The Saturday Night Live cast changes since 1975, newest first: who arrived, who was promoted, who left, who came back, who sat at the Weekend Update desk, and who ran the show.
Each entry is dated by when it happened, to the precision the record supports: a day where a press release or broadcast pins it, otherwise a month or a season. Each one links the press reporting behind it where there is some, and adds a figure from the roster data that no source carries. The history below was compiled in September 2026. Entries added since then say so, with the date they went up. New entries are added as news breaks, and they are also published as a feed.
Ashley Padilla and Jane Wickline were promoted to repertory status for season 52, two years after joining the cast together in 2024. Their promotion brought season 52's repertory cast to 11 people, according to the site's roster, the smallest repertory lineup of the era so far. The promotion was announced the same day Saidah Belo-Osagie and Grace Reiter joined the cast as new featured players.
Cast: Ashley Padilla, Jane Wickline
Saidah Belo-Osagie and Grace Reiter joined Saturday Night Live as featured players in September 2026, completing the season 52 ensemble. Their arrival means 14 of the 43 people in the roster's current era, everyone whose stint falls within seasons 41 through 52, are featured players who have not yet reached repertory status. The announcement came alongside confirmation that Ashley Padilla and Jane Wickline, who joined in 2024, had been promoted to repertory for the new season.
Cast: Saidah Belo-Osagie, Grace Reiter
Chloe Fineman departed Saturday Night Live in July 2026 after seven seasons, the same tenure Ego Nwodim had logged when she left the show the year before, according to the site's roster. Fineman had joined in 2019 alongside Bowen Yang, who left the show about seven months earlier, also with seven seasons to his name, and both were promoted to repertory status together in 2021. Fineman's departure came between seasons, following the same offseason timing that closed out several other cast members' runs across the era.
Cast: Chloe Fineman
Bowen Yang departed Saturday Night Live in December 2025, midway through season 51, an unusually timed exit compared with the show's typical spring and late-summer cast turnover. Yang finished with seven seasons, according to the site's roster, longer than the runs of 134 of the 174 people ever on the roster. Yang had joined in 2019 alongside Chloe Fineman and was promoted to repertory status in 2021, becoming one of the show's most prominent cast members before his mid-season departure.
Cast: Bowen Yang
Saturday Night Live added five new featured players for season 51 in September 2025: Tommy Brennan, Jeremy Culhane, Kam Patterson, Veronika Slowikowska and Ben Marshall. It was the largest incoming class of the era, according to the site's roster, which shows no other year between 2015 and 2026 brought more than four new performers at once, a mark previously set by the 2022 arrivals of Marcello Hernandez, Molly Kearney, Michael Longfellow and Devon Walker. The hires followed a wave of departures earlier that season.
Cast: Tommy Brennan, Jeremy Culhane, Kam Patterson, Veronika Slowikowska, Ben Marshall
Michael Longfellow was let go from Saturday Night Live in August 2025 after three seasons, matching the tenure of classmate Devon Walker, who left the show the same month. Longfellow had joined in September 2022 alongside Walker, Marcello Hernandez and Molly Kearney, and was promoted to repertory status two years later together with Hernandez and Walker. His departure came the same month as Heidi Gardner's, part of the wave of turnover that also saw Ego Nwodim leave before season 51 began.
Cast: Michael Longfellow
Heidi Gardner was fired from Saturday Night Live in August 2025, according to The Daily Beast, after eight seasons on the show, a season count shared by exactly 11 of the 174 people ever credited on the roster. Gardner had joined in 2017 and reached repertory status two years later, becoming one of the cast's most recognizable character performers. Her exit came the same month as Michael Longfellow's and Devon Walker's, part of a wave of turnover that also saw Ego Nwodim leave before season 51 began.
Cast: Heidi Gardner
Sources: The Daily Beast: SNL Star Heidi Gardner Finally Admits She Was Cut From the Cast
Emil Wakim left Saturday Night Live in August 2025 after a single season, having joined as a featured player the year before alongside Ashley Padilla and Jane Wickline. His run is one of 29 tenures in the site's roster whose only credited role was featured player, with no repertory promotion, writing credit or other distinction ever added; Jon Rudnitsky, whose own single season opened the era a decade earlier in 2015, is also part of that group.
Cast: Emil Wakim
Devon Walker departed Saturday Night Live in August 2025 after three seasons, having joined in 2022 alongside Marcello Hernandez, Molly Kearney and Michael Longfellow. According to the site's roster, Walker's three seasons tie Longfellow's; among that incoming foursome only Kearney, with two seasons, had a shorter run, while Hernandez remains on the show. Walker's exit came in the same late-summer stretch that saw several other cast members leave ahead of the show's fifty-first season.
Cast: Devon Walker
Saturday Night Live celebrated its fiftieth anniversary with a three-hour primetime special, SNL50: The Anniversary Special, which aired live from Studio 8H on 16 February 2025 on NBC and Peacock. The broadcast drew together decades of alumni alongside the current cast, which the site's roster shows numbered 22 active performers that season, more than any season since 2022. The special aired partway through season 50, the same season in which the show would also lose five cast members before its finish.
Ego Nwodim departed Saturday Night Live during season 50, the same season that saw Heidi Gardner, Michael Longfellow and Devon Walker also leave the cast. Nwodim finished with seven seasons, according to the site's roster, one of two people in that four-person departure cluster with seven or more seasons; only Gardner, with eight, had more. Nwodim had joined in 2018 and been promoted to repertory status in 2020, becoming one of the cast's longer-serving performers before her run ended.
Cast: Ego Nwodim
Ashley Padilla, Emil Wakim and Jane Wickline all joined Saturday Night Live as featured players in September 2024, arriving ahead of the show's fiftieth-season celebrations. Wakim's run would end within a single season, while Padilla and Wickline each remained on the show and were promoted to repertory status two years later, in September 2026, according to the site's roster. The trio joined the same week the show announced that Marcello Hernandez, Michael Longfellow and Devon Walker were being promoted to repertory.
Cast: Ashley Padilla, Emil Wakim, Jane Wickline
Marcello Hernandez, Michael Longfellow and Devon Walker were promoted to repertory status for season 50, two years after joining the cast together in 2022. Their promotion brought season 50's repertory cast to 17 people, according to the site's roster. Hernandez remained a repertory player through the following seasons, while Longfellow and Walker would each depart within a year, finishing with three total seasons apiece.
Chloe Troast's departure from Saturday Night Live was announced in September 2024, ending her run after a single season as a featured player following her hire in October 2023. Her exit came the same week that three cast members from the 2022 arriving class, Marcello Hernandez, Michael Longfellow and Devon Walker, were promoted to repertory status. Of the four people hired in that 2022 class, the site's roster shows only Molly Kearney, like Troast, left the show without ever reaching repertory.
Cast: Chloe Troast
Molly Kearney announced their departure from Saturday Night Live on 2 August 2024, writing on Instagram that they were reflecting on "the amazing 2 seasons" they had on the show. Kearney had joined in September 2022 alongside Marcello Hernandez, Michael Longfellow and Devon Walker, who by that point had each completed two full seasons, six combined, according to the site's roster, making Kearney's run the shortest of that incoming foursome.
Cast: Molly Kearney
Punkie Johnson departed Saturday Night Live in August 2024 after four seasons on the show, having joined as a featured player in 2020. Her tenure length matches Sasheer Zamata's four seasons, logged before Zamata left the show back in 2017, according to the site's roster. Johnson's exit came in the same week as fellow cast member Molly Kearney's departure, as the show prepared to bring in a new round of featured players ahead of season 50 and the program's fiftieth-anniversary year.
Cast: Punkie Johnson
Chloe Troast was announced as a new Saturday Night Live cast member on 4 October 2023, the same day NBC confirmed the delayed season 49 would premiere on 14 October with Pete Davidson hosting. Troast was the only new featured player added that fall, the third time in seasons 41 through 52 that the site's roster shows exactly one new performer joining in a given year, after Jon Rudnitsky in 2015 and Ego Nwodim in 2018. Her run on the show would last a single season.
Cast: Chloe Troast
Sources: TVLine: Saturday Night Live Sets Return Date; Pete Davidson to Host Season 49 Premiere
James Austin Johnson and Sarah Sherman were promoted to repertory status for season 49, two years after joining the cast together in 2021. Their promotion brought season 49's repertory cast to 15 people, according to the site's roster. The promotion came as the delayed season 49 premiere finally arrived, with the show's full cast returning after the year's labor strikes.
The Writers Guild of America strike that began in May 2023, later joined by a SAG-AFTRA actors' strike that summer, halted Saturday Night Live production and pushed the season 49 premiere back to October. The site's roster shows just 17 active cast members carried into that stretch, down from 25 the year before, reflecting the wave of departures across 2022. When the season finally began, Chloe Troast joined as the only new featured player, and the rest of the cast returned intact.
Sources: TVLine: Saturday Night Live Sets Return Date; Pete Davidson to Host Season 49 Premiere
Cecily Strong departed Saturday Night Live in December 2022, several weeks after the bulk of that year's cast turnover. She finished with eleven seasons on the show, according to the site's roster, a count that includes her partial first season in 2012, matching Kate McKinnon for the longest tenure of anyone who left the show during seasons 41 through 52. Strong had become a Weekend Update anchor and one of the cast's most recognizable performers, closing out a year in which nine cast members departed in total.
Cast: Cecily Strong
Alex Moffat and Melissa Villasenor were confirmed as departing Saturday Night Live in September 2022, with Aristotle Athari also leaving the show around the same time ahead of season 48. The three departures combined for 13 seasons of tenure according to the site's roster, ranging from Moffat's and Villasenor's six years each, dating back to their joint arrival in 2016, to Athari's single season after joining the year before. All three had been part of incoming classes announced alongside other performers who remained on the show.
Cast: Alex Moffat, Melissa Villaseñor, Aristotle Athari
Sources: TVLine: Melissa Villaseñor and Alex Moffat Among Cast Members Leaving Ahead of SNL Season 48
Marcello Hernandez, Molly Kearney, Michael Longfellow and Devon Walker all joined Saturday Night Live as featured players in September 2022, replacing several departing cast members ahead of season 48. Their four-person class was the largest single incoming group of the era: the site's roster shows no other year between 2015 and 2026 brought as many as four new performers at once until 2025. Hernandez remained with the show for years afterward, while Kearney, Longfellow and Walker each had shorter runs of two to three seasons.
Cast: Marcello Hernández, Molly Kearney, Michael Longfellow, Devon Walker
Chris Redd departed Saturday Night Live in September 2022, shortly after the show's new featured players arrived for season 48. His exit was the eighth of nine cast departures the site's roster records for that calendar year, more than any other year across seasons 41 through 52. Redd had joined in 2017 and was promoted to repertory status in 2019, finishing with five total seasons on the show before Cecily Strong became the ninth and final departure of that turbulent year in December.
Cast: Chris Redd
Kate McKinnon, Aidy Bryant, Kyle Mooney and Pete Davidson all departed Saturday Night Live around the season 47 finale in May 2022, in one of the largest single cast shake-ups of the era. Together the four combined for 38 seasons on the show, according to the site's roster, and each had logged more seasons than 147 of the 174 people ever credited on the roster. McKinnon finished with the longest tenure of the group at eleven seasons, followed by Bryant's ten, Mooney's nine and Davidson's eight.
