Perhaps because of social media, but SNL now gets attention it never did before. The show biz industry trade website, Deadline Hollywood, does an article on practically every sketch along with a headline which is the same size as Harvey Weinstein caught hoarding Milk Duds in his jail cell. Hollywood Reporter and Variety never used to report the opening SNL skit as if it were actual news.
When a beloved radio personality or sportscaster has his last broadcast it’s a big deal. For 67 years Dodger fans have had Vin Scully. His retirement has left a huge void that is not even close to being filled. Many times when longtime radio personalities or local newscasters move on it’s to other cities. So it’s the last you see or hear of them for awhile (or ever). But former SNL cast members just go on to do movies, host late night talk shows, star in series, and all of the above. Plus, they come back and guest on SNL. So this is like the Cher Farewell Tour where they’re already selling tickets for the next Cher Farewell Tour.
This isn’t a rant. I will miss them all and wish them all the best. I have no doubt that they’ll do just fine. And personally, I think it’s good for the show to cycle in new people and new characters. If I’m being honest, I absolutely adored Kate McKinnon a few years ago and now am tired of the act. But I just find it odd that these departures have gotten such attention. When I finally quit this blog I imagine Deadline Hollywood won’t mention it because a cavity search on Weinstein uncovered a box of Jujubees.
69 comments :
A few of those you mentioned got a heartfelt goodbye. Phil Hartman sang his goodbye with Chris Farley. Kristen Wiig did something similar with a sweet goodbye dance sketch. I think there are a couple more. Actually I believe the Kristen Wiig one more or less kicked off the trend of beloved players leaving. Your overall point is pretty on point though.
Kristin Wiig was serenaded by Mick Jagger for her last episode, but otherwise, yeah, I take your point.
(Oops, forgot to give a name...)
Kristin Wiig was serenaded by Mick Jagger on her last episode, but otherwise, yeah, I take your point.
--Barry
Not to be THAT person (OK, I'm being THAT person....), but they did give Krisen Wiig a pretty awesome sendoff - https://streamable.com/gj9oi
But yes, that was an exception. For the most part cast members leave without much fanfare.
Will Ferrell and especially Kristen Wiig did get big sentimental sendoffs, but you’re right that they’re rare.
https://youtu.be/dPelNddMm2U
http://videos.sapo.pt/GIZ4bywfoDIkdYjhbIcj
I don't disagree, but I think you may want to edit for Phil Hartman and Kristen Wiig. Phil did a goodbye song and Kristen had that dancing to "She's a Rainbow". So it was at least acknowledged.
But your point is valid....lots of big talent was just gone without much of a fuss.
Belushi and Murray were victims of the entire cast being let go in 1979, which in itself was a huge news event. That's the only exception to your list.
Kristen Wiig got a beautiful send off. Arcade Fire played Shes A Rainbow and she danced with the cast and Lorne Michaels.
Haven't watched SNL since nineteen ninety whatever so I don't give a rat's hairy butt about any of those folks leaving, other than Pete Davidson I've never even heard of any of them before anyway. But yeah I definitely remember how big a deal it was when they lost all those legends you mentioned, especially Eddie Murphy and I wish that they got that kind of send off that these folks are getting, even though names like Bill Murray, Dana Carvey, Eddie Murphy, Phil Hartman, Gilda Radner, Jane Curtain, Dan Akroyd, Garrett Morris, Tina Fey etc. are much more well known worldwide. Good luck to them, though. I just hope SNL actually honors their legends one day the way they're doing these people now.
Phil Hartman did say “a goodbye” when he left. But it was small.
Adam Sandler, along with a few other cast mates, did have a goodbye skit. Quite amusing. Breaking Into the Central Park Zoo Polar Bear Cage - SNL https://youtu.be/_wf31yBoGA4 via @YouTube
Of those who are presently leaving, the one who I will miss the most will be Kate McKinnon . . . yeah, I know she's gay (well, actually, I keep forgetting that for some reason), but hell, she's one of my current celebrity crushes; she's the complete package: funny, talented, and beautiful. And on SNL, she definitely has been one of the more versatile of the female players - her Justin Bieber on CELEBRITY JEOPARDY was absolutely hilarious.
