Saturday Night Live

Sudeikis can still be crazy funny, but he seems bored as hell to still be on SNL.

Bobby, Kate and Kenan are my favorites of the remaining cast (Sudeikis too, if he counts). Nasim and Vanessa used to kill it too, but they definitely took steps backwards in 2012/13. Taran Killam is often funny, but he always feels like a visitor for some reason.

bc he was on madtv

Nasim and Vanessa used to kill it too, but they definitely took steps backwards in 2012/13.

I think they weren't given enough to do. The majority of sketches Vanessa was this season were the Californians, after all.

i like nasim but she has so little of value to do that i'd have to pick her as "non-featured castmember most likely to leave without a poignant farewell."

though man the more i think about armisen's jack-off sayonara the more i hate it. "Wow, 10 years of playing every race...but in the end, I write shitty songs and have some gen-x rocker pals. Thank you."

No way, Ian Rubbish for Blues Brothers 2013!

I thought Nasim was great early on, but she's gotten so little screentime lately i can't even remember the last time she stood out in anything.

though man the more i think about armisen's jack-off sayonara the more i hate it. "Wow, 10 years of playing every race...but in the end, I write shitty songs and have some gen-x rocker pals. Thank you."

― da croupier, Sunday, May 26, 2013 10:32 AM (54 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I thought the tie-in with Carrie Brownstein's AMEX ad was a nice touch.

ha i still haven't seen that

though man the more i think about armisen's jack-off sayonara the more i hate it.

I hope the maudlin farewell doesn't become a regular SNL feature, it's kind of gross. And I'm pretty sick of Armisen in the context of SNL as it is, so just leave so I can forget about you before Portlandia comes back.

I kind of felt like Kristen Wiig deserved a sendoff, but Armisen got his own because nobody had any better sketch ideas.

yeah but Wiig's actual sendoff was turrible

trying to remember if they 'did' anything for carvey's exit or if was just a big deal in the press (eg THE COVER OF ROLLING STONE). phil hartman's the only cast member before that i can remember getting a specific farewell like wiig's (vs something like those last couple of digital shorts samberg did or stefon's wedding)(and tbh i thought stefon's wedding was gonna work as a farewell for hader and myers until i heard myers isn't leaving until halfway thru next season). and wiig's made sense - god know fbofw she carried that show on her back for a few years and she came back for a full season after a huge hit movie even though she'd definitely done her time.

Carvey's last appearance as a cast member was as Prince Charles turning himself into a human tampon. No send-off.

Phil Hartman's sendoff was a little song he sang with Chris Farley's head on his shoulder seated on the steps center stage with a spotlight. It was sweet.

Now they're both dead, which makes it really bittersweet.

i think people knowing they definitely wouldn't be back in the fall by the time of the season finale was just less common back then. Hartman knew because NBC had already picked up Newsradio.

A couple other big sendoffs:

Jimmy Fallon: Got a Grease-inspired musical skit at the end of his last ep, w/Tina Fey as Sandy.

Will Ferrell: Mock-retrospective skit, complete with testimonial from recent cast re-addition Chris Parnell about Will got him back on the show, topped with Ferrell admitting he got Parnell fired in the first place.

poor Parnell, only guy to get fired from SNL twice.

o right i forgot fallon's sendoff, should've known that the son lorne never had sure as hell was getting a sendoff

parnell's probably had one of my five fave post-snl careers and he's never remotely been the lead in anything i've loved him in

yeah i wouldn't be surprised if he never has a lead role in anything bigger than a 10 minute sketch or web short, that's just the kinda guy he is

In a parallel universe, the best send-off would be the film of John Belushi dancing on their graves.

let me think - julia louis-dreyfus, will ferrell, tina fey, eddie murphy, do i put parnell ahead of chase and aykroyd and o wait bill murray ok so parnell's not one of my top five fave post-snl careers but still

Sending off Darryl Hammond, who I hated, with that bizarre "Goodnight Saigon" sing-a-long was one of my favorites.

The last "classic" Lorne season, 1979-80, ended with everyone all crying onstage with a final shot of the "ON THE AIR" light flickering off.

it never even occurred to me that the "Goodnight Saigon" sketch was Hammond's last, just seemed like standard 'weird' Will Ferrell showcase

huh didn't know that. was 'goodnight saigon' a sendoff for hammond really, chalked it up to pure ferrell insanity, even if the premise is standard sketch material - guy who has vietnam flashbacks visited as a tourist like two years ago - the execution was pure ferrell esp w/ the billy joel element. was thinking earlier that it would probably be more fun for the audience and maybe the cast member if they'd just let them do some sketch they could never get on the show in that last ten to one slot.

xpost

it certainly wasn't a farewell like Wiig's or Hartman's, but there was some sort of sly "this is my last night in New York" line from D.H.

i'm cool with send-offs but christ at least make them cast-centric if not funny. let fred reaffirm his friendship with aimee mann on his own show.

i mean it's a 90 minute show, if you've been on it for 5+ years we got time for a group hug

eh i figured that was the one shot of seeing most of those ppl onstage on snl, almost as much 'goodbye generation x' as 'goodbye fred'.

when will Michael Penn write the true "goodbye generation x" send-off

ha now that you say it, Armisen actually is (and probably will always remain) the last SNL cast member who was bron in the '60s

i do love that arguably the person fewest people would recognize (definitely the least current cachet) was the only one with a solo top 40 hit

not to mention a best new artist grammy!

haha wait doublecked, that was MTV best new artist. Still!

pretty sure Penn was the only one out of the bunch who was ever a musical guest on SNL too!

i think he may have been a guest twice - i know his brother got him the gig when he hosted during what i think was the anthony michael hall year and i think he may have been back circa 'no myth'.

imdb says he only appeared that one time his bro hosted, which actually 1987, though that was still a year or two before No Myth. Man, if it wasn't for that, letting the host's brother co-musical guest with LL Cool J would be even more hilarious

credited as "Michael Penn & The Pull"

ll did 'go cut creator go' and it was awesome iirc

ll never came back, i wonder if it's because he had to give the second slot to the host's unsigned brother despite going platinum

I wonder if MP's SNL gig helped get him a deal.

i don't know, he'd been doing studio work behind the scenes for a few year by then

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3C9Bng7NPPY

Will Ferrell: Mock-retrospective skit, complete with testimonial from recent cast re-addition Chris Parnell about Will got him back on the show, topped with Ferrell admitting he got Parnell fired in the first place.

― Sheela-Tubb-Mann, You Real Know-It-All (C. Grisso/McCain), Sunday, May 26, 2013 8:26 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

There were tons of send-offy sketches on Ferrell's last show. Practically everyone he'd done an impression of showed up: Alex Trebek, Robert Goulet, Neil Diamond (the latter of whom either was an insanely good sport, or never saw Ferrell's impression).

Mike Myers didn't get much of a send-off, did he? He left halfway through the 94-95 season and barely appeared in his final episode.

Don't forget the sketch where Farley, Sandler, and Jay Mohr ended their runs by jumping into the Polar Bear pit!

I wish Armisen's final episode was a 90-minute Californians sketch

here's hoping they won't attempt to continue the Californians w/o Armisen and Hader

farley and sandler were fired after the season at nbc's behest so that definitely wasn't meant to be a send off