Saturday Night Live TV Show • Page 350

I think a lot of the old guard like Jost have expressed their desire to move on. I think Kate's contract was supposed to be ending in 2019 and Pete and Jost have mentioned wanting to leave. I think COVID probably screwed a lot of that up because so many projects were put on pause or have stalled, so it's an easy choice to stick with this until it settles down.

It wouldn't surprise me that if they kept a couple of their tentpole cast members like Beck, Melissa, Edo and Heidi, subbed out others (Fineman for McKinnon, Lauren Holt for Aidy, Bowen for Kenan/Kyle), got some solid featured players and let the rest do what they want.

 

Pete has always felt like an outsider, like it seems he clearly has never really liked acting much, and the one thing he initially got attention for was basically just doing stand-up bits during WU. So it’s surprising he has stayed on this long in the first place

 

Has there been mass exoduses before? I would think a few people at the same time (Im thinking Sander, Spade, et al...)

 

Adam Sander

 

Checking things out - I had no idea Darrell Hammond is the announcer. I thought he left the show, and that was that.

Silly me.

 

They tapped him to be the announcer after Don Pardo died.

 

Samberg and Wiig left in 2012, then Armisen, Hader, and Sudekis left in 2013, then Meyers left halfway through the 2013-2014 season. So nearly a whole generation of the show left in pretty quick succession. Fall 2013 was when like half the cast was “featured”

 

Thats an exodus for sure

 

Seasons 6 and 12 both marked with mass exodus of the previous seasons’ performers

 

This was 93-94 (Season 19)

This would be the final season for Phil Hartman, Rob Schneider, Julia Sweeney and Melanie Hutsell and the only season for Sarah Silverman.

Following the May 13, 1995 season finale, nine more cast members either quit or were fired from Saturday Night Live, including Banks, Cleghorne, Elliott, Farley, Kightlinger, McKean, Mohr, Nealon and Sandler. In his book, Gasping for Airtime, Mohr wrote that following the season, he demanded a promotion to repertory status, among other things; the network procrastinated his wishes throughout the summer of 1995, and he chose to quit the show. Mohr's account of his voluntary departure from SNL has been widely discounted, however. He was under a cloud of suspicion due to his admitted plagiarizing of jokes during the season, and his multi-year contract with NBC did not allow him to unilaterally quit.[4]

 

The Sandler/Farley/Nealon/etc. exodus was definitely the most notorious. Sandler and Farley pretty much ended their run in a sketch where they jumped into a polar bear cage and died.

 

Most of the people who leave SNL do so for much better/bigger opportunities (unless they're fired). With the current cast, I don't really see the majority of them going on to make bigger shows or movies.

Like, I love Beck Bennett, Mikey Day, Kyle Mooney, Alex Moffat as cast members but, where do they go from here?

I feel like all the other big names that left were already dabbling into movies/tv while still on the show so when they left SNL they already had other options.

I feel this is a large reason Keenan Thompson has been on the show for 17 seasons or whatever it is. Nothing else for him ever really took off. That's not a knock to Keenan because I also really like him on the show (and grew up watching All That/Keenan & Kel)

 

Just wiki'ing the history and so forth... I used to watch it with Billy Crystal and martin short (seasons 9-10) Then Lovitz showed up with Dana Carvey, then Mike Myers and Kevin Nealon. which is around 1988/1989.

Then 90-91 exploded with Chris Rock, Sandler, Schneider, Spade, Farley. and Tim Meadows. That was my hey-day. To me - THAT is the quintessential SNL cast. My 20 yr old daughter swears on sandberg et al.... But if I can find the sketches from 90/91 to show her.... Those were priceless. When that cast left, I did too.

 

As far as departures of late, I don’t think it was so much for bigger projects as it was for more stable work that wasn’t so draining and competitive.

Nasim Pedrad did New Girl and Mulaney, Vanessa Bayer and Sasheer just kind of pop up in things, Bobby Moynihan does a million voice parts and CBS shows.

I could see a lot of them doing sitcom stuff or ads like Cecily is doing right now or Beck did when he came on SNL.

And Kenan is definitely still on because it’s an easy paycheck and he’ll have at least 3-4 appearances a show.

 

They don't really produce stars that can transcend into movies or long-running TV shows anymore, or rarely at least if Andy Samberg counts.

Part of that is the heavily reduced landscape for comedy movies, there aren't many comedians who can become big stars in movies with or without SNL.

 

Bill Hader has/had that series on tv (Barry) and Kristen Wiig did pretty well.

 

... and what about Tina Fey/Amy Pohler/Seth Myers making it big.

 

Comedy movies are basically nonexistent these days anyway, but Samberg, Hader, Armisen, and Forte have all had successful tv shows. Sudeikis and Wiig have the more “movie” careers

Moynihan, Bayer, Killam, and Pharoah were all around for over 5yrs but don’t seem to have done anything major since leaving

 

I mean, Jason Sudeikis is in one of the most talked-about shows of the year. Samberg and Pete Davidson starred in two of the bigger (relatively speaking because we'll never have actual numbers) comedies of 2020. Moynihan is going to be on a new sitcom and is a regular on a bunch of Disney animated shows. Leslie Jones is doing Supermarket Sweep. Hader has Barry.

I think the long arm of SNL still means a lot, partially because they're good at spotting talent and also because Lorne still has a lot of sway in the industry. I do agree that there's not a lot of huge stars, but I think that has more with star power not meaning a lot these days and, as others have mentioned, comedies just don't get made unless they're sequels or remakes.

 

I wouldn't be surprised if at least Jost and Kate move on after this season, but it really depends on vaccinations and how much COVID gets under control in the first part of the year.

Why leave a solid job for an industry that keeps shutting movies down? Wouldn't be shocked if Cecily and Aidy hopped too, but Aidy still being on the cast right now while doing Shrill probably means she wants to stick around.

 

SNL success has more frequently than not translated more to TV success as opposed to film success over the last 15 or so years. After the Ferrell era, I would say.

 

Sudeikis left the show, what, like five years ago? and is on one of the biggest tv shows of the year this year?

 

Is Ted Lasso that popular? Or just acclaimed? I'm not sure how much I've ever seen it talked about outside of this site. And my understanding was that this discussion was more about popular success than critical acclaim

 

Suds is completely in charge of his career. Dude seems to only pick projects that mean something to him. We're the Millers, Booksmart, Ted Lasso? All made with people he likes and all have good things to say

 

He's been in movies, so have Wiig and Forte and Samberg, but I don't think anyone would describe any of them as huge movie stars on the same level as Will Ferrell.