Deadline Hollywood is a joke. AGAIN, they have not posted an article without a typo, in YEARS. Apparently no editor. It's amazing. Plus, Pete Hammond's ego is not to be believed. Give me the years of Nikki Finke any time. And yes, their "skit coverage" of SNL is freakish.
Also, social media has turned everyone into a prayer hands/emotional fool.
@ Joseph
What does her being gay have to do with ANYTHING???????? "Yeah, I know she's gay"?????
SO?
The quality of the writing on the show has been deteriorating for years. Without these 3 headliners I can't imagine who'll save the sinking ship. Hopefully the new talent that they bring in will magically resuscitate. Some of the great writers who use to work on the show are the ones that really deserved the spotlight.
@Leighton - Joseph was making a point, I believe. He also said (in the bit that you forgot to cut and paste) "(well, actually, I keep forgetting that for some reason)" - He keeps forgetting that she's gay because IT DOESN'T MATTER.
@ Glenn
No, it hasn't been deteriorating for years. That's a bandwagon that I'm not jumping on. It's extremely boring, and tired. It's a "thing" to trash SNL. They've had some hilarious stuff this year.
This has nothing to do with today's post, but your post from yesterday made me think of a possible Friday question (and forgive me if you've answered this one before): On Cheers, was there ever any consideration given to having Rhea's then husband Danny DeVito guest star? I know the two appeared on Taxi together. This seems like a missed opportunity to me.
I (somewhat) admire their PR teams ability to place stories in the morning newscasts as if 1-2 highlights from each new Saturday show is newsworthy.
Not the most embarrassing thing I've done on a Jumbotron...
Chevy Chase got a send-off of sorts when he left the show in 1976. He participated in a parody of the Art Fleming version of "Jeopardy!," complete with Don Pardo as announcer, in which a clue read, "Comedian whose career fizzled after leaving 'NBC's Saturday Night."
Speaking of Pardo, his death in August 2014 was barely acknowledged on the first show of the new season--just an unidentified photo of him shown momentarily after "Weekend Update." He was among those acknowledged in an In Memoriam segment on a subsequent SNL anniversary show, but after 38 years with the program and a 70-year association with NBC, Pardo certainly deserved something more.
@Leighton -- He mentions it because he then says he has a crush on her. A crush that is pointless and destined to go unfulfilled because she's gay and he's a dude.
--Barry
Leighton said...
@ Joseph
What does her being gay have to do with ANYTHING???????? "Yeah, I know she's gay"?????
SO?
If you’d read just a little further, you’d see that Joe named her as a celebrity crush, her sexual orientation notwithstanding. Of course in that context it’s significant.
Since I don't watch Saturday Night Live the only time I've seen Kate McKinnon is on those Verizon commercials where she's wearing super high heels and acting like she can't stand up. Is that a bit she does on SNL? Because for me it just looks stupid and annoying. But anyway I guess she's free now to do even more of them. Oh goody!
Kate, Aidy, and Pete got their farewells. Kyle, not so much.
Terry: To quote from Ken himself back in 2011:
"There was some talk about it the first season but nothing really serious. At one point we thought of including Danny in the Superbowl scene as a lark but ultimately it was decided the objective of the scene was to promote CHEERS and it would just confuse people with TAXI. Were they watching Louie & Zena?
But if you listen carefully, you can hear Danny laughing offstage. He was there when we filmed it.
The first season of CHEERS proved to be the final season of TAXI, and Danny went off to have a hugely successful feature career. I once said to him, “Now that you’re a big star, I hope you won’t forget us little people.”"
As several posters have now pointed out, Kristen Wiig, one of the most-overpraised SNL performers ever, got a huge send-off. I remember because it made me sick. I was very, very glad to see her go: The Queen of running one joke into the ground.
Also, I would challenge the use of the word "beloved" as applied to Kyle Mooney. He was there for years, true, and for years I wondered why. He was the essence of "Others in the cast include..."
Frankly, I expect a couple un-celebrated departures this summer. I will be surprised if Aristotle Athari returns in the fall. "Returns"? Is that the right word to use for someone who spoke maybe six words on the show this season?
