Saturday Night Live: Difference between revisions

* '''[[Eddie Murphy]]''', the first black ''SNL'' cast member to be famous, the youngest black male cast member to be hired (Murphy was only 19 when he joined the 1980-1981 cast) and the only host to host an episode while still a cast member <ref> also the only Jean Doumanian cast member to ever host an episode, the only black Dick Ebersol cast member to host, and one of four Dick Ebersol cast members to host an episode, joining Billy Crystal, Martin Short, and Julia-Louis Dreyfus</ref> — specifically the December 11, 1982 show that was '''supposed''' to be helmed by Nick Nolte, but Nolte was too hungover from partying to make it to rehearsals, so Murphy took over...much to the shock and anger of the cast, who felt that Eddie Murphy (and his comedy partner in crime, Joe Piscopo) was overtaking the show.

* '''Michael McKean''', the oldest person to be hired as a cast member (he was 46 when he first joined the cast).

* '''Billy Crystal''', one of two cast members who hosted prior to being cast on the show (the other was McKean, who also holds the distinction of being the only cast member to host and be a musical guest before becoming a cast member).

* '''Rob Riggle''', the only member of the '''''[[Semper Fi|U.S. Marine Corps]]''''' to be a cast member. Also the third former cast member to become a correspondent on ''[[The Daily Show (TV)|The Daily Show]]'', joining '''A. Whitney Brown''' <ref> A feature player who first appeared on the 1985-1986 season</ref> and '''Nancy Walls''' <ref> Nancy Walls was on the show during the 21st season -- 1995-1996, and was let go in favor of Ana Gasteyer</ref>.

=== Has Named The Following Tropes: ===

* [[Ambiguously Gay]]: ''The Ambiguously Gay Duo'', and "Lyle, the Effeminate Heterosexual".

* [[Every Year They Fizzle Out]]

* [[Germans Love David Hasselhoff]]: [[Running Gag]] of Norm McDonald-era Weekend Update sketches.

* [[All Just a Dream]]: To make people forget about the disjointed lousiness of Season 11 (1985-86) and to start fresh with a new and better cast, ''SNL'' used this Trope by having Madonna (who hosted the Season 11 premiere) announce during the cold opening of Season 12 premiere that Season 11 was all "a dream...a horrible, horrible dream."

** The end of the Season 20 (1994-95 season) episode hosted by Bob Newhart was revealed to be this, mimicking the [[All Just a Dream]] ending to ''[[Newhart]]''.

* [[The Announcer]]: Don Pardo, still holding the job well into his 90s.

* [[The Artifact]]: "Live from New York, It's Saturday Night!" comes from the fact that the show ''was'' actually called ''NBC's Saturday Night'' and not ''Saturday Night Live'' during its first season, because of that aforementioned short lived Howard Cosell show on [[ABC]].

* [[Deadly Delivery]]: In season 1, a recurring character is a "land shark" (Chevy Chase in a cheap shark costume) that tries to get people to open their door. He always gets in when offering a candygram.

* [[Deadpan Snarker]]: Most Weekend Update anchors, the snarkiest of which being Chevy Chase, Dennis Miller, [[Tina Fey]], Norm McDonald, and Seth Meyers (both with and without [[Amy Poehler]]).

* [[Dueling Shows]]: ABC's ''Fridays'', ''[[SCTV]] Network 90'', ''[[In Living Color]]'', ''House of Buggin'', ''[[The WB|WB]]'s Hype'', FOX's ''Saturday Night Special'', and FOX's ''[[Mad TV]]'', to name a few — all of whom were canned for one reason or another

** ''Fridays'', despite being panned by critics for being the ''Cracked'' magazine to ''SNL'''s ''MAD'', did manage to find some success with audiences when ''SNL'' was struggling with its 1980-81 cast. Unfortunately, ''Fridays'' ended up suffering from a timeslot change and a failed attempt at trying to beat ''[[Dallas]]'' in the ratings as a primetime sketch show and was cancelled after its second season.