Cast: Kate McKinnon, Aidy Bryant, Kyle Mooney, Pete Davidson
Chloe Fineman and Bowen Yang were promoted to repertory status for season 47, two years after joining the cast together in 2019. Their promotion brought season 47's repertory cast to 21 people, according to the site's roster, the largest repertory lineup of the era to that point. Fineman and Yang went on to become two of the longer-serving cast members of the period, with each logging seven total seasons before leaving the show years later.
Cast: Chloe Fineman, Bowen Yang
Aristotle Athari, James Austin Johnson and Sarah Sherman all joined Saturday Night Live as featured players in September 2021, arriving as Beck Bennett and Lauren Holt departed. Johnson and Sherman would each go on to log six seasons on the show, according to the site's roster, six times the length of Athari's single-season run before he left in 2022. Both Johnson and Sherman were later promoted to repertory status, becoming two of the more prominent performers to emerge from that incoming class.
Beck Bennett departed Saturday Night Live in September 2021 after eight seasons, a tenure length shared by only 27 of the 174 people ever on the roster with eight or more seasons. Lauren Holt left the same month after a single season, having joined the previous year alongside Andrew Dismukes and Punkie Johnson. The two departures came as the show also added three new featured players, Aristotle Athari, James Austin Johnson and Sarah Sherman, and promoted Chloe Fineman and Bowen Yang to repertory status.
Cast: Beck Bennett, Lauren Holt
Ego Nwodim was promoted from featured player to repertory status for season 46, two years after joining the cast in 2018, as the show confirmed the entire season 45 cast would return following the pandemic-shortened year. Her promotion followed the same two-year timeline already taken by five other performers earlier in the era, according to the site's roster: Mikey Day, Alex Moffat and Melissa Villasenor in 2018, and Heidi Gardner and Chris Redd in 2019. Nwodim went on to spend five more seasons on the show as a repertory player before her eventual departure in 2025.
Cast: Ego Nwodim
Punkie Johnson, a stand-up comedian, Lauren Holt, an alum of the Upright Citizens Brigade, and staff writer Andrew Dismukes all joined Saturday Night Live as featured players in September 2020, as the show returned to Studio 8H after its at-home episodes. Their three-person class matched the size of four other incoming groups across seasons 41 through 52, according to the site's roster. Holt's run lasted a single season, while Johnson and Dismukes each remained with the show considerably longer.
Cast: Andrew Dismukes, Lauren Holt, Punkie Johnson
Saturday Night Live suspended production at Studio 8H in March 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic, then returned in April with a series of episodes filmed remotely from cast and crew members' homes, billed as Saturday Night Live at Home. Twenty of the people credited in the site's roster were active cast members that season, and the entire group returned for season 46 that fall without a single departure, an unusual outcome for a show that typically loses several cast members every year.
Bowen Yang and Chloe Fineman joined Saturday Night Live as featured players in September 2019, arriving as season 45 got underway. Both would go on to log seven seasons before leaving the show, a tally matched by three others among the 43 people in the site's roster whose stints begin or end across seasons 41 through 52: Vanessa Bayer, Andrew Dismukes and Ego Nwodim. Both Yang and Fineman were later promoted to repertory status, becoming two of the era's more durable additions to a cast that saw frequent turnover.
Cast: Bowen Yang, Chloe Fineman
Heidi Gardner and Chris Redd were both promoted from featured players to repertory status for season 45, two years after joining the cast together in 2017. The timing matched the path Mikey Day, Alex Moffat and Melissa Villasenor had taken the year before, also advancing two years after their own debut. Redd went on to spend five total seasons on the show, according to the site's roster, before leaving in 2022, while Gardner remained for eight seasons in total.
Cast: Heidi Gardner, Chris Redd
Leslie Jones left Saturday Night Live in August 2019 to focus on her film career, ending a run that began in 2014. She finished with five seasons on the show, the same length of tenure Chris Redd would go on to log after joining three years after her, according to the site's roster. Jones had been promoted to repertory status during her time on the show and become known for her Weekend Update commentary segments before her departure ahead of season 45.
Cast: Leslie Jones
Ego Nwodim joined Saturday Night Live as a featured player in September 2018, following Luke Null's departure. She would go on to spend seven seasons on the show before leaving in 2025, a tenure length shared by only 40 of the 174 people ever credited on the roster with seven or more seasons. Nwodim was promoted to repertory status two years later and remained a regular cast member through five more seasons, becoming one of the era's longer-serving performers.
Cast: Ego Nwodim
Mikey Day, Alex Moffat and Melissa Villasenor were promoted from featured players to repertory status for season 44, two years after joining the cast together in 2016. The promotion made all three full cast members at once, the entire incoming class that had started together. Their advancement placed them among 63 of the 174 people in the site's roster who have held both featured and repertory status at some point in the show's history, just over a third of everyone ever on the roster.
Cast: Mikey Day, Alex Moffat, Melissa Villaseñor
Luke Null departed Saturday Night Live in August 2018, ending his run after a single season as a featured player. He had joined the show for season 43 alongside Heidi Gardner and Chris Redd, both of whom stayed on for years and eventually reached repertory status. Null's single-season tenure is not unusual in the show's history: the site's roster credits 59 of its 174 people, more than a third of everyone ever on the roster, with exactly one season on the show.
Cast: Luke Null
Heidi Gardner, from the Groundlings, Chicago improviser Luke Null and stand-up comedian Chris Redd all joined Saturday Night Live as featured players in September 2017, ahead of season 43. Two of the three would go on to reach repertory status according to the site's roster: Gardner and Redd. Null's run proved much shorter, lasting a single season before he left the show, while Gardner and Redd both remained cast members for years afterward, becoming fixtures of the seasons that followed.
Cast: Heidi Gardner, Luke Null, Chris Redd
Vanessa Bayer and Bobby Moynihan were given a graduation-themed sendoff during the Saturday Night Live season 42 finale in May 2017, with Sasheer Zamata also leaving the cast at the same time. Bayer had joined in 2010 and finished with seven seasons; Zamata, who joined in 2014, finished with four. Moynihan's nine seasons put him among only 16 of the 174 people ever credited on the roster with nine or more seasons.
Cast: Vanessa Bayer, Bobby Moynihan, Sasheer Zamata
Sources: TIME: Vanessa Bayer, Bobby Moynihan Leave 'SNL' in Emotional Season Finale
Saturday Night Live added three featured players for season 42 in September 2016: former staff writer Mikey Day, Chicago improviser Alex Moffat and stand-up impressionist Melissa Villasenor. Day had worked on the show's writing staff before moving to the cast, a path shared by dozens of performers; the site's roster credits 58 of its 174 people as both writers and performers. Moffat and Villasenor each remained with the show for six seasons before leaving in 2022, while Day stayed on far longer and was still active with eleven seasons and counting as of season 52. All three eventually reached repertory status.
Cast: Mikey Day, Alex Moffat, Melissa Villaseñor
Taran Killam, Jay Pharoah and Jon Rudnitsky all departed Saturday Night Live after the season 41 finale in May 2016. Killam and Pharoah had each been on the show since 2010, while Rudnitsky's run lasted a single season after joining as a featured player. Killam and Pharoah both finished with six seasons; only 53 of the 174 people ever credited on the roster reached six or more.
Cast: Taran Killam, Jay Pharoah, Jon Rudnitsky
Jon Rudnitsky joined Saturday Night Live as a featured player for season 41, arriving the same year Sasheer Zamata, Kyle Mooney, Colin Jost and Beck Bennett were all elevated to repertory status. Rudnitsky's run ended after a single season, when he left the show in 2016 along with two longer-serving cast mates. Of the 43 people in the site's roster whose stints begin or end in seasons 41 through 52, eight lasted exactly one season, and Rudnitsky was the first of that group in the current era.
Cast: Jon Rudnitsky
Saturday Night Live celebrated its fortieth anniversary with a three-and-a-half-hour primetime special on 15 February 2015, bringing back dozens of former cast members alongside the current lineup. Twenty-one of the 174 people in the site's roster were active cast members that season, the group that shared the current-cast segments with returning alumni spanning the show's entire history to that point.
Sources: One SNL a Day: February 15, 2015: 40th Anniversary Special
Leslie Jones, previously an SNL writer, joined the on-air cast in October 2014 as a featured player during Saturday Night Live's fortieth season, before being promoted to repertory status. The site's roster credits her with five total seasons in the cast, matching the tenure of Nasim Pedrad, who had left the show just months earlier.
Cast: Leslie Jones
Sources: NBC Insider: SNL Cast: Pete Davidson and the Season 40 Newcomers
Mike O'Brien moved out of Saturday Night Live's on-air cast and back into the writers' room around the start of season 40 in September 2014, after a single total season as a featured player, according to the site's roster. He was one of six people hired together in September 2013, and one of four from that group who did not return to the cast for a second season. O'Brien continued writing for the show that season even without a performing role.
Cast: Mike O'Brien
Pete Davidson and Michael Che both joined Saturday Night Live's cast when its fortieth season premiered in September 2014, with Che also taking a seat at the Weekend Update desk. The site's roster credits Che with thirteen total seasons so far and Davidson with eight, together matching the combined total seasons of all six people hired the previous September, only two of whom, Beck Bennett and Kyle Mooney, reached even eight seasons themselves.
Cast: Pete Davidson, Michael Che
Sources: NBC Insider: SNL Cast: Pete Davidson and the Season 40 Newcomers
John Milhiser, Noel Wells and Brooks Wheelan were confirmed as departing Saturday Night Live's cast on 16 July 2014, each after a single total season, according to the site's roster. They had joined together in September 2013 as part of a six-person intake; only two of that group, Beck Bennett and Kyle Mooney, remained on the cast afterward. Milhiser, Wells and Wheelan each finished with a single season, one of 59 single-season tenures in the site's roster.
Cast: John Milhiser, Noël Wells, Brooks Wheelan
Sources: VCPost: Brooks Wheelan, Noel Wells, John Milhiser Fired From SNL
Nasim Pedrad's Saturday Night Live cast run ended in June 2014, as she left to star in the Fox sitcom Mulaney, created by former SNL writer John Mulaney. She had joined the cast in 2009 and spent five total seasons there, according to the site's roster, five times as long as Jenny Slate, who debuted the same night and stayed for just one season.
Cast: Nasim Pedrad
Sources: VCPost: Brooks Wheelan, Noel Wells, John Milhiser Fired From SNL
Colin Jost, previously a writer for the show, joined Saturday Night Live's on-air cast in March 2014, taking over Seth Meyers's seat as Weekend Update co-anchor alongside Cecily Strong. By then, 12 other people in the site's roster had already made the same jump from writer to Update anchor, including Meyers himself and, decades earlier, Chevy Chase and Dan Aykroyd.
Cast: Colin Jost
Seth Meyers made his final Saturday Night Live cast appearance in February 2014, a few weeks before taking over as host of Late Night on NBC. He had joined the cast in 2001 and spent thirteen total seasons there, according to the site's roster, one of 40 people it credits as both a repertory cast member and a writer. Colin Jost took over as Weekend Update co-anchor the following month.
Cast: Seth Meyers
Sources: Gulf News: Seth Meyers Departs 'Saturday Night Live'
Sasheer Zamata joined Saturday Night Live's cast as a featured player in January 2014, roughly four months into the thirty-ninth season, a midseason addition after criticism over the show's lack of Black women in the cast. The site's roster credits her with four total seasons, a total matched by 13 other people on the roster, and she was promoted to repertory status before leaving in 2017.