And I certainly hope we've seen the last (of what very little we saw) of Sarah Sherman, whose tiny handful of brief appearances this year (She was on far less than Kate, who missed the entire first half of the season) were memorable only for their obnoxiousness.
And there was a year when an entire cast got a memorable send-off. The 1985-'86 season was such a disaster that Lorne fired the entire cast except for Jon Lovitz. They made it the closing bit, by parodying the season-ending cliff-hangers on night-time soaps, Lorne locked the cast in a room and set fire to it, but only after first sending Lovitz down to wait in Lorne's limo. They made a joke out of the mass-firing.
I'll miss Kate, Aidy and Pete.
I haven't watch SNL in a long time and whenever I stumble upon a clip online I'm always reminded why.
Before asking Ken a Friday Question I always do a search using the little box at the upper left hand corner of the page. One benefit to this is it often yields numerous interesting things and many times by the time I’m finished I’ve forgotten my original question. But in this case, just typing in “Danny DeVito” yields this:
There was some talk about it the first season but nothing really serious. At one point we thought of including Danny in the Superbowl scene as a lark but ultimately it was decided the objective of the scene was to promote CHEERS and it would just confuse people with TAXI. Were they watching Louie & Zena?
But if you listen carefully, you can hear Danny laughing offstage. He was there when we filmed it.
The first season of CHEERS proved to be the final season of TAXI, and Danny went off to have a hugely successful feature career. I once said to him, “Now that you’re a big star, I hope you won’t forget us little people.”
Kate MacKinnon deserved the big sendoff. The others, meh.
I'm reminded of when Walter Cronkite retired and did about two minutes at the end of the newscast. The staff actually had to demand that he do it, because he didn't want to, he just wanted to sign off and that would be it. Of course, despite my deep respect for a lot of what Dan Rather has done, that was the beginning of the end of CBS News as a legitimate news-gathering organization.
You make a good point and I think I have the answer: the BIG send-offs have happened after the show was totally revamped in 1995… which was soon after Lorne because a father. I think those two events really made him feel a closer, more parental connection to longtime castmembers. A touch more sentimental. Prior to that, long-running castmembers often announced they were leaving over the summer, so there wasn’t a chance. As noted above, Chase, Hartman, and Sandler, all got some kind of closure BUT they were long running and quite well known (although Sandler didn’t know he was about to be fired). Murray and the season 5 cast got a goodbye with Buck Henry and marched out of the studio. But they all thought the entire SHOW was ending. The next time after that that a long-running castmember left was Dennis Miller in 1991 (and they made jokes about it in the cold open).
-KB, writers room 2012 ;)
I think they did a goodbye for Molly Shannon too.
On the subject of SNL goodbyes, the only time I noticed that Phil Hartman was gone was when they did a skit where they attempted to recast the position of President of the United States. One of those was Tim Meadows who actually got to portray President Clinton during the Lewinsky scandal as part of his "Ladies Man" sketches.
As for Danny DeVito, he could have been on Cheers. Maybe as a replacement for Coach or maybe in a guest starring role as Norm's brother.
Surely a big part of the hullabaloo is that people don't care about SNL the way they used to?
The producers saw a potential opportunity to gain views/clicks by saying goodbye to people because that's what the show has been reduced to for novelty. A skit show that's been running for 45 years, one with regular viewership surely dropping like most other genres...yawn. Also, the cast members leaving are all hoping to get into bigger things (at least from a $ perspective), I'd wager...so getting an encore is also a way for those people who care to say "what are they going to do next?"
Vin Scully's hole is much larger (arguably impossible) to fill, but the Dodgers will continue raking in tens of millions every month. Not having read any features about his retirement, I'd guess he is conversely looking forward to the quiet.
"Yea I know she's gay" Totally unnecessary to add this, if you have a crush on Kate great for you, I do too
"I haven't watched SNL since..." is probably the most overused beginning of a sentence in the history of the internet. Apparently SNL has become the McDonald's of television. Nobody will ever admit to eating at McDonald's, yet somehow they're still selling billions of hamburgers a year!
The great Roger Angell died last Friday at the age of 101. I enjoyed reading his World Series articles in the New Yorker more than watching most games. He and Tom Boswell may be the best baseball writers ever.
