The Real Reason Why These Stars Left SNL 

Cecily, Kristen, Kate, Amy, Sasheer, Vanessa, Aidy, Keenan, Bill, Fred, Jason, Seth, Will, Mikey.

Eddie Murphy, Adam Driver & Jonah Hill for have a lot of funny skits.

Sounds like the problem was Lorne Michaels, not the cast members. This explains why SNL isn't funny, and hasn't been for many decades.

Definitely Kristen Wiig , Will Farrell, Kate Mckinnon , Fred Armisen, Aidy Bryant , Kyle Mooney .. ❣️

Kristen Wiig, Kenan Thompson, Kate McKinnon, Cecily Strong, Jason Sudeikis, Seth Myers, Will Ferrell, and RIP Norm MacDonald, Chris Farley and Phil Hartman

Definitely. Esp the one with Kristen Stewert.

I like her fat knees

​@@waynej2608 OH Sebine

are you CRAZY?? she was one of the worst and most boring on SNL, she is not funny (at all), she is not beautiful, she isn´t anything

Did you see Vanessa play Evie the emotional vampire in What we do in the shadows? Hilarious fight scene-lol

Me too! I love Kristen Wig too!

​@unknown-lf6zx Kate, Cecily, Kristen, Molly, Cheri, love these four, now I'm loving Heidi, Chloe and Sarah.

@@unknown-lf6zxI consider Kristin Wiig to be the greatest comedian on SNL. Unbelievably talented.

They really hit the jackpot with those 3

They were pretty good together along with Aidy Bryant

Kenan is Kenan- no one can beat him!!!!

@@luismarroquin3031 no. Lorne's just gotten lazy.

I'm surprised he hasn't been fired yet he's been there for like 20 years

​@onedayatatime1494 the longest tenured cast nember in SNL's history.

@@aarondigby5054 but what's weird about Kennan is that he doesn't age at all he has to be in his mid forties by now and he looks 30 ..wtf ...

Lorne must be powermadcrazy by now. They need someone new in command or the show will crash and burn soon. Hasn't been as good for some time now.

@@voxveritas333 There were rumors that Lorne might pass the torch to Seth Meyers soon. He would be a fantastic choice.

To quote Al Pacino in The Recruit, he has "a scary eye for talent," but he doesn't always know what to do with it.

@@WaitingtoHit that would be the best thing that could happen to SNL. Seth Meyers Era was the best of them all.

strong cast? May I assume you don't watch much SNL?

Aidy too

Vanessa and Nassim, also.

Eddie and Joe, too.

Kate was very boring the way she always had to remind everyone that she is a lesbian. Like Che always talks about being black. Yawn.

@@dimitar297Kate “make a goofy face” McKinnon. Yawn indeed

Jeff Richards was on both. But you would have to search the internet to find Memories Because they are very few and fleeting.

And I believe he was also on Wild N' Out too!

​@@erinmalone2669and Debra Wilson if I'm not wrong

Chris Rock did both

​@aarondigby5054 I know she did MadTv, but not SNL, if I recall correctly.

I especially loved her as Miss Meadows the Creative Writing/Poetry teacher.

@@swolf4741 Ms Meadows was my favorite poetry professor because she really cared.

@@swolf4741 Ms Meadows is my favorite poetry professor because she cared

are you CRAZY??? Vanessa is exactly like Maya Rudolph, you can watch them for hours until deeply fall asleep

@@Gusfer-ze8lw well that can be good or bad I think. I personally find her delightful.

Or a woman.

I recognize his voice on Buffalo Wild Wings commercials.

He was great on the show and it cool they noticed him from really good AT&T commercials

Hes in a pretty great ITYSL sketch in season 3 :)

Omg. Boss Baby with Cameron Diaz is classic with Beck! He’s the man!

Miss that guy! Another big loss to the show.

Jay is a nasty person. I'm sure he constantly pissed people off.