Cast: Sasheer Zamata
Kyle Mooney and Beck Bennett headlined a group of six newcomers who debuted as Saturday Night Live cast members in September 2013, when season 39 premiered, the show's largest single intake in years. John Milhiser and Mike O'Brien joined them, along with Noel Wells and Brooks Wheelan. The site's roster shows their tenures split sharply afterward: Bennett spent eight total seasons and Mooney nine, while Milhiser, O'Brien, Wells and Wheelan each lasted only one.
Cast: Beck Bennett, John Milhiser, Kyle Mooney, Mike O'Brien, Noël Wells, Brooks Wheelan
Cecily Strong began co-anchoring Weekend Update alongside Seth Meyers when season 39 premiered in September 2013, a year after joining the cast as a featured player. The site's roster marks her as one of 16 people who went on to nine or more total seasons, and one of just a handful who also reached repertory status the same season they took on the anchor chair.
Cast: Cecily Strong
Tim Robinson did not return to Saturday Night Live's cast after the season 38 finale in May 2013, the same episode that closed out Fred Armisen, Bill Hader and Jason Sudeikis's much longer runs. The site's roster credits Robinson with a single total season; he is one of 18 people on the roster who were both writers and featured players without ever reaching repertory status. He remained a credited writer for the show afterward.
Cast: Tim Robinson
Fred Armisen, Bill Hader and Jason Sudeikis all ended long Saturday Night Live tenures with the season 38 finale in May 2013. The site's roster credits Armisen with eleven total seasons, the most of the three, ahead of Sudeikis's nine and Hader's eight. Combined, the trio spent twenty-eight seasons in the cast; Armisen's eleven alone place him among the nine people on the roster who reached eleven or more total seasons.
Cast: Fred Armisen, Bill Hader, Jason Sudeikis
Aidy Bryant, Tim Robinson and Cecily Strong all debuted as Saturday Night Live featured players when the thirty-eighth season premiered in September 2012. Their runs diverged widely afterward: the site's roster credits Bryant with ten total seasons and Strong with eleven, while Robinson's run lasted just one, the shortest of the three by a wide margin.
Cast: Aidy Bryant, Tim Robinson, Cecily Strong
Andy Samberg and Kristen Wiig both ended their Saturday Night Live tenures with the season 37 finale in May 2012, after joining together seven years earlier in 2005. The site's roster credits Samberg with seven total seasons and Wiig with seven as well; 11 other people on the roster also reached exactly seven total seasons. Of the 174 people on the roster, only four have ever returned for a second stint after leaving, and neither Samberg nor Wiig is among them.
Cast: Andy Samberg, Kristen Wiig
Abby Elliott's run as a Saturday Night Live cast member ended with the season 37 finale in May 2012, the same episode that closed out Andy Samberg and Kristen Wiig's tenures, though Elliott's departure came under different circumstances than theirs. She had joined in 2008 and spent four total seasons in the cast, according to the site's roster, exactly matching the four-season run of Sasheer Zamata, who would join the show two years later.
Cast: Abby Elliott
Kate McKinnon debuted as a Saturday Night Live featured player in April 2012, in an episode hosted by Sofia Vergara, joining well after that season's autumn premiere. She went on to spend eleven total seasons in the cast, according to the site's roster, the same total as Cecily Strong, who had joined that same season seven months earlier. Only four of the 174 people the site tracks reached exactly eleven seasons.
Cast: Kate McKinnon
Paul Brittain's run as a Saturday Night Live featured player ended abruptly in January 2012, midway through the thirty-seventh season, well before that season's May finale. The site's roster credits him with two total seasons, a tenure matched by 19 other people on the roster who also totaled exactly two seasons, well short of the three castmates he had joined alongside in 2010, Vanessa Bayer, Taran Killam and Jay Pharoah, who all went on to reach repertory status.
Cast: Paul Brittain
Sources: TVGuide: Paul Brittain Leaving SNL
Saturday Night Live added four featured players for its thirty-sixth season premiere in September 2010: Vanessa Bayer and Paul Brittain joined the cast alongside Jay Pharoah and Taran Killam. Their tenures split widely: the site's roster credits Bayer with seven total seasons, Killam and Pharoah with six each, and Brittain with two. That spread meant three of the four eventually reached repertory status while one, Brittain, did not.
Cast: Vanessa Bayer, Paul Brittain, Taran Killam, Jay Pharoah
Will Forte's run as a Saturday Night Live cast member ended with the season 35 finale in May 2010, after eight total seasons in the cast, according to the site's roster. Forte is one of 18 people on the roster who reached repertory status and went on to host the show, all without ever appearing in a Best Of special, and he was the longest-serving of the several people who exited the cast around that finale, ahead of both Jenny Slate and the featured players who had joined alongside him earlier in the decade.
Cast: Will Forte
Jenny Slate did not return to Saturday Night Live's cast after the season 35 finale in May 2010, ending a run of just one total season, per the site's roster. She is one of 135 of the 174 people on the roster who never returned to host the show, a group that includes most performers whose tenure lasted only a single season. Slate's debut that September had already drawn attention after she used an expletive live on air during her first episode.
Cast: Jenny Slate
Nasim Pedrad and Jenny Slate both debuted as Saturday Night Live featured players in September 2009, the month the show's thirty-fifth season premiered. Their paths diverged sharply from there: the site's roster credits Pedrad with five total seasons in the cast, while Slate's run lasted just one. Of the 174 people the site tracks, 59 spent exactly one season on the show, putting Slate among that group and Pedrad well outside it.
Cast: Nasim Pedrad, Jenny Slate
Sources: HuffPost: Michael Phelps, Jenny Slate, Nasim Pedrad SNL Season Premiere
Michaela Watkins and Casey Wilson both left Saturday Night Live's cast following the end of the 2008-09 season, after joining together the previous November. The site's roster credits each with one and two total seasons respectively; both are among the 29 people on the roster whose only credited role was featured player, with no repertory promotion, writing credit or other distinction ever added. Wilson went on to other television roles, while Watkins had already built a career in sketch and improv before joining the show.
Cast: Michaela Watkins, Casey Wilson
Darrell Hammond's time as a Saturday Night Live cast member came to a close after the 2008-09 season, with no single farewell episode marked publicly at the time. He had joined in 1995 and spent fourteen total seasons in the cast, one of just 3 people in the site's roster with 14 or more total seasons; only Kenan Thompson, with 24, has more. Colin Jost later matched Hammond's total exactly. Hammond is one of 61 people on the roster credited with repertory status who were never marked as a featured player at any point in their run.
Cast: Darrell Hammond
Amy Poehler made her final Saturday Night Live cast appearance in December 2008, after going on maternity leave that October and returning only briefly. She had joined the cast in 2001. The site's roster credits Poehler with eight total seasons, one of 11 people who reached that exact figure; her exit left Seth Meyers anchoring the segment alone for the rest of that season and several more after it.
Cast: Amy Poehler
Abby Elliott and Michaela Watkins made their Saturday Night Live debuts on the 15 November 2008 episode, joining as featured players while Amy Poehler was on maternity leave, leaving the show short on women in the cast. Elliott, daughter of SNL alum Chris Elliott, went on to spend four total seasons in the cast; Watkins left after one. The site's roster shows 79 of its 174 people with a total tenure of two seasons or fewer, a group that includes Watkins but not Elliott.
Cast: Abby Elliott, Michaela Watkins
Sources: Salon: Two New Ladies to Fill Poehler's Shoes on 'SNL'
Bobby Moynihan debuted as a Saturday Night Live featured player when the show's thirty-fourth season premiered in September 2008, hosted by Michael Phelps. He went on to spend nine total seasons in the cast, according to the site's roster, more than the other three people hired that same year, Abby Elliott, Michaela Watkins and Casey Wilson, combined.
Cast: Bobby Moynihan
Casey Wilson joined Saturday Night Live as a featured player in February 2008, debuting once production resumed after the writers' strike and filling part of the gap Maya Rudolph's departure had left that fall. Wilson's run lasted two total seasons, one more than Michaela Watkins, who joined later that same year and stayed for one. Of the 49 people in the site's roster who reached featured status but never repertory, 47 stayed two seasons or fewer, Wilson and Watkins both among them.
Cast: Casey Wilson
Saturday Night Live went dark in early November 2007, when the Writers Guild of America began a strike over film and television residuals, following an episode hosted by Brian Williams. Production did not resume until February 2008, once the strike ended, and the show returned to air later that month with new cast member Casey Wilson. Eleven of the 174 people in the site's roster were active cast members during that stretch, all sidelined from a live broadcast for more than three months.
Maya Rudolph's run as a Saturday Night Live cast member ended in November 2007, when the show went dark for the Writers Guild of America strike and her contract was not renewed. She had joined the cast in 2000 and spent nine total seasons there, according to the site's roster, more than all but a handful of the show's 174 people. Casey Wilson was hired the following winter to help cover part of the gap Rudolph's departure left in the cast.
Cast: Maya Rudolph
Seth Meyers took over as Amy Poehler's co-anchor at the Weekend Update desk when Saturday Night Live's thirty-second season premiered in September 2006, succeeding Tina Fey after her move to the sitcom 30 Rock. The site's roster credits Poehler as one of just four Weekend Update anchors, out of the 24 who have held the role, also recognized in the show's Best Of specials. Meyers and Poehler anchored the desk together until Poehler left the cast in December 2008.
Cast: Seth Meyers
Bill Hader and Andy Samberg were promoted to repertory status alongside Kristen Wiig and Jason Sudeikis for Saturday Night Live's thirty-second season, after a wave of 2006 departures left the show short-handed. Rather than hiring replacements, producers filled the gap from within the existing cast, shrinking the ensemble to about eleven people rather than growing it. The site's roster credits 124 of its 174 people with reaching repertory status at some point, meaning roughly seven in ten people who join the show eventually get there.
Cast: Bill Hader, Andy Samberg, Jason Sudeikis, Kristen Wiig
Saturday Night Live cut three cast members after the 2005-06 season as part of NBC budget reductions: Chris Parnell and Horatio Sanz, each with eight total seasons in the site's roster, and Finesse Mitchell, who had spent three. Ninety-one of the 174 people on the roster have a total tenure of three seasons or fewer, putting Mitchell right at that shorter-serving boundary.
Rachel Dratch and Tina Fey both left Saturday Night Live's cast after the 2005-06 season to work on the new NBC sitcom 30 Rock. Dratch had spent seven seasons as a repertory player, and Fey, who doubled as head writer, had spent six seasons while co-anchoring Weekend Update. Fey is one of just twenty-four people, out of the 174 tracked in the site's roster, credited with a Weekend Update anchor role. Their exits came the same year as a wider cast reduction driven by NBC budget cuts.
Cast: Rachel Dratch, Tina Fey
Kristen Wiig joined Saturday Night Live's cast several weeks into its thirty-first season, debuting in a November 2005 episode hosted by Jason Lee. She was the fourth featured player added that season, after Bill Hader, Andy Samberg and Jason Sudeikis had already started in October. The site's roster credits Wiig with seven total seasons in the cast, above the 4.11-season average across all 174 people the site tracks.
Cast: Kristen Wiig
Bill Hader and Andy Samberg debuted as featured players when Saturday Night Live's thirty-first season premiered in October 2005, hosted by Steve Carell. Jason Sudeikis had already joined the cast that May, near the end of season 30. Hader and Samberg came up through the show's writing and background ranks rather than arriving as established names, and both are among the 39 of 174 people in the site's roster later credited with returning to host the show themselves.
Cast: Bill Hader, Andy Samberg
Rob Riggle departed at the close of season 30 in May 2005, after a single season as a featured player known for his Marine Corps background and impressions. His one-season tenure ended his SNL run entirely; Riggle is one of 135 of the 174 people in the site's roster who never returned to host the show, a distinction shared by most single-season performers.
