Knuckles and Gyros

How I Got Into SNL

Yeah this was originally going to be me waxing poetic about Phil Hartman, but it kind of meandered off topic in my head and it turned into a story of how I got into watching SNL. So I thought I’d talk about that. I WILL eventually write about Phil Hartman, I swear. 

I think I was an SNL fan from birth. I like to think that because my mother was a huge fan. She was 25 when SNL debuted in 1975 and practically grew up with them. It was a big event for her and her friends to watch it together and laugh over the antics of Belushi, Aykroyd, Murray, and Radner among others(FWIW, Radner is my mom’s favorite cast member). I think she watched some of the Crystal/Guest/Short era which was going on around the time I was born. Of course the SNL that ran after my birth didn’t air because there was a writer’s strike going on. Go figure, eh? So a love of sketch comedy was already in the blood enough. 

During some weekends, my siblings and I would go up to Pawtucket to stay with my grandmother. When she’d go to bed, we’d be in the den together with the TV on. We were quietly watching Nick at Nite and it’s variety of programming. Nick at Nite, at the time, used to air half-hour episodes of SNL from the 1975-1980 era. One of the earliest memories I had was falling asleep to the opening credits of SNL and the TV framing an airbrushed picture of either Jane Curtin or Gilda Radner. I don’t know why I recall this, but I do. I’d basically nod off to the lullabies of lulz giving by men dressed as bees, Coneheads, ignorant sluts, and the Blues Brothers. It was quite a way to fall asleep, lemme tell you. 

However, it’d be years later before I really got into SNL. It was 1996 and I was the tender age of 11 years old. Tommy Boy had come out on video and my brother really wanted to see this movie. So we rented it from the video store and actually came to really enjoy it. It was funny and I really loved the physical comedy of the whole thing. However, I also found myself drawn to the blonde snarky short guy. He was the straight man, but despite that, he still got laughs. I liked that. Of course, that was David Spade. It was through this newfound liking of David Spade and Chris Farley that I came to rediscover SNL.

And what luck was it that one hour SNL episodes were shown on Comedy Central just as I got home from school?! Damn lucky, I tell ya! My after school ritual was rather strange for an 11 year old girl. At an age where I should’ve been more about dolls and boys (it was in that time frame where boys were just starting to be interesting), I was more focused on watching SNL and trying to imitate or act like the many characters on the show. I wasn’t that great, but screw it, I enjoyed watching it. 

As I watched SNL, however, I began to drift away from David Spade. I began to find his humor a little mean-spirited and not too…well…good. Sure, snarkiness is fine and I can get my inner snark on every so often, but the truth of the matter was that I became more interested in the other kind of comedy — the character based. I was liking the idea of sketch comedy, how these entire characters were just being presented and just making us all laugh. It was more about just the act itself rather than the person doing the act. And no one cast member was better at that than Phil Hartman, who soon became my favorite one to watch.

By the next year, I began to watch some of the stuff on Saturday nights. I was old enough to stay up later, plus my sister was obsessed with Hanson at the time and wanted to see them on SNL. Helen Hunt was hosting that episode. I watched that episode and it left me rather unimpressed with most of that cast. I did recall that was the episode that had all the baseball players in it. That warmed my baseball loving heart. But really, it wasn’t much to write home about, which left me a little sad. I still watched, however. I found myself drawn more to the standalone sketches in the late 90s (Jingleheimer Junction still never fails to crack me up)

However, I was still more into watching it on Comedy Central and just loved the late 80s cast…and the early 90s to an extent. But basically, this was how I got into SNL. 

Top 10 Underrated SNL Cast Members of All Time

This is my list. Remember this. I have differing opinions than a lot of folks. So keep that in mind. This is someone who thinks Kristen Wiig is vastly overrated and doesn’t see the appeal in Norm MacDonald, so you may think of me as a no-humored bitch. That’s all well and good. I have a right to judge you if you think Hartman is not in the Top 10 All Time, so lets leave it there. :P

10) Darrell Hammond — I think it’s because he spent so damn long on the show that people tend to not realize how talented he really is. He was a damn good impressionist and his Clinton was better than Hartman’s by far. He and Gasteyer are the only two in the late 90s cast that I still laugh at to this day. Ferrell’s early stuff never made me laugh so much…it wasn’t until the early 00s when I started to appreciate Ferrell. Hammond was very good. And well, that’s all I got on him. 

9) Dennis Miller — Okay this one sounds weird, I know. He wasn’t the most versatile cast member, but you see he’s on this because of his influence on shows like The Daily Show and The Colbert Report. While I’m aware that Chase created it and Fey/Fallon did this as well, but Miller is the one who really started bringing the biting satire into the news. It started with him.

8) Jon Lovitz — I think the gist is that Lovitz is funny, but can sometimes get very obnoxious in his acting. It’s the way he does things, but I can see why people don’t like him a lot. That being said, he is one of the few who stuck around after the disastrous Steinbrenner-esque 84-85 season. Lovitz has a lot of awesome characters like Master Thespian, Hanukkah Harry, and Mephistopheles. The latter of these characters is like the worst costuming ever, but it just works because of it. It’s great. Also, he was partly responsible for getting Hartman on the cast, so bonus points for life on that. 

7) Chris Parnell — Dude has a stone face. I mean that in the best way possible. He can make the most ridiculous/immature things look hilarious just by him doing it. He seems to thrive on being kind of doing the unexpected. Like his vulgar raps, going around in a speedo, and so on. Plus he could play the straight man. Parnell got fired at one point and then got re-hired. I think this is the only case (at least in-season) where this had happened. I mean if you are that good for that to happen, you gotta be underrated. Hell, you were underrated by friggin Lorne!

