According to this site[ul]
[li]Jimmy Fallon[/li][li]Collin Quinn[/li][li]Charles Rocket[/li][li]Ellen Cleghorne[/li][li]Horatio Sanz[/li][li]Julia Sweeney[/li][li]Tracy Morgan[/li][li]Jay Mohr[/li][li]Victoria Jackson[/li][li]The Good Burger guy (I can’t remember his name either)[/li][/ul]
Honorable mention goes to:
Tim Meadows
Laraine Newman
Garret Morris
The Muppets
The entire 1980-1981 cast
Now, I know I have a pretty lame sense of humor, but I am going to have to disagree with the following, for the following reasons:
Jimmy Fallon: yes, it was tremendously unprofessional for him to crack up during the sketches, but him doing so made me laugh much harder than I normally would have. A perfect example is the “Cowbell” sketch- the look of PAIN on Fallon’s face as he is trying SO hard not to laugh at Will is just hilarious.
Tracy Morgan: he doesn’t have much range, but he usually cracks me up more than the others. For that reason, I’ll say he doesn’t deserve to be on this list.
Tim Meadows: I always found him to be pretty funny. Leon Phelps is reason enough that he shouldn’t be on this list. A one trick pony? Maybe, but that one trick was hilarious.
The Muppets: Dude. Not cool. Who hates the Muppets? Terrorists and communists, mostly.
Anywho, your thoughts? (I’d offer some alternatives for the “Worst of” list, but I’m terrible with names and can’t remember anyone, I’m sure you all will have some great examples).
I may be in the minority, but no list of worst cast memebers would be complete without Chris Farley.
And Tim Meadows shouldn’t be anywhere near this list. He was the main reason I continued to watch the show after Phil Hartman dies. However when Tim grew the dreadlocks, he jumped the shark.
I actually agree with you on Farley. I mean, he had his own, different kind of humor, but it really was never my thing. Hell, his jumping, screaming, sweating, panting was much more distracting than Fallon’s giggling (and yes, I do get that, that was his schtick).
I think Garrett Morris had a lot more talent than he’s given credit for; he’s responsible for some of my funniest memories of the original cast (the prison song sketch, Chico, the Cruising parody, etc.).
My vote for all time worst would be Terry Sweeney (incapable of playing anything but an unfunny screaming queen) or Melanie Hutsell (called by one critic “the lady of 1,000 faces, all of them the same”), Julia Louis-Dreyfuss (she was better on Seinfeld, but still just not one of my faves), Dennis Miller (in sketches- he was good when he was exclusively news anchor) and Charles Rocket.
Tim Meadows - very lame. He hung around that show way too long.
Chris Farley? - he’s top 20 all time. His Matt Foley-Motivational Speaker is classic. Then there’s the Chippendale’s Tryout sketch, not to mention Todd the Superfan.
My vote for worst - Anthony Micheal Hall (not his fault, he was only about 14 years old) and most of the mid-1980s gang.
Argh, I hated G.E. Smith and his boring-ass guitar playing and his Gomez Addams suits. The band is so much better without him.
SNL has had a few years where they had good people on the show but didn’t use them well, or even though they may have been good actors, they weren’t funny in that setting. I’m thinking of Robert Downey Jr., Joan Cusack, Anthony Michael Hall, Jay Mohr, Janeane Garofalo, Chris Elliott, and David Koechner in particular.
But then again, I love the current cast, I think the “Not Ready For Prime-Time Players” era was very mediocre in retrospect, and I think Chris Farley, Adam Sandler, David Spade, and even Mike Myers were horribly overrated and overexposed at the time, and have never been particularly funny.
That list is not complete without Jim Bruer. His whole shtick was:
“Look at me, man…I’m, like, high all the time…man!” because he WAS high all the time.
Or Goat-Boy, which was one of the worst sketches of all time. Worst than “Pat.” At least Pat had new jokes about sexual ambiguity, wheras every Goat-Boy sketch was Jim Bruer just going,
“Wee-ahhh! Goat! Ahhhh!” for ifve minnutes.
OK, Horatio Sanz I cannot stand at all, so I agree there. And I’ll give you Charles Rocket, if only because of the gratuitous and unfunny F-Bomb heard round the world (well, since it was the 80-81 season, it was only heard in 23 households around the world, but still).
Tim Meadows, **Jimmy Fallon ** and **Colin Quinn ** belong nowhere near that list - Belushis they ain’t, but they sure aren’t rock bottom. **Jay Mohr ** wasn’t always on, but his Christopher Walken more than makes up for it.
As for additions to the list of shame:
Tim Kazurinsky ** anyone? Brad Hall?
And let’s face it, Brad’s brother, Anthony Michael Hall, while great in The Dead Zone and tolerable in John Hughes’ movies, was un-fking-funny on SNL.
Hell, Brad Hall’s wife,** Julia Louis-Dreyfus**, could be put on this list. Sure she was good in Sienfeld, but she didn’t have any memorable characters, and pretty much played the straight person in most skits. Peter Aykroyd and** Jim Belushi** - current presidential administration notwithstanding, as good an argument against nepotism as I can think of. (Brian-Doyle Murray barely escapes the list due to his funny Sid Vicious impression.) Sarah Silverman, while funny now, sucked in the early 90s.
And some may see this as blashphemy, but I never really thought** Jon Lovitz** was ever funny.
On preview, I see Joe Piscopo. I respectfully disagree. While Hartman’s Sinatra was the very best, Joe’s was still OK. And if you got the stones to diss the Chairman, (especially if you live in Jersey like Joe P.) you’re OK in my book.
It is tough to choose the worst 10. I would say Horatio Sans is the worst and Belushi was the best. All others fall somewhere in between.
Good God I have been watching this show almost my entire life and I am still waiting for them to be as funny as the original cast.
I’d put Adam Sandler on the list. I think he’s pretty darned good in his movies, but darned if I can figure out who saw him on SNL and said, “That guy’s gonna be a star! Let me put him on the big screen!” As an SNL cast member, I hated him.
I mean, every time he came on during “Weekend Update”, as “Opera Man” or “Annoying Man” or similar guys, I cringed. And I don’t remember him being in any particularly memorable recurring sketches.
[Sandler]I’m crazy paper bag for a head man! Look at me - I’ve got a bag for a head. I’m craaazzy!![/Sandler]
I don’t know, I thought his schtick was pretty funny, for what it was. He wasn’t a utility player, like Hammond or Hartman, but what he did was pretty consistent. And his Hurlihy Boy Housesitting Service sketch was golden.
“please let me walk your dog”
“please let me watch your house”
.
.
.
“please let me sleep in your bed, please?”
[Farley]For God’s sake, let the man sleep in your bed!!![/CF]
::chuckle::