Cast: Rob Riggle
Jason Sudeikis, previously a writer for the show, moved to the on-air cast for the final three episodes of season 30 in May 2005. He went on to nine seasons before departing in 2013. His eventual nine-season run fell just one short of the 11 people in the site's roster who went on to ten or more seasons.
Cast: Jason Sudeikis
Rob Riggle, a U.S. Marine and Upright Citizens Brigade performer, joined the cast when season 30 opened in October 2004; he remains the only SNL cast member to have served in the Marines. He stayed for a single season. Only four people in the roster's history ever returned to the show for a second stint after leaving; Riggle was not among them, and his single season closed out his SNL run entirely.
Cast: Rob Riggle
Amy Poehler joined Tina Fey at the Weekend Update desk in October 2004, after Jimmy Fallon's departure, and the two anchored the segment together for the rest of Fey's time on the show. Of the 174 people in the site's roster, 18 reached repertory status and later hosted the show without ever appearing in a Best Of special; Fey is one of them, alongside her separate Weekend Update anchor and writer credits. Poehler, despite her eight seasons on air, never earned a writer credit.
Cast: Amy Poehler, Tina Fey
Jimmy Fallon departed Saturday Night Live in May 2004 at the end of season 29, six years after joining in 1998; the record of the season gives no stated reason for his exit. His six-season run, including several as a Weekend Update co-anchor, put him among the 53 people in the site's roster who reached six or more total seasons.
Cast: Jimmy Fallon
Jeff Richards left the cast in January 2004, partway through season 29, after joining in 2001 and being promoted to the repertory cast. His three-season run sits short of the 69 people in the site's roster who went on to five or more seasons apiece. Richards, previously a cast member on the rival sketch show MADtv, was one of several performers from his hiring class whose SNL tenure ended before the season's natural close.
Cast: Jeff Richards
Kenan Thompson and Finesse Mitchell both debuted as featured players when season 29 opened in October 2003. Thompson went on to become the show's longest-serving performer; his stint in the site's roster remains open as of the roster's most recent update, already totaling more seasons than any other of the 174 people it lists. Mitchell, by contrast, stayed three seasons before leaving in 2006.
Cast: Kenan Thompson, Finesse Mitchell
Chris Kattan and Tracy Morgan both departed at the end of season 28 in 2003. Kattan had joined as a featured player in March 1996, near the close of season 21, while Morgan joined when season 22 began that September; by the time they left, Kattan had logged eight seasons and Morgan seven; both are among the 21 people in the site's roster whom it lists among the show's best-known alumni. Both continued to make occasional guest appearances afterward.
Cast: Chris Kattan, Tracy Morgan
Dean Edwards departed at the close of season 28 in 2003, after two seasons as a featured player known for his celebrity impressions. His two-season stint placed him among the 29 people in the site's roster whose only credited role was featured player, with no repertory promotion, writing credit or other distinction ever added. Edwards had joined the show in 2001 alongside Seth Meyers and Jeff Richards, part of a hiring class with widely varying tenures.
Cast: Dean Edwards
Fred Armisen and Will Forte both debuted as featured players when season 28 opened in October 2002. Armisen went on to one of the longest tenures the show has recorded, staying 11 seasons through 2013, while Forte stayed eight. Of the 174 people in the site's roster, only nine ever reached 11 or more seasons, putting Armisen's eventual run among the show's very longest.
Cast: Fred Armisen, Will Forte
Amy Poehler was promoted to the repertory cast in January 2002, midway through her first season, only months after joining as a featured player. She went on to an eight-season run and a later stint co-anchoring Weekend Update. Of the 174 people in the site's roster, only four share both a Weekend Update anchor credit and a Best Of special credit, and Poehler is one of them.
Cast: Amy Poehler
Will Ferrell and Ana Gasteyer both departed at the close of season 27 in 2002. Ferrell had joined in the show's rebuilt 1995 cast and stayed seven seasons, matching the tenure of 12 other cast members in the site's roster; Gasteyer, who joined in 1996, stayed six seasons.
Cast: Will Ferrell, Ana Gasteyer
Seth Meyers, Jeff Richards and Dean Edwards all debuted alongside Amy Poehler when season 27 opened in September 2001. Their paths diverged sharply: Meyers stayed 13 seasons and later anchored Weekend Update himself, while Richards left after three seasons and Edwards after two. Meyers's 13-season run made him the class's clear standout, more than four times Richards's tenure and six times Edwards's.
Cast: Seth Meyers, Jeff Richards, Dean Edwards
Rachel Dratch, Tina Fey and Maya Rudolph were all promoted to the repertory cast at the start of season 27 in September 2001, each having joined as a featured player between 1999 and 2000. All three went on to lengthy tenures: Rudolph reached nine seasons, Dratch seven and Fey six. Of the 174 people in the site's roster, five reached exactly nine total seasons, the total Rudolph would go on to record.
Cast: Rachel Dratch, Tina Fey, Maya Rudolph
Amy Poehler debuted when season 27 opened in September 2001. She was promoted to the repertory cast within months and went on to co-anchor Weekend Update from 2004, staying eight seasons in all. Of the 174 people in the site's roster, only 27 ever reached eight or more seasons, placing Poehler's eventual tenure among roughly the top sixth of everyone who has appeared on the show.
Cast: Amy Poehler
Molly Shannon appeared in her final episodes as a Saturday Night Live cast member in February 2001, closing a run that had begun in the spring of 1995. Her seven-season tenure in the site's roster places her among the 8 people who hold both a featured-player credit and a Best Of special credit, a smaller group than her seven years alone would suggest. Shannon is best remembered for characters including Mary Katherine Gallagher and Sally O'Malley.
Cast: Molly Shannon
Jerry Minor departed at the end of season 26, after a single year as a featured player. His one-season stint was among the shortest of the era: Minor is one of 49 people in the site's roster who reached featured status but never repertory, a group whose careers on the show tend to run short.
Cast: Jerry Minor
Tina Fey, the show's head writer since 1999, joined the on-air cast when season 26 began in October 2000 and began co-anchoring Weekend Update the same month. She remained on screen through 2006 while continuing to write. Of the 174 people in the site's roster, 15 are both writers and repertory players who later returned to host the show, a combination Fey achieved alongside her Weekend Update anchor role.
Cast: Tina Fey
Jerry Minor, hired from Second City, joined the cast when season 26 began in October 2000 and stayed a single season before being let go. Of the 174 people in the site's roster, 11 were both writers and featured players whose entire tenure lasted a single season, and Minor's short run placed him in that group alongside several other featured players who did not survive their first year.
Cast: Jerry Minor
Jimmy Fallon and Tina Fey began co-anchoring Weekend Update together in October 2000, the first two-person team to share the desk since the early 1980s, replacing Colin Quinn as sole anchor. The pairing continued through Fallon's departure in 2004. Of the 174 people in the site's roster, 34 both reached repertory status and later returned to host the show, a pairing that describes both Fallon and Fey.
Cast: Jimmy Fallon, Tina Fey
Maya Rudolph, previously of the Groundlings, was added to the cast in May 2000, near the close of season 25, and went on to nine seasons before leaving in 2007. She was promoted to repertory within two seasons. Of the 174 people in the site's roster, only 16 ever reached nine or more seasons, placing Rudolph's eventual tenure among the show's longer-serving performers.
Cast: Maya Rudolph
Tim Meadows, Cheri Oteri and Colin Quinn all departed at the close of season 25 in 2000. Meadows left with ten seasons on the show, a tenure reached by only 11 of the 174 people in the site's roster. Oteri and Quinn had each joined during the show's mid-1990s rebuild, with five-season runs apiece, and Quinn's departure also ended his run as Weekend Update anchor.
Cast: Tim Meadows, Cheri Oteri, Colin Quinn
Rachel Dratch, formerly of Chicago's Second City, joined the cast in October 1999, early in season 25, and went on to seven seasons before leaving in 2006. She was promoted to the repertory cast within two seasons of arriving. Of the 174 people in the site's roster, only 40 ever reached seven or more seasons, putting Dratch's tenure above roughly three-quarters of everyone who has appeared on the show.
Cast: Rachel Dratch
NBC aired Saturday Night Live's 25th Anniversary Special in September 1999, ahead of the season 25 premiere, bringing back dozens of former cast members and hosts to mark a quarter century since the show's October 1975 debut. Of the 174 people in the site's roster, 102 had a stint that had already begun by 1999, meaning well over half of the roster's 174 people had already appeared on the show by the time of the special.
Jimmy Fallon, Chris Parnell and Horatio Sanz were all promoted to the repertory cast during season 25, a year after joining together as featured players in 1998. All three remained repertory players for the rest of their SNL tenures, with Parnell and Sanz each going on to eight seasons and Fallon to six. Of the 174 people in the site's roster, 61 are credited with repertory status but were never marked as featured players at any point in their run.
Cast: Jimmy Fallon, Chris Parnell, Horatio Sanz
Jimmy Fallon, Chris Parnell and Horatio Sanz all debuted when season 24 began in September 1998. All three were later promoted to the repertory cast, and Fallon went on to co-anchor Weekend Update before leaving in 2004. Of the 174 people in the site's roster, 11 reached exactly eight total seasons, a total both Parnell and Sanz eventually recorded.
Cast: Jimmy Fallon, Chris Parnell, Horatio Sanz
Norm Macdonald appeared in his final episode as a cast member in March 1998, a few months after losing the Weekend Update desk, closing a five-season run that began in 1993; he is one of just nine people in the site's roster who both anchored Weekend Update and later returned to host the show. Macdonald continued performing in sketches after losing the anchor chair, but left the show entirely once season 23 ended.
Cast: Norm Macdonald
Colin Quinn stepped into the Weekend Update anchor chair in January 1998, weeks after Norm Macdonald's removal from the segment, and held the role through the end of season 25. Quinn had joined the on-air cast in March 1996. Of the 174 people in the site's roster, 16 spent exactly five total seasons on the show, the same span Quinn's run in the anchor chair and on air eventually added up to.
Cast: Colin Quinn
Jim Breuer did not return for season 24, closing a three-season run that began with the show's rebuilt 1995 cast; that put him among the 91 of 174 people in the site's roster whose total tenure lasted three seasons or fewer. Breuer had been a recurring Weekend Update presence with his Goat Boy character throughout his run, though he was never credited as an anchor of the segment.
Cast: Jim Breuer
NBC West Coast president Don Ohlmeyer pulled Norm Macdonald from the Weekend Update desk after the December 1997 episode; Ohlmeyer cited the segment's ratings, though Macdonald and others believed it followed his jokes about O.J. Simpson, a friend of Ohlmeyer's. Macdonald had anchored Update since 1994. He is one of 58 people in the site's roster credited as a writer for the show at some point, on top of his years on screen and anchoring Update.
Cast: Norm Macdonald
Mark McKinney, who had joined mid-season in January 1995, was one of only five cast members retained for season 21 after the show's near-total roster rebuild that fall. He left the show at the close of season 22 in 1997 after three seasons, matching the tenure of 11 other people in the site's roster who also totaled exactly three seasons. McKinney, formerly of the sketch group Kids in the Hall, did not return to the cast for a second stint.
Cast: Mark McKinney
Fred Wolf left the on-air cast in October 1996 after only a handful of episodes as a featured player. His two-season count in the site's roster falls well short of the 39 people who returned to the show as hosts; 19 other performers on the roster also logged exactly two seasons. Wolf remained connected to the show as a writer after leaving the cast.