** ''[[Mad TV]]'' — serving 14 years as ''SNL'''s worthiest late-night sketch show rival — was canned in 2009 due to seasonal rot and low ratings. There was word of ''[[Mad TV]]'' coming back as a cable show, but apparently, the show is gone for good, unless one were to count the Cartoon Network sketch show ''MAD''.

** ''[[Almost Live]]'' lasted 15 years and kickstarted [[Bill Nye]]'s television career, but got cancelled as ratings dropped heavily in later years.

** Denny Dillon: Performed a stand-up routine on the Rob Reiner episode (season 1). Despite unsuccessfully auditioning for the show in 1975, Dillon was chosen for the 1980-81 cast.

** Ann Risley: Had a small speaking role in a pre-taped sketch called Mobile Shrink during season 2's Dick Cavett episode. Like Denny Dillon, Ann would be chosen for the 1980-81 cast.

** Terry Sweeney: Originally hired as a writer for the 1980-81 season, five years before he was hired as a castmember by [[Lorne Michaels]]. He makes one on-screen appearance that season, in the cold opening of the Sally Kellerman/Jimmy Cliff episode where [[Ronald Reagan]] (played by Charles Rocket) celebrates his 70th birthday.

** Rob Riggle: Appeared on the Donald Trump/Toots and the Maytals episode (from season 29) in a pretaped commercial parody called ''Fear Factor Junior''. Riggle played the father of a child who had to eat the maggots off a plate of eggs Benedict or risk watching his parents divorce.

** Jason Sudeikis: Had a lot of bit roles in Seasons 29-30 until he was hired as a cast member near the end of Season 30.

** Billy Crystal: As mentioned in the intro to this Trope page, Billy Crystal is one of two cast members who hosted the show before being hired (the other being Michael McKean). Crystal was originally supposed to be a guest performer on the 1975 premiere, but was passed up in favor of Andy Kaufman.

** Bootleg DVD's of this season are now fairly easy to find online; and its availability in this format has allowed many fans to discover the season for the first time. The general consensus seems to be that, yes, season six was bad, but it did have some bright spots that kept it from being entirely unwatchable (particularly when Eddie Murphy was incorporated into the show and, of course, the musical guest performance -- one of which included [[Prince]] before he became famous for his albums ''1999'' and ''[[Purple Rain]]'').

* [[The Other Darrin]]: When cast members leave, they take their famous celebrity impersonations with them. When that happens, sometimes ''SNL'' will either find a replacement or just forget about it and move on. Some examples:

** When short-lived feature player Michaela Watkins left after Season 34, Jenny Slate (a then-newly-hired feature player) was chosen to play Hoda Kotb for the ''Today Show'' sketches. With Jenny Slate gone, Nasim Pedrad picked up the role.

** When Ana Gasteyer left at the end of Season 27, her Martha Stewart impression was played by Amy Poehler, Rachel Dratch, and Kristen Wiig.

* [[Hide Your Pregnancy]]: Averted with Ana Gasteyer, Maya Rudolph, and Amy Poehler who all appeared pregnant in ''SNL'' sketches before going on maternity leave (some of which had their pregnancies written in the sketches, such as the case with Amy Poehler in the "I'm No Angel" [[Perfume Commercial]] parody on the Josh Brolin/Adele episode of Season 34 and a sketch where Ana Gasteyer played Elizabeth Hurley, who was also pregnant at the time). Tina Fey, however, didn't appear in any sketches for the first couple episodes of Season 31 because of maternity leave.

** When Tina Fey hosted the 700th episode (on season 36), this trope was zigzagged. Some sketches (like the monologue, "The Little Mermaid Meets bin Laden's Corpse" sketch and the "2012 Presidential Candidates" sketch, where Fey once again appears as her doppelganger Sarah Palin) had Tina Fey's pregnancy hidden (albeit poorly in the "Little Mermaid Sketch" -- [[Special Effects Failure|you can tell she's pregnant because of her large breasts peeking out of the seashell bra and the beginnings of her baby bump can be seen between the seashell bra and her mermaid tail half]]); others (like some of the commercial bumpers and the "Home Pregnancy Video" sketch) had her pregnant for all to see.

