The “Land of Gorch” skits on SNL were highlights of the first season. It was the first time the Muppets were portrayed for an adult audience (complete with hot Muppet sex). I’m willing to bet that the person making up the list has never actually seen any of these (they’ve all been cut from the syndicated version, other than Lily Tomlin’s charming duet with Scred).
I think the writers decided she was just a pretty set decoration/straight person. I have a vague memory about her complaining about it and moving on.
I barely even remember Sarah being there, she rarely got into skits.
Goat Boy actually works really really well… in hind sight. He’s a man goat mutant HOSTING a 80s nostaglia show. Now that Vh-1 has become essentially a nostaglia channel doing the same shit they did in the Goat Boy sketches from 5 or 6 years prior.
As for recurring sketches, Sandler was in Canteen Boy a couple times with Alec Baldwin. I don’t know of anyone who doesn’t laugh when they see those skits. He was also Cajun Man, and Old Grumpy Guy admittedly, not as funny as Dana Carvey’s “and we liked it!” Grumpy Old Man. And I thought Lunch Lady Land was hilarious, as well as the Turkey Song and the Hanukah Song.
“You don’t need to Desk the Halls,
or Jingle Bell Rock
Because you can spin the Dreidel
With Captain Kirk and Mister Spock”
This is not a knock on their talents. But Damon Wayans, Keenan Thompson, Finesse Mitchell and Chris Rock are/were next to useless while they are/were appearing on SNL. Finesse is the worst of the lot.
Ellen Cleghorne was simply a competent journeyman comedianne, not a star, nor the worst player.
Tim Meadows does not belong on a ‘10 worst of all time’ list by any means.
In one of the books about the show Kazurinsky said he auditioned to be a writer and was absolutely stunned when they cast him as an actor. He’d never appeared on stage before or had any great desire to do so, but having grown up in a welfare family in the slums of Philadelphia he simply couldn’t turn down the double salary of actor/writer.
Still and all, he had some shining moments. My favorite was his sketch as “The Iguana”, a totally ubernerd on vacation with his wife (Mary Gross) in the tropics, where it turns out he’s had a double life as a crime lord/lover extraordinaire/man of mystery.
Chris Rock is (at his best) brilliant as a stand-up, but aside from Nate X (a one joke sketch that wasn’t particularly funny the first time) he was (by his own admission if I’m not mistaken) pretty lame on SNL.
Gary Kroeger was very cute but had all the comic timing of Trent Lott. He sank far and fast when he left. (He was a trio with Brad Hall & Julia L.D.- they had a nightclub act.)
[nitpick]Brad & Anthony Michael Hall are not related.[/nitpick]
Per the book Live from New York: Wayans hated the show with a passion, particularly since he could never get a sketch on, but he knew that if he quite Lorne would sue him for breach of contract. Instead he sabotaged a Miami Vice sketch whose big punchline was Jon Lovitz as Mr. Monopoly (with his “Get Out of Jail Free” cards- a one joke sketch and the joke was lame). Wayans, who was originally given dialogue as a tough cop, was cut back due to time to just an entrance and a single line (something like “Here he is, Chief”).
He came on dressed in way too tight pants, a shirt tied to expose his midriff, and delivered his line in the gayest voice heard on the show since Terry Sweeney left. The First Commandment of the Show is NEVER SABOTAGE A SKETCH… EVER! FOR ANY REASON! and he was fired that night (which got him out of his contract).
Yeah, I’ll defend him. I think he was one of the best parts of his cast - better than Joe Piscopo; of course he was no Eddie Murphy. I liked his shticks playing the nerdy guy commentator on the news (“Man discovered orgasms in prehistoric times. Women discovered them in 1968”, followed by a slew of new coined words based on ‘orgasm’), and I think he was versatile and competent in sketches.
I recall Eddie Murphy in an interview saying Tim Kazurinsky and Joe Piscopo were the only people he liked on the casts he was on - the only ones he thought were funny.
That’s as close as I’ve ever come to agreeing with any list that I didn’t write myself. That said, however, I’m a younger guy who wouldn’t know many of the quickly-forgotten nobodies in SNL history. Except for Jackson and sometimes Meadows, all of the names I recognize on that list were actively, terribly unfunny. Chris Farley and Chris Kattan also didn’t make me laugh. Sandler, who I really loathe in the movies, was better on SNL.
(Googles furiously) Whaddaya know. . . I always thought they were related; I stand corrected. All this time I thought the only reason they hired AMH was that his brother had left the previous year. Now I realize that they actually hired him for his (cough) talent.
My point about nepotism is slightly diluted, but due to the superlative mediocrity of Messrs. Belushi and Aykroyd the lesser, still stands.
Chris Kattan! I blocked him out, I hated the guy so much. Definitely the least funny and most obnoxious of all recent cast members, far more punch-in-the-face-worthy than Horatio Sanz at his giggly worst. I have no love for the Roxbury dancers, Mango, or Mr. Peepers – I was relieved when he finally left.
I give Tim Kazurinsky a pass because of one joke he did: he was playing a scientist (I think based on an actual person) who was arguing against the exsistence of the female orgasm. Part of the evidence he offered: “I have personally slept with dozens of women, and I can assure you, not one of them enjoyed it!”
I’d definetly put Terry Sweeney on that list. I couldn’t remember his name, though, until I read:
The name still didn’t ring a bell, but really, who else could that be?
Am I insane, or has no one mentioned Rob Schneider yet?
Melanie Hutsell is the fucking nadir. I also agree that Chris Rock, while I like his act since the show, was absolutely horrible on SNL. And how anyone could stand up for Colin Quinn as a performer, on the show or anywhere else, baffles me.