Cast: Fred Wolf
Ana Gasteyer and Tracy Morgan were hired together when season 22 opened in September 1996, joining a cast that already included Chris Kattan, who had debuted the previous spring. Morgan went on to seven seasons and Gasteyer six; 12 other people in the site's roster also reached exactly seven seasons, and 12 more reached exactly six.
Cast: Ana Gasteyer, Tracy Morgan
Chris Kattan, who had joined as a featured player the previous March, was promoted to the repertory cast for season 22; the season 22 record notes the change without giving a specific date, so this entry carries only season precision. He went on to eight seasons in all. Of the 174 people in the site's roster, 124 eventually reached repertory status, the outcome Kattan achieved within roughly two seasons of joining.
Cast: Chris Kattan
Fred Wolf, a writer for the show, was hired to join the on-air cast as a featured player in April 1996, for the final four episodes of season 21. His two-season run in the site's roster, split across that season and the next, places him among the 18 people on the roster who were both writers and featured players without ever reaching repertory status. He is one of only 11 people in the 174-person roster whose entire recorded stint falls within a single calendar year.
Cast: Fred Wolf
Chris Kattan and Colin Quinn, the latter previously a staff writer, were both added to the on-air cast in March 1996, credited as featured players for the season's final six episodes. Quinn went on to anchor Weekend Update within two years and stayed five seasons overall; Kattan was promoted to the repertory cast the following season and stayed eight. Of the 174 people in the site's roster, 24 are marked as Weekend Update anchors, and Quinn is one of only 14 who also carry the show's writer credit.
Cast: Chris Kattan, Colin Quinn
David Spade departed at the end of season 21 in 1996, closing a six-season run that began in 1990, well above the roster average of just over four seasons across its 174 entries. David Koechner and Nancy Walls, both hired the previous September as part of the show's post-1995 rebuild, left the same year after a single season apiece.
Cast: David Spade, David Koechner, Nancy Walls
Saturday Night Live opened its 21st season in September 1995 with a mostly new cast after the previous spring's mass departures. Will Ferrell, Cheri Oteri and Darrell Hammond all debuted that month, three of roughly a dozen newcomers hired to replace an exiting generation. Hammond went on to 14 seasons on the show, the longest of the three; Ferrell stayed seven seasons and Oteri five.
Cast: Will Ferrell, Cheri Oteri, Darrell Hammond
The same September 1995 rebuild that introduced Will Ferrell also brought on Jim Breuer, Nancy Walls and David Koechner. Walls and Koechner stayed only a single season, while Breuer lasted three. Despite their brief runs, both Walls and Koechner were credited as repertory players; of the 174 people in the site's roster, 59 have exactly one credited season, and only 24 of those 59 ever reached repertory status the way Walls and Koechner did.
Cast: Jim Breuer, Nancy Walls, David Koechner
Molly Shannon, who had joined as a featured player in February 1995 during the previous season, was upgraded to repertory status for season 21; the available sources date the change to the season generally, without a specific day or month, so this entry carries only season precision. She went on to seven seasons in all, later hosting the show and appearing in its retrospective best-of specials. Of the 174 people in the site's roster, only 16 carry both the hosted and best-of credits, a combination Shannon reached alongside performers such as Chris Farley and Adam Sandler.
Cast: Molly Shannon
The season 20 finale on 13 May 1995 marked the last appearance for nine cast members as NBC and Lorne Michaels overhauled the company: Kevin Nealon, Chris Farley, Ellen Cleghorne, Adam Sandler, Jay Mohr, Chris Elliott, Laura Kightlinger, Michael McKean and Morwenna Banks. Accounts differ on how many were cut outright versus chose to leave. It was the largest single-night departure on the roster for any season between 11 and 20, three more than the next largest, the six-person group that left after season 11.
Cast: Kevin Nealon, Chris Farley, Ellen Cleghorne, Adam Sandler, Jay Mohr, Chris Elliott, Laura Kightlinger, Michael McKean, Morwenna Banks
Al Franken made his final Saturday Night Live appearance in May 1995, in the closing weeks of the season. By his own account, he left in protest after NBC gave the Weekend Update anchor chair to Norm Macdonald rather than him; other accounts instead tie his exit to the box office failure of the SNL spin off film Stuart Saves His Family, and do not mention Macdonald. It closed out a writer-performer career on the show spanning, across three separate stints, eight seasons on the roster, longer than all but 16 of the 174 people it tracks.
Cast: Al Franken
British comedian Morwenna Banks joined the repertory cast in April 1995, one of the final additions before that season's finale swept out much of the company. She did not return for season 21. Banks is one of just 24 people in the site's roster whose entire one-season tenure nonetheless included repertory status, a distinction most one-season performers never reach.
Cast: Morwenna Banks
Molly Shannon debuted in February 1995, joining as a featured player around the same time as Janeane Garofalo's departure. She was promoted to repertory the next season and went on to create Mary Katherine Gallagher, staying through 2001. Her eventual run credits her with 7 years in the site's roster, well past the 2-year credited span of Chris Elliott, Janeane Garofalo, Laura Kightlinger and Michael McKean, who had joined earlier that same season.
Cast: Molly Shannon
Janeane Garofalo's last episode aired in February 1995, ending a stint of about five months that she later said had not suited her as a performer, having joined primarily as a writer-minded comic. Her departure came around the same time Molly Shannon debuted. Garofalo's credited tenure, one season in the site's roster, is one of 24 exactly-one-season tenures among the 124 people the site marks as repertory.
Cast: Janeane Garofalo
Mike Myers made his last appearance in January 1995, closing out a seven-season run in which he was promoted to repertory, co-wrote and starred in Wayne's World, and became one of the show's best-known alumni. His seven seasons run well ahead of the average tenure among the roster's best-known-alumni group, which sits at just under six seasons.
Cast: Mike Myers
Mark McKinney debuted on Saturday Night Live in January 1995, joining midway through season 20 after his sketch troupe The Kids in the Hall ended its run. He stayed through season 22. His eventual three-season run is shorter than the roster-wide average of 4.9 seasons, and his arrival came just weeks before Mike Myers's final show that same season.
Cast: Mark McKinney
Season 20 premiered on 24 September 1994 with Steve Martin hosting and four new cast members: Chris Elliott and Michael McKean, both already established comic actors, and featured players Janeane Garofalo and Laura Kightlinger. None stayed past that season; all four left within the year, among the shortest average tenures of any single-season arrival group in the site's roster across seasons 11 through 20.
Cast: Chris Elliott, Janeane Garofalo, Laura Kightlinger, Michael McKean
Norm Macdonald took over Weekend Update at the season 20 premiere on 24 September 1994, succeeding Kevin Nealon, who had anchored the desk since 1991. Macdonald held the chair for three seasons. He is also one of 39 people in the site's roster separately credited with later hosting the show, and the change came the same night four new cast members debuted.
Cast: Norm Macdonald
Four performers played their final season on Saturday Night Live in 1993-94: Melanie Hutsell, Julia Sweeney and Rob Schneider, along with Phil Hartman, who wrapped up eight seasons of characters from Bill Clinton to the Anal Retentive Chef. Hartman's eight seasons put him ahead of all but 16 of the 124 people the roster marks as repertory by total tenure.
Cast: Phil Hartman, Rob Schneider, Julia Sweeney, Melanie Hutsell
Sarah Silverman joined the writing and performing staff as a featured player in November 1993, partway into season 19, her only season on the show before her contract was not renewed the following year. She went on to a long stand-up and acting career afterward. Her stint, 1993 to 1994 in the site's roster, is the only one on the whole 174-person roster confined precisely to the two calendar years of season 19.
Cast: Sarah Silverman
Norm Macdonald debuted as a featured player in October 1993, early in season 19, and was promoted to repertory before he took over Weekend Update the following year. He remained with the show through 1998. He would go on to anchor Weekend Update longer than 12 of the other people ever credited with that role on the roster, and he is one of just three who joined the show as a featured player in the fall of 1993.
Cast: Norm Macdonald
Jay Mohr joined Saturday Night Live as a featured player in October 1993, early in season 19, the same month Norm Macdonald arrived, and stayed on through the 1995 overhaul, writing as well as performing. He later wrote in his memoir Gasping for Airtime about struggling with panic attacks during his two seasons on the show. Mohr is one of 18 people in the site's roster credited as both a writer and a featured player without ever reaching repertory status.
Cast: Jay Mohr
All five were promoted to the repertory cast ahead of season 19: David Spade, Adam Sandler and Tim Meadows, who had spent the prior season in the show's middle tier, alongside Ellen Cleghorne and Melanie Hutsell, both of whom had joined back in 1991. Meadows went on to the longest tenure of the group, ten seasons in all, tied with Kevin Nealon for the longest of anyone who joined during seasons 11 through 20.
Cast: Ellen Cleghorne, Tim Meadows, Adam Sandler, David Spade, Melanie Hutsell
Robert Smigel departed at the end of season 18 to run the writers' room for Conan O'Brien's new Late Night program, after two seasons writing for and occasionally appearing on Saturday Night Live. Smigel is one of a small group of people the roster credits as both a writer and a repertory performer; 29 of that group went on to longer tenures on the show than his three years.
Cast: Robert Smigel
Chris Rock left Saturday Night Live at the end of season 18, three years after joining, saying afterward that he had felt limited on the show and wanted to take on projects unrelated to race. His three-season run is nonetheless longer than 31 of the 124 people the roster marks as repertory, despite feeling short next to some of his fellow 1990 arrivals.
Cast: Chris Rock
Dana Carvey made his last regular appearance in February 1993, departing partway through season 18 after seven seasons built around characters like the Church Lady and Garth Algar. His run is one of the longer repertory tenures of the era: of the 124 people in the site's roster ever marked repertory, only 26 stayed longer than Carvey's seven seasons on the show.
Cast: Dana Carvey
Rob Schneider moved up to the repertory cast ahead of season 18, two years after joining as a writer-turned-featured-player alongside David Spade. He remained a repertory player through 1994. Schneider's four-season run puts him in the shorter half of the 124 people the roster marks as repertory, behind the 67 who stayed longer.
Cast: Rob Schneider
Victoria Jackson's contract ended after season 17, closing out a six-season run that began in 1986, while featured players Beth Cahill and Siobhan Fallon, both in only their first season, were let go at the same time. Cahill and Fallon are among 49 people in the site's roster who reached featured-player status without ever being promoted to repertory.
Beth Cahill and Melanie Hutsell both joined as featured players in November 1991, about six episodes into season 17. Cahill appeared for one season before her contract ended, while Hutsell stayed through 1994, reaching the middle tier of the cast, one of just 10 people in the site's roster ever marked at that level between featured and repertory status. The pair joined the same season Chris Farley, Chris Rock and Julia Sweeney were promoted to repertory, one of the busier stretches of roster change across seasons 11 through 20.
Cast: Beth Cahill, Melanie Hutsell
Season 17 opened in September 1991 with three new cast members: Ellen Cleghorne and Siobhan Fallon as performers and Robert Smigel, who both wrote and occasionally appeared on camera. Cleghorne would remain through the 1995 overhaul, while Fallon and Smigel each stayed a shorter run. Smigel is one of just 40 people on the roster credited as both a writer and a repertory player.
Kevin Nealon moved into the Weekend Update anchor chair for season 17, succeeding Dennis Miller, who had held it for six seasons. Nealon anchored the desk through season 20. He is one of 24 people on the roster credited as a Weekend Update anchor, a role held by fewer than a fifth of the show's ever repertory cast.