I don't care. I stopped watching the show regularly in the eighties, mainly because I started working late shifts and wasn't around to see it. Once that changed and I tried to see it again, it didn't interest me. And I never liked Sandler, Ferrell, or Jim Breuer.
You missed Victoria Jackson!
No, just kidding. But it's true that SNL has become an even more immense institution than I could have imaged 30 years ago, and it was huge then.
Goodbye and good luck to the current crop of legends who are leaving, I'm sure they have great careers ahead of them.
Norm Macdonald’s monologue when he came back to host after being fired is the best SNL goodbye.
Off topic:
There has been discussion about streaming on this blog. There is this article from Clay Travis which reports that ESPN lost 8 million subscribers in 2021. He goes on to state that ESPN sees its future with streaming on ESPN+.
However, Clay makes the case that both cable and streaming are in trouble because the entertainment industry is trading a profitable business (cable) for an unprofitable one (streaming).
https://www.outkick.com/espn-lost-8-million-subscribers-in-2021-10-of-its-overall-subscriber-base/
I'm not in America, so perhaps I have a different perspective, but SNL was not easily available to watch in non-US markets. I had to buy 'best of' DVDs from NBC just to see a few sktetches. Now, with YouTube and streaming, SNL probably has the biggest global reach in its history. I'd also argue that some of the past SNL cast members you mentioned were only on for 3-4 years at best. Kate, Kyle and Aidy have performed for 9-10 years on the show. They deserve a send-off.
Did Pete Davidson and Kyle Mooney ever do anything funny in their 7 years on that show? Not that I recall. Pete Davidson is known more for who he dates. Have yet to see any talent there.
when SNL went full DNC, they lost all the cool kids...
You're just sour that Maya Rudolph never got the big sendoff....
@ Todd
Just poor sentence construction. Another person made my same comment. Plus, it STILL doesn't matter if she's gay, or not. I have crush on straight men. I'll say so, without the footnote.
Elsewhere - piling on SNL is so annoying. Kind of like unpopular kids trying to be part of the crowd. Ugh.
I’m gonna take a different approach. The show is so awful these days if they can fill 3-4 minutes with heartfelt goodbyes, it’s 3-4 less minutes of bad material we don’t have to listen to.
Okay look, as a few others have pointed out, I brought up the fact that Kate is gay even though she's one of my unconventional celebrity crushes because, otherwise, some other wiseacres feel the need to point that fact out to me: "Dude, you know she's gay, right?" That doesn't mean I still can't admire her though, now does it? I mean, look at all of these straight women out there who swoon over various gay men in show business, from Liberace to Rock Hudson (though, to be fair, Rock Hudson was in the closet).
But it's okay . . . I do get targeted for my comments on this blog from time to time, and I've gotten used to it.
F%$# Deadline Hollywood. They put "spoiler" in a headline, THAT CONTAINS THE SPOILER TWO WORDS LATER. GOD, entertainment web sites are such whores.
@ Joseph
Of course it doesn't mean you can't admire her. You just don't need to state the fact that she's gay, at all. You brought it up.
It isn't just the industry sites that recap SNL. For some unknown reason, CNN's website does as well and features it as if it is one, some sort of actual news and two, like it's an actual, factual reading of what the public thinks.
I never thought Aidy Bryant and especially Kyle Mooney were all that funny. Like someone else above, I could never figure out why he maintained employment there for so many years. McKinnon and Davidson have their talents to be sure, but if you're as old as many of us SNL watchers you compare them to Radner, Belushi, etc., and the work isn't even close.
We still record SNL and watch it later in our house, mainly for the Weekend Update segment. If anything else is funny it sadly seems to be an accident.
I don't know from sendoffs but I've been watching SNL skits for the past year or so (mostly the next day on YouTube), also catching up on great sketches of the past few years. I love Aidy and Kate and still find a lot of the newest sketches pretty funny. Weekend Update is often sharply satirical and the interviews are often funnier than the full sketches.
But the show seems lopsided in showcasing so many mediocre celebrity hosts in the sketches. It displaces the rest of the cast and demotes them to secondary players on their own show.
Anonymous D. McEwan said...