6) Joe Piscopo — First of all, I don’t really care for him in most aspects. He seems like a real dickface. However, you have to give him some credit, man. It wasn’t just Eddie Murphy who saved SNL in the early 80s. Piscopo helped a lot. He was a funny dude and had a dead on Frank Sinatra. He had funny characters and him and Murphy worked pretty well together. I think he thing with him was that his post-SNL career went to hell so quickly that people kind of forget how good he was. 

5) Tim Meadows — Tim Meadows took a little longer than most to break through. He was almost fired in 1995. But he stuck around and The Ladies Man was soon born. However, it wasn’t really the Ladies Man that got me into Meadows. For me, it was his deadpan/reactionary comedy style. He, like Curtin, had great comic timing in his reactions. The Census sketch, I doubt, would’ve worked with anybody else as the census taker. But he can always play the character, like the host of Perspectives. Meadows lasted a while for a reason, folks. 

4) Kevin Nealon — Little known fact but Kevin Nealon stayed a year longer than Phil Hartman did. Yes, its true. Nealon was kind of the everyman who you could stick anywhere for the most part. He did a pretty good Weekend Update. It wasn’t really on the levels of Miller (who I think did it the best), but he was very damn good. Plus, he did a great Franz (or was it Hans?) and the Subliminal Message Guy as awesome.

3) Ana Gasteyer — In the late 90s, there was always talk about Chris Kattan, Will Ferrell, Molly Shannon and Cheri Oteri. It was always yammering about how they were the superstars, how they were the real talent and all this other crap. Meanwhile, you had Gasteyer who could friggin act rings around some of those guys and was insanely talented. The Celine Dion show cracks me up to this day and was one of the few things from the late 90s SNL I actually dug, I also thought her Martha Stewart was the best of them all. The Topless Christmas special also still makes me laugh. I never understood why she got so little love from the press. 

2) Jane Curtin — Poor Jane Curtin. She was overshadowed on all angles. You had Belushi, Murray, and Aykroyd basically made of awesome as it is. Then you had Radner who was the woman that everybody remembers (with good reason mind you). But Jane? She was just as funny as Radner. She JUST missed my Top 20, fwiw. Curtin usually ended up playing the straight man, which sometimes is a thankless task. However, the thing with her is that she was a great reactionary comedienne much along the lines of Bob Newhart and Dave Foley. Plus she did have some funny characters. I also give her mad credit for not falling into the whole drugs and shit that everybody else seemed to fall into. She only just barely misses my top spot. 

1) Jan Hooks — This was a close one between her and Curtin. Both are excellent EXCELLENT choices. However, I went with Hooks because of a) my soft spot for the late 80s/early 90s SNL and b) Her range of characters was nothing short of impressive. I loved watching her and thought she was flat out hilarious. It’s a damn shame that she isn’t recognized more often as one of the best, because she really is. When she and Phil Hartman would team up…shit man, it’s one of the best tandems in SNL history. 

20 Greatest SNL Cast Members of All Time

Ahh, yes, the always enjoyable list makings… This is a rather popular topic and I have as of yet found a list that hasn’t made me want to punch things for one reason or another. So I thought to myself “Shit! I’m gonna make my own list…with blackjack…and hookers” and so I am here. This is my Top 20 Greatest SNL Cast Members of All Time. As a disclaimer, this is MY list so there is quite possibly choices that you may not agree with. That is par for the course. So sit back, relax, and enjoy this list. 

Honorable Mentions: Al Franken, Adam Sandler, Kevin Nealon, Jane Curtin, Andy Samberg

20) Joe Piscopo (Helped keep SNL afloat with Murphy)

19) Ana Gasteyer (Probably one of the most underrated cast members of all time)

18) Darrell Hammond (Stayed on too long, but impressions were fabulous)

17) Amy Poehler (Would be higher if this was a Meyers/Poehler tandem)

16) Billy Crystal (One year but hell of a year)

15) Tim Meadows (Stayed on a while, took some time to break out, but I always liked him as the straight man reacting to shit. Great deadpan)

14) Mike Myers (Wasn’t as high on him as others but good characters)

13) Bill Hader (Only current cast member…could easily break into the Top 10)

12) Dennis Miller (helped revolutionize the Weekend Update desk which helped influence Politically Incorrect and The Daily Show in some respects)

11) Jan Hooks (She was great but never really talked about)

10) Tina Fey (Snarky, smart, and witty — gotta love the combo)

9) Chris Farley (Farley had crazy energy and was fun to watch)

8) Will Ferrell (Annoys me when he’s over the top, but he can play it all)

7) John Belushi (One of the originals, can’t go wrong with them)

6) Gilda Radner (Showed girls can be funny and she wasn’t afraid to make an ass of herself)

5) Dana Carvey (Great impressions, great music talent, and just a damn good cast members)

4) Dan Aykroyd (One of the originals, could do most of it. Loved his shady business man characters)

3) Bill Murray (Bill Murray is one of those guys whose funny without even trying. Sheer respect on that front. He can make almost anything funny)

2) Eddie Murphy (Dude saved SNL and had amazing talent. Too bad he’s turned into such a suckass actor in suckass roles…but hey, whatever pays the bills)

1) Phil Hartman (I will not argue this. I’m sorry but I refuse to argue this one. Hartman was the man and I still get angry whenever I think about his murder. I’ll write a more eloquent post about him soon)

So that’s my Top 20. And if you try to ask me where’s Norm MacDonald or Kristen Wiig, you may not get a very friendly response because I find both of the insanely overrated (And I actually don’t mind MacDonald, I just don’t think he was that great). However feel free to comment and such :) Oh and if I forgot anybody feel free to tell me, I’m sure I forgot someone.