Cast: Kevin Nealon
Chris Farley, Chris Rock and Julia Sweeney were all promoted to the repertory cast for season 17, while fellow 1990 arrivals Adam Sandler, Rob Schneider and David Spade moved up to the show's middle tier short of full repertory status. Farley and Rock had joined together the year before, and both are among the 21 people the roster lists among the show's best-known alumni; Sweeney is not. Her eventual four-season run fell one season short of Farley's five and one ahead of Rock's three.
Cast: Chris Farley, Chris Rock, Julia Sweeney
Dennis Miller stepped down at the end of season 16 after six years anchoring Weekend Update, and Jan Hooks departed the same spring to join the sitcom Designing Women. Both had joined in the 1985 and 1986 rebuilding years respectively. Miller's seven years on the show overall rank him ahead of all but seven of the people the roster ever credited as a Weekend Update anchor.
Cast: Dennis Miller, Jan Hooks
A. Whitney Brown appeared in his final episode in mid-March 1991, exiting partway through season 16 to pursue other projects after five seasons delivering Weekend Update commentary. He had joined in March 1986, meaning his run began and ended mid-season on both ends, a pattern shared by only a handful of featured players on the roster: 43 of them went on to longer tenures than his six years, and 63 to shorter ones.
Cast: A. Whitney Brown
Tim Meadows and Adam Sandler both joined the cast as featured players in February 1991, roughly four months into season 16. Meadows went on to serve ten seasons, the longest of anyone hired that year, while Sandler stayed five before his contract ended in the 1995 overhaul. Sandler, unlike Meadows, is one of just seven people in the site's roster simultaneously flagged as a writer, a host and part of the show's best-known alumni.
Cast: Tim Meadows, Adam Sandler
Julia Sweeney joined Saturday Night Live in November 1990, partway into season 16, and was promoted to repertory the following season, best known for her androgynous character Pat. She stayed through season 19. Her four seasons on the show outlast 43 of the 124 people the roster marks as repertory, placing her toward the shorter end of that group's careers.
Cast: Julia Sweeney
Season 16 premiered in September 1990 with Chris Farley and Chris Rock joining the cast and Rob Schneider and David Spade promoted from the writing staff into featured-player roles. All four would eventually reach repertory status. Three of the four, Farley, Rock and Spade, later returned to host the show themselves, and Schneider is the only one of the group also credited on the roster as a writer.
Cast: Chris Farley, Chris Rock, Rob Schneider, David Spade
Nora Dunn's contract was not renewed at the end of season 15, coming soon after her on-air boycott of host Andrew Dice Clay. Jon Lovitz left the same spring, choosing to make the film Mom and Dad Save the World after producer Lorne Michaels declined to grant him time off. Both had joined together in the rebuilt 1985 cast; Dunn's tenure, five seasons in the site's roster, equals exactly the median tenure of the 124 repertory players.
Cast: Nora Dunn, Jon Lovitz
Nora Dunn announced she would skip the May 1990 episode hosted by comedian Andrew Dice Clay, objecting to his material about women; scheduled musical guest Sinead O'Connor pulled out in solidarity, and the show aired on a seven-second delay. Dunn's contract went unrenewed at season's end, which she and others read as connected to the boycott. It was one of the few times in seasons 11 through 20 that a cast member's protest of a host became news in its own right.
Mike Myers moved up from featured player to the repertory cast in February 1990, roughly a year after his debut, giving him a regular spot in the show's biggest sketches. He would go on to co-create Wayne's World with Dana Carvey. His eventual seven years on the show would put him ahead of 26 of the smaller group of repertory players also credited on the roster as writers.
Cast: Mike Myers
Ben Stiller joined Saturday Night Live as a featured player in late March 1989 and appeared in four episodes before leaving in April to focus on filmmaking, later creating his own sketch series. His run remains one of the shortest in the show's history: of the 174 people in the site's roster, only two who joined during seasons 11 through 20, Stiller and Morwenna Banks, have a stint spanning a single calendar year with no earlier or later credit at all.
Cast: Ben Stiller
Mike Myers debuted partway through season 14, joining as a featured player in January 1989. He was promoted to repertory the following year and went on to create Wayne Campbell, among other characters, during a seven-year run that made him one of the show's best-known alumni. His eventual seven-season tenure outlasts 85 of the 124 people the roster ever marks as repertory.
Cast: Mike Myers
Al Franken, an original 1975 writer who had briefly stepped in front of the camera for a single episode at the end of season 11, returned as a credited featured player starting with season 14's third episode in October 1988. He remained a writer-performer through season 20, developing characters including Stuart Smalley. Counting every stint in the site's roster, Franken would go on to spend eight seasons on the show in total, one of 27 people in the site's roster with eight or more total seasons.
Cast: Al Franken
Season 13 kept the cast of the year before almost intact: Dana Carvey, Nora Dunn, Phil Hartman, Jan Hooks, Victoria Jackson, Jon Lovitz, Dennis Miller and Kevin Nealon in the repertory, with A. Whitney Brown as a featured player. It ran only thirteen episodes, from October 1987 to late February 1988. The Writers Guild of America walked out in March and stayed out until August, so no more episodes were made. On the roster, 1987 is one of just three calendar years since 1975, with 1978 and 2011, in which no stint begins or ends.
Cast: Dana Carvey, Nora Dunn, Phil Hartman, Jan Hooks, Victoria Jackson, Jon Lovitz, Dennis Miller, Kevin Nealon, A. Whitney Brown
Season 12 premiered in October 1986 with a new group built around Dana Carvey, Phil Hartman, Jan Hooks and Victoria Jackson as repertory players and Kevin Nealon as a featured player. Several of the five would anchor the show's next decade, none more than Hartman, whose eventual eight-season run made him one of the era's most enduring repertory players. A. Whitney Brown, Nora Dunn, Jon Lovitz and Dennis Miller all continued from the previous season.
Cast: Dana Carvey, Phil Hartman, Jan Hooks, Victoria Jackson, Kevin Nealon
After a single, uneven season, six of the performers introduced that November did not return: Anthony Michael Hall, Terry Sweeney, Danitra Vance, Randy Quaid, Joan Cusack and Robert Downey Jr. Only Nora Dunn, Jon Lovitz, Dennis Miller and featured player A. Whitney Brown continued into season 12. Of the 12 people who joined that fall, exactly half lasted just one year, a turnover rate far above the roughly 6 percent of the full 174-person roster who lasted a single season.
Cast: Joan Cusack, Robert Downey Jr., Anthony Michael Hall, Randy Quaid, Terry Sweeney, Danitra Vance
Damon Wayans was dismissed from the cast in March 1986 after playing a police officer as flamboyantly gay during a live sketch, a choice he had not cleared beforehand. He later said he had wanted out, feeling under-used as a newcomer following Eddie Murphy's departure, and Lorne Michaels invited him back to host years afterward. Wayans's featured-player stint lasted about half a season; only 11 of the roster's 174 people are credited with an even shorter total tenure.
Cast: Damon Wayans
A. Whitney Brown joined Saturday Night Live as a featured player in March 1986, the same month Damon Wayans was let go, and went on to deliver Weekend Update's "The Big Picture" segment for several seasons. He stayed on the show through season 16. Brown is one of 112 people on the roster ever marked as a featured player, a group nearly as large as the 124 marked repertory.
Cast: A. Whitney Brown
Dan Vitale was one of three featured players, with Damon Wayans and the returning Don Novello, in the mostly new cast Lorne Michaels assembled for season 11 in November 1985. He appeared in only two episodes, in November 1985 and February 1986, before being let go in early 1986 amid struggles with substance abuse, and he never returned to the show. He is one of 34 people on the roster whose entire run lasted a single season without a promotion past featured player.
Cast: Dan Vitale
Season 11 opened with an almost entirely rebuilt company, nine repertory players and two featured players, none of whom had appeared on the show before. Madonna hosted the premiere. The group included film actors such as Robert Downey Jr. and Anthony Michael Hall alongside comedy veterans like Jon Lovitz and Dennis Miller. It was the largest single-season cast turnover in the show's history to that point: 11 of the 12 people who opened the season are new arrivals in the site's roster, compared with just 5 new cast members brought in for the season 12 premiere the following fall.
Cast: Joan Cusack, Robert Downey Jr., Nora Dunn, Anthony Michael Hall, Jon Lovitz, Dennis Miller, Randy Quaid, Terry Sweeney, Danitra Vance, Damon Wayans, Dan Vitale
Lorne Michaels resumed as executive producer for season 11, five years after leaving the role he originated in 1975. NBC had run the show under Jean Doumanian and then Dick Ebersol in the interim. Michaels rebuilt the cast and writing staff from scratch for his return, and has held the producer's chair ever since. Of the 174 people in the site's roster, 128 have a first stint that began after his return, nearly three times the 46 whose earliest stint came during the first ten seasons.
Don Novello rejoined the cast as a featured player for season 11, five years after his first stint ended in 1980, reprising his Father Guido Sarducci character alongside the new company Lorne Michaels assembled that fall. He stayed for the one season. Novello is one of just four people in the site's roster credited with more than one separate stint on the show, the smallest such group across all 174 entries.
Cast: Don Novello
Dennis Miller anchored Weekend Update from the season 11 premiere in November 1985, part of the almost entirely new cast Lorne Michaels assembled that fall. He held the desk for six seasons before stepping down in 1991, succeeded by Kevin Nealon. Miller is the only one of the eleven season 11 debut cast members the site's roster also credits as a Weekend Update anchor.
Cast: Dennis Miller
Every repertory player on Saturday Night Live's roster left after the season ten finale in April 1985, ending Dick Ebersol's five seasons as executive producer. The nine departing performers were Jim Belushi, Billy Crystal, Mary Gross, Christopher Guest, Rich Hall, Gary Kroeger, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Martin Short and Pamela Stephenson. Mary Gross, a holdover from 1981, had the longest run of the group at four seasons; five of the nine had joined only that same season.
Cast: Jim Belushi, Billy Crystal, Mary Gross, Christopher Guest, Rich Hall, Gary Kroeger, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Martin Short, Pamela Stephenson
Dick Ebersol left Saturday Night Live as executive producer after the season ten finale in April 1985, closing out a five-season run that began when he replaced Jean Doumanian in 1981. Twenty-eight of the 174 people in the site's roster have their final credited season fall within his 1981-1985 tenure, a measure of how much turnover the cast saw under him. Lorne Michaels would not return to the show until season eleven.
Harry Shearer left Saturday Night Live mid-season in January 1985, midway through his second stint on the show, citing creative differences with the production. He told a wire reporter at the time, in a wry summary of the split, that he was creative and they were different. Across his two stints, four years apart, Shearer is credited with two total seasons on the show in the site's roster.
Cast: Harry Shearer
Christopher Guest became Weekend Update's anchor starting with the seventh episode of season ten, broadcast in December 1984, succeeding Billy Crystal at the desk. Guest held the role for the rest of his single season on the show. He is one of just six Weekend Update anchors in the site's roster who held the job during Dick Ebersol's five seasons as executive producer.
Cast: Christopher Guest
Harry Shearer rejoined Saturday Night Live's cast for the season ten premiere in October 1984, four years after his first stint ended alongside the rest of the original Lorne Michaels cast in 1980. He was one of only two performers that season with previous SNL experience. Shearer is one of just four people in the site's roster with two separate credited stints on the show during this fifteen-season stretch of its history.