As several posters have now pointed out, Kristen Wiig, one of the most-overpraised SNL performers ever, got a huge send-off. I remember because it made me sick. I was very, very glad to see her go: The Queen of running one joke into the ground.
Odds Bodkins! I thought I was the only person in the country who thought this! I'll never understand her popularity. Cheri Oteri was ten times funnier and disappeared
Kate McKinnon is a huge talent, but they leaned too hard on her, especially using her to play trump cronies after they heard trump hated it that Sean Spicer was played by Melissa McCarthy. And a couple of her Update characters-- the mad scientist, for example-- just fell flat
Belushi and Murray were victims of the entire cast being let go in 1979
Didn't Belushi and Akroyd pretty much quit after Season 4?
(and yeah, if you're logging in to say, "I haven't watch SNL since Micahael O'Donohue switched from tequila to mezcal in February of '76...." that's okay)
I noticed that about Deadline carrying on about SNL. I was thinking "Sheesh, do they own stock in Broadway Video [Lorne Michaels' company] or own stock in NBC?" I also miss the days of Nikki Finke. It was a hoot reading it it back then. I think any Hollywood actor, agent, studio head, etc. probably shit their pants when they were told "Hey, Nikki Finke called and she'd like to speak to you about something. She wouldn't say what it was about."
@ Yekimi
Yes, I miss when Deadline was TRULY insider. It's now just a Variety cousin - a Hammond ego trip. And the comment sections are right wing propaganda. Very sad. And, AGAIN, EVERY POST HAS A TYPO. Shameful.
I’ve been watching SNL almost since the beginning, and I think there have been some hints along the way that cast members are leaving.
Part of the problem is Lorne Michaels, who had a history of letting people go with little notice.
I read an article last week about how SNL is the most watched network show in the 18 to 49 demo, and like it or not, each of these cast members is beloved by loyal fans.
It was time for Kate to go. SNL has a bad habit of leaning into some cast members so much you see that their personal shtick becomes tiresome. While I loved some of her character bits, I think ultimately Cicely Strong and Aidy Bryant are much stronger cast members.
After almost 50 years, hating on SNL has become a national pastime. My expectations have shifted since I realized much of the stuff I loved on SNL years ago has aged poorly, and that there are usually enough laughs or amusing bits in each show to not make it a total waste.
I remember when Kate McKinnon sang Hallelujah on SNL as her Hillary Clinton character. Was it funny? Well... no. It was confusing. I believe Pete Davidson has a tattoo of Hillary Clinton. All those other previous comedians left when SNL presented itself as a show that would zing both sides. I suspect SNL now sees their performers as maybe something different than just a person trying to get laughs. I suspect there was a feeling they should be honored for something other than comedy.
As always, agree completely on Kate McKinnon... can't put my finger on it, but it's like she was always trying too hard to be funny or something.
Thirty years ago, The Simpsons was making fun of how bad SNL had gotten.
Krusty in The Big Ear Family, 'This goes on for 12 more minutes.'
When Adam Sandler was hosting, he opened with 'I was fired', and at the end to whom did he say ,"It's coming soon'- Pete Davidson
I remember when it was rarely called SNL. It's amazing how after all these years, it's still a must watch after any big news event.
Add me to the Kate MacKinnon Crush Society. Really funny women just do it for me. Mine comes in the form of "So hot! I Must *WRITE* for That Woman! Then she will sleep with me!", which of course comes to fruition about as soon as would a simple physical crush.
I can also be listed in the I Watch SNL Once in a Blue Moon crowd, which is why the show's opening genuinely shocked me. MacKinnon on pubic hair, lyrically waxing? (Sorry.) Going into detail about shitting in the woods? "The dong hole and the wrong hole"?! I was all for the jokes; it wasn't the jokes that shocked me, but the idea that the network didn't cancel the entire sketch.
Apparently, like MacKinnon's panties in the sketch, things have loosened up a bit.
@ Craig Gustafson
The Final Encounter sketch was sort of a topper to earlier alien abduction sketches with Kate, Aidy, and Cecily: Close Encounter and Another Close Encounter. Same riffing on how she didn't get the ethereal experiences of the others. I think in the first sketch she talks about the stupid and kind of gross stuff the aliens put her through and says, "I don't think I was dealing with the top brass." Similar sketches are Paranormal Occurrence and Christmas Miracle. Aidy breaks up in some of them and Cecily is perfect as the elevated one.
