Leading into SNL's Season 48, we have rocky news about the cast. This last week of August is when SNL has traditionally announced its first shows of the new season (although that was delayed in 2020 and 2021). After the end of last season, Aidy Bryant, Pete Davidson, Kate McKinnon and Kyle Mooney announced they were leaving the cast. Over this summer, veteran SNL producer Linday Shookus left the show after 20 years. Cecily Strong will miss the first couple months of this new season. She is doing a play in Los Angeles, Jane Wagner and Lily Tomlin’s “The Search for Intelligent Life in the Universe." Today, the press is reporting that Melissa Villaseñor, Alex Moffat, and Aristotle Athari will not be returning for Season 48. This means means one-third of last season's cast is not returning, a big shake up. No new cast members have been announced for this upcoming season. Also, Peacock (and not Hulu) will be SNL's exclusive next-day streaming home. NBCUniversal terminated its next-day streaming deal with Hulu this summer, moving its TV shows to its own streaming service. Much online chatter about when Lorne Michaels will hang up his hat, and the fate of SNL ... Also, let's get the inevitable out of the way ... The show hasn't been funny since Chevy Chase / John Belushi / Eddie Murphy / Dana Carvey / Phil Hartman / Chris Farley / Norm Macdonald / Will Ferrell / Tina Fey / Kristen Wiig / Kate McKinnon left, and I can't believe anyone still watches it. This show used to be funny back in [list years when I was teens or twenties], but the sketches today are not funny and the musical guests are terrible acts I never heard of.
Melissa left? Damn, she's my favorite. I was hoping that this would be the year she finally got some serious exposure. Can't blame her for leaving, they never did use her properly.
A few days ago, SNL's Twitter account asked fans who they wanted to see host Season 48, and Carol Burnett is the top fan suggestion: Carol Burnett is Top Fan Suggestion for Saturday Night Live Host
Yeah she was a favourite of mine too. Underused but always great when she was on. I thought this might be her year for more exposure too but earlier on she had been complaining about feeling underused. She seemed to hint she was going on instagram awhile back as well. I get the feeling it might have been one of those mutual decisions.
We all have our favorites, but I've been watching since '75 and I still find at least something in every show that makes me laugh. Weekend Update especially. I'm looking forward to another season!
Melissa is super-talented. But she was in a large cast that included Heidi Gardner, Sarah Sherman and Chloe Fineman to cover female parts that Melissa could do, with Chloe also very capable of impersonations. None of those other cast members are leaving for this upcoming season. A lot of what makes or breaks a cast member is connecting with the right group staff writers who will write for you, and who know how to write for you. We don't know what the politics were like among the cast and writers behind-the-scenes. Last year's cast ballooned up to 21, which I think was the highest for any season. Next largest cast was I believe the 1991 season, with 18. The show had averaged around 12 cast members through the 1980s, then averaged around 14 cast members in the 1990s and later decades. The seven departures will bring the cast members down to 14, if they don't add any new members. The cast had gotten big over the past couple years because a number of them had been taking weeks off from the show for other projects.
Glad to hear about more change - I prefer more-frequent cast changes so this is all good news. With the cast still being numerous I wonder if there will be any new cast members or will they just allow for more screen time for whomever is left?
Last year’s cast did set the record for largest cast ever as you noted, with 21. The second-largest cast was the previous season, with 20. I think it’s likely they’ll add at least two more cast members. They haven’t had a cast with 14 members or less in ten years, and the average cast size over the past decade is roughly 17.
The best moments of Alex Moffat, Melissa Villaseñor, and Aristotle Athari: Three More 'SNL' Cast Members Are Leaving the Show
I’ve become a big fan of Ego Nwodim since hearing her on the Comedy Bang Bang podcast the last couple of years. I’m always happy to see her in sketches and I hope her role on the show grows more this season.
I was a big fan of SNL on and off for more than 20 years, from 1975 through the early 2000s. But I've tried to watch the show in the last 10-15 years, and it's been awful (for the most part), at least to me. There were some good moments with Kristin Wiig and Kate McKinnon, but for the most part it's been a snoozer. The big rumor is that Lorne Michaels (who will be 78 later this year) will retire next year, and Seth Meyers will leave his own NBC talk show and become the new executive producer/showrunner. I think it's fair to say they need to shake some things up and get funnier people and better writers on staff. I've been enjoying the David Spade/Dana Carvey podcast "Fly on the Wall," which goes into a lot of Saturday Night Live minutia. My only beef with their show is they're reluctant to air any dirty laundry, and I know there was some turmoil in the 1990s (like with Adam Sandler and Chris Farley getting fired in 1995). Still, they have some good insights into how stressful and difficult it was writing for and appearing on SNL back in the day, and I'm sure not a lot of that has changed.
There's still some pruning that can be done. Shame about Melissa, I really like her. I think of everyone that left for this season, the one that will be the most missed is Kyle Mooney. He definitely had the oddest sense of humor of the group, which was nice to see. I'd like to keep it at Michael Che Chloe Fineman Colin Jost Ego Nwodim Chris Redd Cecily Strong Kenan Thompson Bowen Yang James Austin Johnson Sarah Sherman The original cast had 7 players, my version here has 10. That feels right. Good, but still missing a real home run hitter. And lose: Andrew Dismukes Punkie Johnson Mikey Day Heidi Gardner These four I don't think have ever made me laugh.
Looking through all the praise in the Laughintosh 3000 YouTube comments, it's really sad to think that Aristotle seemed to get *this close* to becoming a breakout new cast member. He did some really good supporting work too, but this was his biggest moment and he killed. Shame he won't be back. I like all three, actually, particularly Melissa. I've got some reservations about a couple or so, but overall it's still a good group. Hoping the new season goes well. dan c
He had a couple of moments, but he was in about ten sketches the entire season. He was barely on the show. I think Melissa Villasenor is great but they never knew how to use her. Thought her best sketches were the dirty talk ones. https://youtu.be/49UHAsIk2Ds
I hear they're not going to replace the cast members. The show will just be shortened to one hour by removing them from the opening credits.