Cast: Harry Shearer
Billy Crystal shared anchoring duties for Weekend Update on the season ten premiere in October 1984, his first episode on the show. He held the anchor chair only briefly before Christopher Guest took over the desk that December. Crystal is one of five Weekend Update anchors in the site's roster whose entire credited run on the show lasted a single season.
Cast: Billy Crystal
Billy Crystal, Christopher Guest, Rich Hall, Martin Short and Pamela Stephenson all joined Saturday Night Live's repertory cast for the October 1984 season ten premiere, a group of already-established performers brought in to rebuild the show's credibility. All five were hired directly to repertory status rather than starting as featured players. None returned for a second season, and each of the five is credited in the site's roster with exactly one season on the show.
Cast: Billy Crystal, Christopher Guest, Rich Hall, Martin Short, Pamela Stephenson
Joe Piscopo, Robin Duke, Brad Hall and Tim Kazurinsky all made their final Saturday Night Live appearances on the season nine finale, broadcast 12 May 1984 and hosted by Billy Crystal. Piscopo had been on the show since Jean Doumanian's original 1980 cast, making him the last remaining performer from that group. Combined, the four departing cast members had logged 14 credited seasons, an average of three and a half seasons each.
Cast: Joe Piscopo, Robin Duke, Brad Hall, Tim Kazurinsky
Eddie Murphy gave his final performance as a regular Saturday Night Live cast member in February 1984, roughly four years after his debut and as his film career, including the upcoming Beverly Hills Cop, was taking off. He later returned to host the show as an alumnus that December. Murphy's four-season run tied him with Joe Piscopo, Robin Duke and Tim Kazurinsky for the longest tenure among anyone hired during the Doumanian or early Ebersol years.
Cast: Eddie Murphy
Sources: Ultimate Classic Rock: When Eddie Murphy Hosted 'SNL' While Still a Cast Member
Brad Hall left the Weekend Update anchor chair in January 1984, partway through season nine, though he remained a repertory cast member through the season finale that May. The season nine episode guide says no single performer replaced him; instead, members of the cast and that week's guest host rotated through the desk for the rest of the season. Hall is one of five people in the site's roster whose final credited season ended in calendar year 1984.
Cast: Brad Hall
Jim Belushi joined Saturday Night Live in October 1983, about four years after his older brother John Belushi's run on the show ended. He debuted a few episodes into season nine rather than in the premiere itself. Jim's eventual two-season run on the show was shorter than John's four seasons in the 1970s, and the site's roster credits the two brothers with six combined seasons on the roster across two different eras.
Cast: Jim Belushi
Brad Hall, Gary Kroeger and Julia Louis-Dreyfus joined Saturday Night Live for the season eight premiere in September 1982, all three hired together after Dick Ebersol saw them perform with Chicago's Practical Theatre Company. Louis-Dreyfus and Kroeger each stayed three seasons, while Hall left after two. Combined, the trio spent eight seasons on the show, the most of any single group hired together during this era.
Cast: Brad Hall, Gary Kroeger, Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Brad Hall took over the newly renamed Saturday Night News desk starting with the season eight premiere in September 1982, after Brian Doyle-Murray and Christine Ebersole were dropped from the cast the previous spring. Hall anchored the segment until January 1984, when he left the chair with several months still remaining in his second season on the show. He is one of just three Weekend Update anchors in the site's roster from this era whose credited run spanned more than a single season.
Cast: Brad Hall
Brian Doyle-Murray, Christine Ebersole and Tony Rosato all made their final Saturday Night Live appearances at the season seven finale in May 1982. Doyle-Murray and Rosato each closed out two-season runs, Doyle-Murray's split across two separate stints and Rosato's continuous since he joined as one of Dick Ebersol's first replacements in April 1981, while Ebersole's single season on the show was the shortest of the three. None of the three returned to the cast in a later season.
Christine Ebersole and Mary Gross debuted as repertory players in the season seven premiere on 3 October 1981, part of Dick Ebersol's rebuilt cast after the previous season's writers' strike. One review at the time called it not a very promising debut for the newcomers. Gross went on to a four-season run, the longest of any performer who joined the show that night, while Ebersole left after a single season.
Cast: Christine Ebersole, Mary Gross
Sources: One SNL Day: October 3, 1981: No Host, Rod Stewart (S7 E1)
Brian Doyle-Murray returned to Saturday Night Live's on-screen cast in the season seven premiere on 3 October 1981, a year after his earlier featured-player stint ended, having spent the interim writing for the show. He co-anchored the news-parody desk from his first night back. Doyle-Murray is one of just four people in the site's roster credited with two separate stints during this era, and his combined credited run across both stints totals two seasons.
Cast: Brian Doyle-Murray
Sources: One SNL Day: October 3, 1981: No Host, Rod Stewart (S7 E1)
Brian Doyle-Murray and Mary Gross opened season seven co-anchoring the show's news-parody segment together, with Doyle-Murray remaining at the desk in various pairings for the rest of the season. The arrangement shifted repeatedly, with Doyle-Murray also anchoring solo and later alongside Christine Ebersole before the season ended. Of the 174 people in the site's roster, eight are credited as a Weekend Update anchor whose first stint began during seasons six through ten, and Doyle-Murray and Gross are two of them.
Cast: Brian Doyle-Murray, Mary Gross
Sources: One SNL Day: October 3, 1981: No Host, Rod Stewart (S7 E1)
Dick Ebersol produced his first Saturday Night Live episode on 11 April 1981 with a partly rebuilt cast, but a national writers' strike began soon after and halted production for the rest of the season. The show did not return until season seven's premiere that October. Ten of the 174 people in the site's roster have a stint that ends in calendar year 1981, reflecting how much of the season six cast never worked under Ebersol at all.
Sources: Filmbuff Online: SNL50: The Eras, 1980-1981: The Doumanian Era
Laurie Metcalf appeared in only one episode of Saturday Night Live in the spring of 1981, part of Dick Ebersol's first wave of replacements after the Doumanian-era cast was let go. She left the show almost immediately afterward and did not return. Metcalf is one of 170 people in the site's roster who left the show and never returned for a second stint after their first departure; only four performers in the roster's history ever came back for one.
Cast: Laurie Metcalf
Robin Duke, Tim Kazurinsky, Tony Rosato and Laurie Metcalf were brought in as Dick Ebersol's first cast additions in April 1981, replacing most of the performers Jean Doumanian had hired. Three of the four eventually reached repertory status; Metcalf did not, appearing in only a single episode before the season ended. Duke and Kazurinsky each went on to a four-season run, longer than any of the season six newcomers who preceded them.
Cast: Robin Duke, Tim Kazurinsky, Tony Rosato, Laurie Metcalf
NBC removed Jean Doumanian as Saturday Night Live's executive producer in March 1981, less than a full season after she took over from Lorne Michaels, and installed Dick Ebersol, previously an NBC late-night executive, in her place. The move followed months of weak ratings and press criticism of the new cast, capped by Charles Rocket's on-air profanity. Ebersol would run the show for four more seasons, a tenure during which 16 of the 174 people in the site's roster made their first appearance, not counting anyone returning for a second stint or the cast Lorne Michaels assembled for season 11 in the autumn of 1985.
Sources: Filmbuff Online: SNL50: The Eras, 1980-1981: The Doumanian Era
Gilbert Gottfried, Ann Risley, Denny Dillon, Gail Matthius, Matthew Laurance, Patrick Weathers and Yvonne Hudson left Saturday Night Live in March 1981 as incoming executive producer Dick Ebersol cleared out most of the cast Jean Doumanian had assembled less than a year earlier. Only Joe Piscopo and Eddie Murphy stayed on from that group. All seven had joined in the same four-month stretch between November and December 1980 and left together within days of one another.
Cast: Gilbert Gottfried, Ann Risley, Denny Dillon, Gail Matthius, Matthew Laurance, Patrick Weathers, Yvonne Hudson
Sources: Filmbuff Online: SNL50: The Eras, 1980-1981: The Doumanian Era
Charles Rocket, one of season six's Weekend Update anchors, used an on-air profanity during a February 1981 episode while answering a question in character about having been shot. The remark drew complaints to NBC and became a symbol of the season's turmoil, and Rocket was dismissed soon after. His run lasted a single season. Of the 24 people in the site's roster credited as a Weekend Update anchor at any point, Rocket held the job for the shortest stretch.
Cast: Charles Rocket
Gail Matthius began co-anchoring Weekend Update on Saturday Night Live's sixth episode of season six, broadcast in January 1981, sharing the desk with Charles Rocket. Her run at the anchor desk lasted about six weeks, ending that February as Jean Doumanian's tenure as producer neared its end. Matthius and Rocket are the only two of the six cast members who debuted in the season six premiere credited in the site's roster as a Weekend Update anchor.
Cast: Gail Matthius
Yvonne Hudson joined the Saturday Night Live cast as a featured player in December 1980, midway through Jean Doumanian's only season as executive producer. She had worked on the show as an extra during the Lorne Michaels years before being credited as a featured player. Hudson continued making uncredited appearances for several years after her credited run ended. She is among 112 people in the site's roster ever credited with a featured-player stint at any point in the show's history.
Cast: Yvonne Hudson
Matthew Laurance and Patrick Weathers were added to the Saturday Night Live cast as featured players in December 1980, both hired a few weeks after the season six premiere as Jean Doumanian kept expanding the young lineup. Neither was ever promoted to repertory status, and both left along with most of that season's cast the following spring. Of the 174 people in the site's roster, 49 are credited as featured players who were never promoted to repertory.
Cast: Matthew Laurance, Patrick Weathers
Denny Dillon, Gilbert Gottfried, Gail Matthius, Joe Piscopo, Ann Risley and Charles Rocket opened season six as repertory players on 15 November 1980, the first cast assembled without any holdover from the original Not Ready for Prime Time Players. None had significant national television credits beforehand. Of these six, five had left the show within a year; only Joe Piscopo's run extended past that first season, eventually reaching four years on the show.
Cast: Denny Dillon, Gilbert Gottfried, Gail Matthius, Joe Piscopo, Ann Risley, Charles Rocket
Sources: Filmbuff Online: SNL50: The Eras, 1980-1981: The Doumanian Era
Jean Doumanian, a talent booker under Lorne Michaels, took over as executive producer for season six and rebuilt the show around performers with almost no prior national exposure. Her first episode aired 15 November 1980, five months after Michaels and the original cast departed. Of the 174 people in the site's roster, 15 began a stint in calendar year 1980, spanning both her incoming hires and the last of the outgoing season five cast.
Sources: Filmbuff Online: SNL50: The Eras, 1980-1981: The Doumanian Era
Emily Prager, a Saturday Night Live writer since 1980, was credited on screen as a featured player for the final episode of season six, though she never actually appeared on camera that night. She had previously made a handful of uncredited appearances in front of the camera during her writing tenure. Prager's sole credited season places her among the 59 people in the site's roster whose entire run lasted a single season.
Cast: Emily Prager
Eddie Murphy was promoted from featured player to repertory status during season six, early in 1981, as Saturday Night Live's ratings and reviews worsened around him. Sources disagree on the exact date, with the season-six episode guide naming both January 24 and February 7, so this entry uses season-level precision rather than picking one. The promotion came shortly before the on-air incident that ended Jean Doumanian's tenure as producer. Murphy and Brian Doyle-Murray are the only two performers hired during this five-season stretch who ended up credited in the site's roster with both a featured and a repertory stint.