Kristen Wiig had a... just kidding.
Kate McKinnon is a gay?!... Just kidding.
I know Michael Che is black, but...
Just kidding.
I have more important things to worry about than who's leaving SNL. June 7th is election day. NONE of the candidates appeal to me. And let's not forget about Monkey Pox.
M.B.
Bronson, I wonder if Jon Stewart would still claim that both sides are equally at fault, as he used to. I hope he's gotten over that silliness.
Buttermilk Sky, it gets better: Boswell came out of retirement to write a tribute to Angell for The Washington Post. And of course his approach is totally different, although he shares in our wonderment at Angell's brilliance.
I haven't watched SNL etc., etc.
I'm bemused when outlets like the Guardian run articles on the monologues of Colbert, Meyers and others (Kimmel today) as if they were the 21st century equivalent of Walter Lippmann or Joseph Alsop or even Wm. F. Buckley. There seems to be no awareness that they're just performing monologues written by others. Even if I laugh and agree, I'd like to know who I'm agreeing with. When entertainment and politics are hopelessly scrambled we get reality TV performers as "statesmen."
"Jim, Cheers Fan said...
Anonymous D. McEwan said...
As several posters have now pointed out, Kristen Wiig, one of the most-overpraised SNL performers ever, got a huge send-off. I remember because it made me sick. I was very, very glad to see her go: The Queen of running one joke into the ground.
Odds Bodkins! I thought I was the only person in the country who thought this! I'll never understand her popularity. Cheri Oteri was ten times funnier and disappeared."
I was with you for the length of one sentence, then you praised Cheri Oteri, a cast member I loathed even more than I loathe Kristen Wiig. Cheri "disappeared" because she turned out to be an impossible egomaniac to work with, and no one will hire her anymore.
When Wiig left, I posted on Facebook how glad I was to see Wiig go, mentioning how over-praised she was, and how she would routinely run a single-joke into the ground. I got the comment "Thank you." from a close friend who was a Second City actress whom I know was flown to New York to audition for Jean Doumanian for the cast back when Belushi and Aykroyd left. Praise for Wiig had been driving her nuts for years.
"Bronson said...
I remember when Kate McKinnon sang Hallelujah on SNL as her Hillary Clinton character. Was it funny? Well... no. It was confusing. I believe Pete Davidson has a tattoo of Hillary Clinton. All those other previous comedians left when SNL presented itself as a show that would zing both sides.?
Actually, when Kate sang Hallelujah, it was moving. It was a heartfelt goodbye to President Obama, and many of us shed a tear with her at home. Of course, if you were one of those sickies glad to see Obama go, it would confuse you.
The problem with "presenting both sides" these days, is that the Republican Party has become the party of Treason, Fascism and Insanity. How, and WHY, do you present the racist, anti-Democracy, Nazi side? You want a sketch mocking all those people who believe the 2020 election was not stolen? "These idiots think Biden won the election!"
Minor difference of opinion. When you end this blog, you will get a tribute and a glorious send off. THAT’s how much we’ll miss your sage musings. Matter of fact, DONT stop. Ever! 😊😉
As a journalist, I've been baffled as to why for the past half dozen years or so that USA Today and a few other outlets like MSN.com feels it's necessary to routinely do a "news" story for Sunday or Monday on "what happened on Saturday night's episode of 'Saturday Night Live.'" (Yes, I know MSN and NBC have a financial connection.) It's the only TV series that gets regular recaps on those outlets, for some reason. And, unless we're talking about the end result of a competition series like "Survivor" or "Some Country's Got Talent," or a series finale like "This Is Us", what happened on a TV show isn't even news to begin with.
I'm just among the others reminding you that Kristen Wiig got a MASSIVE, well-deserved sendoff. (Massive in comparison to, as you pointed out, usually no notice whatsoever.) The four departing this year did get a slightly larger sendoff, which is nice to see. It reminded me of Bill Hader and Fred Armisen's last skit, which was a big song goodbye, but still low-key enough that if you didn't know, you didn't know.
Post a Comment