As mentioned in yesterday's post listing our favorite moments from this season of SNL, Season 38 has been dubbed a "transitional year" by many followers of the show. After a few years of relative stability among the core cast members, stars Kristen Wiig and Andy Samberg left a year ago, followed by Abby Elliott later in the summer. With the start of the new season, three performers from Chicago's improv and sketch community joined the cast: Aidy Bryant, Tim Robinson, and Cecily Strong. In the wake of Wiig's dominating presence on the show, two freshman females in particular have emerged as go-to's: Kate McKinnon, who joined the cast [...]
What a weepy week it was for comedy nerds. NBC packed a double-whammy of goodbyes, with The Office's poignant series finale last Thursday, followed by Saturday's season finale of Saturday Night Live and final episode to feature Bill Hader, Fred Armisen, and (perhaps) Jason Sudeikis as regular cast members, which was announced only days before. It is indeed the end of an era, not just for the network, but for TV comedy as a whole, and we will talk plenty more about this changing landscape over the coming days, weeks, and months.
Unlike last year's farewell to Kristen Wiig, which had a best-of-Wiig vibe that unfortunately repeated itself a week [...]
With Bill Hader poised to leave Saturday Night Live after tomorrow's season finale, don't expect him to try to turn his most popular character from the show into a movie. Hader tells GQ, "There's no emotional through line. Sometimes people say to me 'I want a Stefon movie' and I'm like, you think you want a Stefon movie but then you'll see the poster for it and think, 'Wait, I don't want this.'" If only Bill Hader had been on the show during the '90s, when all of SNL's most popular characters got turned into movies, then he probably could have been pressured into making a Stefon movie and satisfying you [...]
Amy Poehler has a pretty solid resume as both a comedian and a person. After spending time studying at Second City and iO in Chicago, Poehler moved to New York with friends Matt Besser, Matt Walsh, and Ian Roberts to found the Upright Citizens Brigade, which has since grown into the massive community of learners and performers of long-form improv and sketch that it is today. In more recent years, on her off time from her TV work on SNL and Parks and Recreation, Poehler and friends Meredith Walker and Amy Miles started Smart Girls at the Party, an online network to encourage and educate young women about [...]