@@anotherjewishsharpnicholas9425 really? I never heard any stories about that.

@@anotherjewishsharpnicholas9425 Not according to Vanessa Bayer . . .

He can do some impressions but he isn't that funny.

@wmlau69 that's the 'shrooms talking, he left because he got backlash for asking SNL to hire a black female cast member to play black females in skits. He decided to leave/let go or whatever

Good question.

no idea...

Pete Davidson is a no talent stooge.

Maybe he had too many opinions? Seems like when Seth went, Lorne was less interested in the opinions of the cast members

I'm still baffled by Pete Davidson...

I know Pete rarely was put in sketches and when he was put in any it didn’t work I think he was kept around just cause he amused loran

Really popular with the audience? Or was he? Idk. I think his mental health problems magnified under the stress of fame, however.

Ego doesn't have but so much range, looks like skits have to be tailored for her to really shine.

Yeah the producers will pull in anyone they think can contribute to the show but sometimes clashing personalities get in the way. They got lucky in the mid 90's when they had a bunch of funny people who also worked well together. It hasnt been like that for a long time, not since Phil Hartman left for NewsRadio and Chris Farley died young.

@Shorty_Lickens idk. I think the samberg/wiig/hader/armisen years were good. They had a lot of talented people on the show. There was also a point where strong and McKinnon were part of a really well-balanced cast: Mooney & Bennett, Davidson, Leslie Jones. And Kenan Thompson 8s the GOAT.

But also the performer's expectations and attitude. If you're there for only a year and don't understand why you don't get much screen time, you probably weren't going to work out long-term.

The sexiest teeth in the business belongs to Vanessa Bayer.

Kyle Mooney was OK, but not near the same level as those featured here.

😂

@@landonandvinceryan9034 To each their own mate. I think Mooney is at least on par with Beck, and his humor was ahead of the zeitgeist because he'd be at home in the current cast.

Thumbs up for Daria❤

Listen to Carvey & Spade's Fly on the Wall podcast. This is a very common occurrence at SNL.

She never brought anything to the table- she was basically an extra.

@@charlesbikle4823 You must have intimate behind the scenes knowledge to know that!

They did the same thing to Eddie Murphy back in the day. Lorne Michaels is kinda toxic.

Jay was awesome!

Taran too, he was usually wasted in poor skits IMO

We all LOVED Cecily! 👍

I cried during her last episode 😢

let’s love both of them this comment seems really backhanded

I'm Team Cecily. The strongest cast member since Wiig.

Jeremiah Atkinson is a classic, Colonel Angus is another won, SNL has plenty of gut busting skits through the yesrs.

NEXT!!!

Maya Rudolph.

Fellow Brit here. Not seen enough of Haden or Wiig but Whiskers r us if gold! Kate instantly won my heart!❤😻

Will Ferrell was honestly great on the show before them stealing every scene he was in just being himself. But yes, during their time Hader and Wiig were the best

Hader is awesome. You’re definitely not wrong

I really wish mine had. I was just kind of shaking my head. The only place a Black star will be recognized and treated well by the cops is probably Staten Island, specifically members of the WuTangClan. I think it was the RZA that told a tale of being stopped there, and the cop was like, Oh shit, the RZA!

Same I had never heard that. It’s just like “we’re still letting this happen!?”

Just say the f word live on the air, as Charles Rocket did. :-)

I was just going to ask about both of them especially Mooney who I always felt never got the credit for how good he was.

@@gregorygoguen2574it was sad when Kyle left. He was also on Norm Macdonalds Sports Show, he played norms nephew lol, definitely worth checking out

Kyle was the lamest cast member EVER.

