minor (featured player from '00-'01)
Dean Edwards (featured player from '01-'03)
Rob Riggle (featured player from '04-'05)
Casey Wilson (featured player from '08-'09)
Michaela Watkins (featured player from '08-'09)
Nasim Pedrad (hired in '09)
Jenny Slate (featured player from '09-'10)
Vanessa Bayer (hired in '10)
Jay Pharoah (hired in '10)
Taran Killam (hired in '10)
Paul Brittain (hired in '10)

I didn't realize it was that many, but I kept remembering more as I was typing that list. Now, Davis, Franken, Downey, Schiller, Zweibel, and Smigel are all famous as SNL writers, not so much as performers (although Franken had such a long tenure as a featured player and a hit character that starred in a movie, so that's a blatant oversight there), so maybe that's why they were left off? Pedrad, Bayer, Pharoah, Killam, and Brittain are all so new, I don't know how they'd rank, but Elliott and Moynihan were on the list....Laurie Metcalf and Emily Prager are interesting cases, because they were both hired by Dick Ebersol when he took over - his first show was on April 11, 1981, but there was a writers' strike after that, and so it ended up being the season finale. In that episode, Metcalf made just one appearance, in a "Weekend Update" piece, and Prager didn't appear at all, but she was credited. No wonder they were left off. Including George Coe, Michael O'Donoghue, and Morwenna Banks, but excluding Al Franken, Damon Wayans, and Jay Mohr? Come on, do a little more fact-checking before you throw around the word "complete."

ANyway, Julia Sweeney and Jimmy Fallon are too low, Pamela Stephenson and Michael McKean are too high, and it's good to see some love for Nora Dunn, Jan Hooks, Laraine Newman, and Ana Gasteyer. Thus concludes the portion of my life when I take a ranking of SNL cast members far too seriously.

 

[PyroChamber]

SNL has had a terrible record dealing with minority cast members. It smells like the writing team's fault, when it's so consistent across different casts.

I remember on the SNL 90s special one of the writers (I forget who) mentioned that they didn't really know how to write good material for the black cast members being that the writers mostly consist of "snarky sarcastic white guys".

I always remember this one sketch that was done in the 90s. Susan Dey was the host and the sketch involved the Partridge Family going against the Brady Bunch in a sing-off; all of a sudden at the end, Chris Rock appears dressed up like Dumb Donald from Fat Albert...the only problem was they had him talking like Mushmouth.