SNL Rambling

I heard the news today, oh boy.  Three cast members are thinking of leaving SNL.  This isn’t surprising, I guess.  They’ve been there for a while.  These cast members are Andy Samberg, Jason Sudeikis, and Kristen Wiig.  But it is rather big news in relation to a show I watch and quite like.

If you’ve been watching Saturday Night Live at all over the past few seasons, you’ll notice that these three cast members have had a large influence over the different sketches that were featured in the show.  Kristen Wiig has been the main female cast member since Amy Poehler left the show.  Andy Samberg was a large influence ever since he began on the show with his Lonely Island comrades.  The troupe produced numerous “SNL Digital Shorts.” Then Jason Sudeikis who probably made the largest support career out of anyone currently on SNL.  He is in a lot of sketches playing the largest supporting role in most of them, such as the police officer in the Scared Straight sketches.

What I’m getting at is that these three will leave a rather large gap in the show.  It’s a good thing that the “new” cast members are good and still growing in their comedic presence in the show.  Next season seems like it’s going to be a transition much like in the mid 90’s when the cast was gutted.  So many of the cast members have been on the show for a long time, and I can’t see them being around for much longer.  Three of them are possibly planning on leaving, as I’ve already said.  They’ve brought some fresh new blood to the show which is refreshing, and there will be cast members sticking around, of course.  But I think we’re entering the next era of SNL.

I don’t think this is a bad thing.  Saturday Night Live has gone through this transition many times which is why there are so many different great cast members that have come out of the show.  Look at the original cast and the one cast member switch.  Chase, Murray, Aykroyd, Belushi, Curtin, Morris, Newman, Radner...that’s a great cast.  When they left, did the show die?  Okay, it almost did, but that led us to Eddie Murphy.  After him came new casts which included Crystal, Lovitz, Short, Hartman, Joan Cusack, Randy Quaid, Downey Jr., Sandler, Myers, Farley, Nealon, McDonald...I could keep going but I’ll stop there.  The cast is always changing, and the show has always survived, though sometimes barely.  It should survive this time as well.

From what I’ve seen of the cast members that were added last year, they could easily become stars of the next couple seasons of SNL.  Killam and Bayer are already getting more time than some of the more established cast and they’re doing a great job with what they present.  The show will survive, as long as ratings hold.  The quality shouldn’t suffer too much with the loss of Samberg, Wiig, and Sudeikis.  In fact, it might lead to more new cast members who can bring fresh, new material to the show.  I’ll miss the old cast members who leave, but I’m ready for more new people to make me laugh.