Cast: Eddie Murphy
Eddie Murphy, then 19, joined Saturday Night Live's cast during season six after auditioning several times, at first appearing only sporadically before earning a regular featured spot. Sources disagree on the exact month: the season six episode guide distinguishes an uncredited November cameo from a December episode described as his first as a credited cast member, so this entry uses season-level precision. He was the only performer hired that season who stayed through the Doumanian, Ebersol and post-Ebersol upheavals of the next four years. Of the 174 people in the site's roster, only 63 ever carried both a featured and a repertory credit, and Murphy is one of them.
Cast: Eddie Murphy
Sources: Biography.com: Eddie Murphy
Jane Curtin, Garrett Morris, Bill Murray, Laraine Newman and Gilda Radner all played their last Saturday Night Live episode as cast members on 24 May 1980, the same night Lorne Michaels stepped down as producer. Curtin, Morris, Newman and Radner had been with the show since its 1975 premiere; Murray joined partway through season 2. Together the five logged 24 combined seasons in the site's roster, and none of them returned to the cast in a later stint.
Cast: Jane Curtin, Garrett Morris, Bill Murray, Laraine Newman, Gilda Radner
Sources: Ultimate Classic Rock: 40 Years Ago: Last Original Cast Members Leave 'SNL'
Lorne Michaels produced his last Saturday Night Live episode on 24 May 1980, hosted by Buck Henry, after contract talks with NBC stalled and he chose to leave rather than continue without the terms he wanted. Jane Curtin, Garrett Morris, Laraine Newman, Gilda Radner and Bill Murray all departed the same night. Michaels did not return as executive producer until season 11, in 1985. Sixteen of the 174 people in the site's roster have no stint after his first tenure ended.
Sources: Ultimate Classic Rock: 40 Years Ago: Last Original Cast Members Leave 'SNL'
The ten writers who had been promoted to featured or repertory status during season 5, Al Franken, Tom Davis, Don Novello, Harry Shearer, Paul Shaffer, Peter Aykroyd, Jim Downey, Brian Doyle-Murray, Tom Schiller and Alan Zweibel, left the cast at the same time as the repertory players when the season ended in May 1980. Four of the ten later returned to Saturday Night Live in some capacity: Franken, Novello and Shearer as later cast members, and Doyle-Murray for a second stint the following year.
Cast: Al Franken, Tom Davis, Don Novello, Harry Shearer, Paul Shaffer, Peter Aykroyd, Jim Downey, Brian Doyle-Murray, Tom Schiller, Alan Zweibel
Writers Tom Schiller and Alan Zweibel were credited as featured players for a single episode in April 1980, near the end of season 5, the briefest on-screen credit of that season's run of new additions. Schiller was better known for the filmed short pieces he made for the show, and Zweibel for creating Roseanne Roseannadanna and Emily Litella, two of the recurring characters Gilda Radner played. Their one-season tenure sits well below the 4.1-season average logged by the 174 people in the site's roster.
Cast: Tom Schiller, Alan Zweibel
Harry Shearer was promoted from featured player to the repertory cast in February 1980, partway through season 5, having joined the show only four months earlier. He was one of just two of that season's ten new arrivals ever credited with repertory status in the site's roster, a status otherwise held mostly by the show's longer-serving performers. Shearer is one of 63 people on the roster who held both featured and repertory status at some point during their Saturday Night Live tenure.
Cast: Harry Shearer
Three more Saturday Night Live writers moved into featured player roles in January 1980, partway through season 5: Peter Aykroyd, Jim Downey, who would go on to write for the show for decades, and Brian Doyle-Murray. All three had been part of the writing staff before stepping in front of the camera together, on the same episode as the rest of that week's cast. They are three of the 38 people in the site's roster credited as both a featured player and a writer.
Don Novello, a Saturday Night Live writer since 1978 who had already brought his gossip-columnist priest character Father Guido Sarducci to the show as a guest turn, became a featured cast member in December 1979. He continued to perform mainly as Sarducci rather than developing other characters. Novello is one of 49 people in the site's roster whose entire time on the show was spent as a featured player, without ever being promoted to the repertory cast.
Cast: Don Novello
Sources: LateNighter: Father Guido Sarducci: Behind The Collar
Al Franken, a Saturday Night Live writer since its first season and half of the comedy duo Franken and Davis with Tom Davis, became a featured player in his own right in December 1979, during season 5. His run as a cast member lasted only that season on this stretch of the show. The site's roster credits him with two further stints beyond this one, making him the only one of the 174 people on the roster with three separate stints in total.
Cast: Al Franken
Tom Davis, previously a Saturday Night Live writer known for his double act with Al Franken, and Paul Shaffer, the show's band keyboardist since its 1975 debut, both became featured players in November 1979. Shaffer was the first member of the house band to move into the on-screen cast. Season 5 added ten new performers in total, as many as had joined across the show's first four seasons combined, as Lorne Michaels rebuilt the roster around Jane Curtin's remaining repertory players.
Cast: Tom Davis, Paul Shaffer
Harry Shearer joined Saturday Night Live as a featured player in October 1979, at the start of season 5, the first of several new performers brought in as most of the original cast neared the end of their contracts. He had already worked in comedy with the Credibility Gap and as a television writer before joining the show. Shearer is one of 112 people in the site's roster ever credited as a featured player, the tier below full repertory status.
Cast: Harry Shearer
Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi played their last episode as Saturday Night Live cast members on 26 May 1979, the season 4 finale, closing out with two of Belushi's best-loved recurring bits, Samurai Futaba and the Olympia Cafe's cheeburger-cheeburger waiter. Both left to make The Blues Brothers, the film built around the musical act they had developed on the show. They are the only two of the 174 people in the site's roster whose Saturday Night Live tenure ends in 1979.
Cast: Dan Aykroyd, John Belushi
Sources: Ultimate Classic Rock: John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd Say Goodbye to 'Saturday Night Live'
Bill Murray took over as Jane Curtin's Weekend Update co-anchor for season 4, after a year in which Dan Aykroyd had held the seat opposite her. Murray and Curtin anchored together for two seasons, through the end of season 5 in 1980. Murray is one of 40 people in the site's roster credited as both a repertory player and a writer, having contributed to sketches as well as performing in them across his four seasons on the show.
Cast: Bill Murray
Sources: NBC Insider: Every SNL Weekend Update Host Through the Years
NBC's variety show had aired as NBC's Saturday Night since its 1975 debut because the Saturday Night Live title belonged to a rival ABC series, Saturday Night Live with Howard Cosell. After ABC cancelled that show in 1976, NBC's own show used the Saturday Night Live title for a single episode in March 1977 before switching back, then adopted it for good with the season 3 premiere that September. By then, 10 of the 174 people in the site's roster had already joined the show under its old title.
Dan Aykroyd joined Jane Curtin as Weekend Update's co-anchor for season 3, becoming the segment's first two-person team after a year of Curtin anchoring alone. Their best-remembered exchange was Point/Counterpoint, a parody of a recurring 60 Minutes segment, with Aykroyd playing an overheated conservative opposite Curtin. He anchored for one season before Bill Murray took the seat opposite her. Aykroyd is one of 34 people in the site's roster marked as both a repertory cast member and a host, a status the roster records without regard to when the hosting turn fell.
Cast: Dan Aykroyd
Sources: NBC Insider: Every SNL Weekend Update Host Through the Years
Bill Murray debuted on Saturday Night Live on 15 January 1977, joining the cast during its second season after Chevy Chase's departure. Ralph Nader hosted the episode, which also introduced the Coneheads. Murray went on to anchor Weekend Update and write for the show across four seasons, through 1980. He is one of just 14 people in the site's roster credited as both a Weekend Update anchor and a writer.
Cast: Bill Murray
Sources: Ultimate Classic Rock: When Bill Murray Made His Uncomfortable 'SNL' Debut
Jane Curtin became Weekend Update's sole anchor in November 1976, after Chevy Chase's departure left the desk empty partway through season 2. She kept the chair, later alongside a rotating co-anchor, through the end of season 5 in 1980, longer than any other original cast member held the role. Curtin is one of 124 people in the site's roster ever credited as a repertory player, a status she held without a break across all five of the show's first seasons.
Cast: Jane Curtin
Sources: NBC Insider: Every SNL Weekend Update Host Through the Years
Chevy Chase's last episode as a Saturday Night Live cast member aired on 30 October 1976, hosted by Buck Henry with the Band as musical guest, partway through season 2. He left to pursue a film career and would return many times afterward as a host rather than a performer. Chase is one of 21 people in the site's roster who each had a Best of Saturday Night Live video compilation built from their sketches, and the first to leave among the seven original cast members who had stayed on past season 1.
Cast: Chevy Chase
Sources: Ultimate Classic Rock: 45 Years Ago: Chevy Chase Leaves 'SNL' but Not for Good
Saturday Night Live's first broadcast on 11 October 1975 introduced the cast billed as the Not Ready for Prime Time Players: Dan Aykroyd, John Belushi, Chevy Chase, Jane Curtin, George Coe, Garrett Morris, Laraine Newman, Michael O'Donoghue and Gilda Radner. The name mocked Howard Cosell, whose rival ABC show held the rights to the Saturday Night Live title until it was cancelled in 1976, after which NBC adopted the name for its own show. Of these nine, four, Curtin, Morris, Newman and Radner, were still on the show when season 5 ended in 1980; the other five had all left the cast within four years.
Cast: Dan Aykroyd, John Belushi, Chevy Chase, Jane Curtin, George Coe, Garrett Morris, Laraine Newman, Michael O'Donoghue, Gilda Radner
Sources: NBC Insider: The First Episode of Saturday Night Live: Everything to Know and How to Watch
NBC's Saturday Night, later renamed Saturday Night Live, aired its first episode live from Studio 8H on 11 October 1975. George Carlin hosted, with Billy Preston and Janis Ian as musical guests, and the debut assembled the cast introduced that night as the Not Ready for Prime Time Players, including Chevy Chase, John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd. Of the 174 people in the site's roster, 9 are credited with a stint that began in that first season.
Sources: NBC Insider: The First Episode of Saturday Night Live: Everything to Know and How to Watch; HISTORY: "Saturday Night Live" debuts
Chevy Chase read the news on Weekend Update in Saturday Night Live's premiere on 11 October 1975, the segment that made him the show's first breakout star. He anchored it alone through his time on the show before leaving partway through season 2. Chase is one of 24 people in the site's roster credited at some point as a Weekend Update anchor; when he left, Jane Curtin, Dan Aykroyd and Bill Murray had not yet joined that list, and the three of them would not all have anchored it until 1978.
Cast: Chevy Chase
Sources: NBC Insider: Every SNL Weekend Update Host Through the Years
Michael O'Donoghue was credited as a cast member for only a handful of Saturday Night Live's first season before dropping off the billed roster for season 2. He remained with the show as a writer, and returned to the screen occasionally afterward as the character Mr. Mike, but the site's roster counts his time as an on-screen cast member as a single season. He is one of 58 people on the roster credited as a writer, the role he kept long after his cast credit had ended.
Cast: Michael O'Donoghue
Sources: Nicki Swift: What Happened To The Original 1975 SNL Cast Members?
George Coe was billed as a cast member only in Saturday Night Live's 11 October 1975 premiere and did not come back when the show returned for season 2, though he was still seen, uncredited, in a handful of small roles later in that first season. Already an established stage and voice actor in his mid-forties, he stood apart from a cast otherwise built from young improv performers. No contemporaneous account gives a reason for his exit. Coe is one of two of the nine original cast members, along with Michael O'Donoghue, whose entire credited time in the site's roster fits inside a single season.
Cast: George Coe
Sources: Nicki Swift: What Happened To The Original 1975 SNL Cast Members?