@@gregoryroth9638 wow, lol sorry for your sense of humor. Kyle was awesome. And norm MacDonald liked em so, if he’s got uncle Norms approval. Then ya your sense of humor… sucks

@@gregoryroth9638u suck

And Nicolas Andre in Dumb & Dumber

That is a great point, and I hadn't thought about that. But it makes perfect sense!

if uve tried it before then when ure on pressure it feels an easy choice to do it again. but if uve never tried this shit before then im 100% positive u wouldnt feel the need

💯 AGREED with all you said. Strong was different in a good way towards her end. And currently, Weekend Update is the only must-see part of SNL left, and its been that way for a few years now. What’s considered talent is different now and the legendary talent from the 70s-early 2000s has aged out with modern-day “talent” vanilla, at best. I had a sliver of hope for last week’s Emma Stone episode per hers from years past were solid, but the pathetic writing totally flatlined the entire episode apart from WU. Once Che & Jost move on from SNL, the very last of true greatness on SNL is gone.

Yeah, that was a major mistake; she's hilarious.

​@@WaitingtoHitMelissa Villasenor, right?

Melissa was definitely under-used

Vanessa Bayer had the sexiest teeth, can imagine tongue kissing her and chill bumps run down my spine.

Bayer

I would say sweetness hardly excludes toothiness . Jack McBrayer, Jim Nabors, etc.

Meanwhile few producers are as much of a legend as Lorne. Way to bite the hand that feeds you.

hilarious 🙄

Easy: he didn't bring anything to the table and they fired him. SNL is built around the guest of the week and the ideas that guest likes. Newbies stick around by pitching ideas to the guest and you can tell who came up with the sketches by their presence in it. Athari only had like 2-3 characters with the robot recycled from his old comedy routines and maybe 10 actual appearance where he said anything significant through his time. Some of the other new cast easily had twice that. Not saying he wasn't funny but some people aren't the right fit for the job.

He was lousy. Sarah Sherman and Dismukes can go, too. New cast is weak sauce

Yet she probably got paid plenty to do those roles.

Agreed 💯! Beck was great and sounds like an even greater man.

I think he can always get a job in fast food. 😛

DID SOMEBODY SAY "HOW'S IT HANGING?"

They actually had seven main players, to split hairs. They also used additional talent when needed, just like with more recent seasons.

I don't think it necessarily "takes" more members to do the show. I think it just may be a case of them liking more members, or finding it works better with more members.

I'm almost positive Leslie came after Sasheer

Yeah dawg

Chris also may have opted to leave to avoid the awkwardness of working in the same place as kenan, for obvious reasons.

Oh wow

Chris Redd was great

​@@wylier Obvious reasons?

@@markmorris8532 Chris is dating kenans ex wife.

we always knew snl to be the white In Living Color. very mainstream and safe. not terribly funny.

Yeah, there's a bunch of modern classic clips that include stars that left in that year or the few before.

The insideSoCal sketches were hilarious

Nope.

They were on a very demanding intense show for a decade. Andy and Kate were very good friends and also wanted to branch out.

If you look at the records of SNL tenures, those 4 or 5 were in the top 10 longest terms or pretty close to it. A lot of the cast that left in the last season were there a lot longer than they should've been compared to the norm, partly because of their bonds and partly because Lorne wanted (and still does want) to make it to Season 50 with a decent cast so he paid a premium to extend their contracts. Eventually one broke apart and the rest followed.

I don't think that covid was any help.

I heard they start off at $1-3k and caps out at about $8-10k weekly or something in that neighborhood.

@@aarondigby5054 It's true that new cast members are paid less than veterans but those who pull rank like Kenan Thompson, Cecily Strong, Kate McKinnon, etc made a flat $25k per episode regardless if they are in multiple sketches or not. Those just starting out are paid between $7k and $10k depending how active they are. Those who are also ranking writers like Colin Jost make additional pay.

@Kai0nTheMoon "Live from NY it's Saturday night."

He is in the verge of helming the shows fiftieth season, assuming the strikes get resolved before 2024. The symbolism there would be great. After that he could choose to retire.

Um, no. he created the show and has been producing it for most of its run, might as well make a new show if you want someone new.