* [[Hot for Student]]: The Season 35 classroom sketch with Tina Fey and Justin Bieber.

** A Season 32 sketch where episode host Annette Bening plays a teacher who's in love with an apathetic student (Andy Samberg) who doesn't realize that he's in a relationship with his teacher.

* [[Nightmare Fuel Station Attendant]]: Bill Hader's Stefon, a [[Camp Gay]] culture correspondent who recommends vacations and nights out at the strangest underground clubs filled with freaks and weirdos. [[Take My Word for It|The descriptions have to be heard to be believed]].

* [[No Celebrities Were Harmed]]: A lot of the celebrity impersonations range from dead-on to way off, depending on how good the cast member's impersonation skills are and what the cast member does to make that celebrity take funny (whether it's basing it in reality, making him/her into a caricature, or both).

* [[No Indoor Voice]]: In one Weekend Update segment, Chevy Chase claims that the next items broadcast will include assistance for the hearing-impaired. Not closed-captioning, mind you, but Garrett Morris yelling the headlines at the top of his lungs.

{{quote| '''''[[Running Gag|"GENERALISSIMO FRANCISCO FRANCO IS STILL DEAD!"]]'''''}}

* [[Perfume Commercial]]: Spoofs include Hey You ("The perfume for one night stands") and Compulsion by Calvin Kleen (a cleaning product presented in the style of the commercials for Calvin Klein's Obsession perfume).

* [[Peking Duck Christmas]]: The TV Funhouse sketch/song "Christmastime for the Jews".

* [[The Power of Acting]]: Master Thespian aspires to this, but his mentor (episode host John Lithgow) surely has it.

* [[Precision F-Strike]]: Charles Rocket's "I wanna know who the fuck did it," during the Charlene Tilton/Todd Rundgren and Prince episode from Season 6 and Jenny Slate's "You know what? You stood up for yourself and I fuckin' love you for that!" on the Season 35 premiere hosted by Megan Fox. Note that both of these instances are accidental, caused a lot of controversy for the show, and led to the cast members who uttered the lines to be fired and forgotten.

** Some of the sketches on the season 36 episode hosted by Jesse Eisenberg (with musical guest [[Nicki Minaj]]) were pretty out there, such as a fake commercial for estrogen medication for male-to-female transsexuals (one of which catches the eye of a TSA agent [played by Kenan Thompson]), a parody of ''Mr. Wizard's World'' where two sexually repressed teens (Jesse Eisenberg and Nasim Pedrad) warp a static electricity demonstration into their first mutual masturbation session ({{spoiler|ending with the two of them getting each other off on a Van de Graaff generator}}), an ''SNL'' Digital Short about stalking and [[Abhorrent Admirer|AbhorrentAdmirers]] (featuring John Waters and musical guest [[Nicki Minaj]]), and a Blaxploitation Horror parody ("Bride of Blackenstein") that carries the aesop, "A man will put up with a bitchy woman, so long as she's hot."

* [[Refuge in Vulgarity]]: The show doesn't revel in it as much as [[Refuge in Audacity]] (though some of ''SNL'''s rival shows did), but there have been moments where ''SNL'' really gets disgusting (whether this is good or bad is [[Your Mileage May Vary|up to the viewer's tastes in humor]]).

* [[Ridiculympics]]: The All-Drug Olympics.

* [[Running Gag]]: ''Many'', some more pervasive than others. By the way, Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead.

* [[Trash the Set]]: Some ''SNL'' sketches do end with a character laying waste to the cheap, flimsy sets and props on the show, most notably the sketches featuring Molly Shannon's neurotic Catholic schoolgirl Mary Katherine Gallagher or Chris Farley's loud, obnoxious motivational speaker, Matt Foley.

* [[Trekkie]]: [[William Shatner]]'s famous "Get a Life!" skit.

* [[The Unintelligible]]: Shy Ronnie (Andy Samberg), a mumbling, redheaded nerd paired up with Rihanna (first seen in Season 35's Blake Lively/Rihanna episode; recently appeared in Season 36's Jon Hamm/Rihanna episode in a ''Bonnie and Clyde'' parody).

** Suel Forrester