After reading the “Kattan is Leaving” thread, I noticed that it was becoming not so much a “Chris Kattan Memories” thing, but a “Who do you love on SNL” thing.
I made this thing, then, about the cast members that are fantastic, hi-larious, or… well, we want to bang.
Tracy Morgan – I love his absurd characters. “Brian Fellow”. “Astronaut Jones”. The crazy dude who lived in a sewer and sang a song to Britney Spears.
Horatio Sanz – I don’t know why, but I dig him highly. He does a killer Ozzy impersonation. He giggles. He wouldn’t be funny if he were slender, but he isn’t funny BECAUSE he’s fat, if that makes any sense.
Jimmy Fallon with Horatio Sanz – I love seeing these two work together, simply because you know that at some point, the skit will fall apart because the two of them will start giggling. Professional? Nope. Funny and endearing? Yup.
Darrel Hammond – Why are they not using you like they used to?
Tina Fey – Mmmmm… hottie… with glasses… and a sense that she can be naughty, but not TOO naughty…
Amy Poehler – Mmmmm… hottie… no glasses… and a sense that she can be very, VERY naughty…
This thread needs more cowbell.
Gilda Radner - Roseanne Rosannadanna, Emily Litella, and so many other excellent characters.
Jane Curtain - The original ignorant slut.
Dan Ackroyd - Mmmm. That’s good bass!
Bill Murray - Can you sing us out with a tune, lounge lizard?
Chevy Chase - We’re glad we’re not. Great SNL career, some good movies, but a horror show of a talk show.
Garrett Morris - WE LIKED HOW YOU HELPED THE HARD OF HEARING!
Larraine Newman - You were… there.
Oh… and that Belushi guy… he was good too. 
Bill Murray, Dennis Miller, Phil Hartman. The rest were all pretty much interchangable, as far as I care.
I’ll agree with RawkStah’s above statements. I love Horatio Sanz and especially the Jimmy Fallon/Horatio team. Jarrett’s Room is one of my favorite recurring sketches, but those two just need to make a movie together. I don’t even care if it’s them cracking each other up the whole time, it would be a classic.
Darrell Hammond is grossly underused, Tina Fey is a goddess, and Amy Poehler and Maya Rudolph are both sexy too. I also like Chris Parnell’s occasional inspired white-boy raps, and Tracy Morgan is gold, even when his material isn’t. Oh yeah, lest I forget, Fey and Fallon are the best Weekend Update team ever.
As for the old casts, nobody can touch Bill Murray and Eddie Murphy, who was clearly a comic genius when he was first starting on SNL. Eddie, what happened to ya? Dan, Chevy, Gilda, John Belushi, and unofficial cast member Steve Martin will always be associated with SNL for their contributions.
Honestly, I think the late '80s-mid '90s cast is way overrated. There were a bunch of talented people on during this time, but the shows themselves aren’t very funny at all. I can’t stand to watch these in reruns, and they are on constantly. I’d take the current cast over them any day.
The current set of female cast members is, taken all together, hands down my favorite in the history of the show.
I love the Not Ready For Primetime Players. Everyone afterward is a letdown.
But didn’t the OP refer to 'banging"? I’ll take Robert Downy Jr.
I disagree on Jimmy and Horatio. Watching them making each other giggle is like watching stoners while you’re dead sober.
I think they’re both very talented but the constant breaking is getting old. It would be easier to take if it were actually funny.
I love Darrell Hammond, but he seems bored. Same with Tracy Morgan. I hear Morgan has a sitcom so maybe he’ll be able to do something with that. I’m also a big fan of the guys who are more bit players, I don’t even know their names. Drunk Girl and the Falconer and the other guy. I like that they’re doing unusual things. I agree with the comments about the females in the cast. They are fantastic, every one.
I think my two most favorite bits from recent shows both involved the same new cast member, whose name I can’t remember.
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Tim Calhoun on Weekend Update. “I propooose…” “Blind people think they’re so cool.”
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Same guy, with a partner, doing a song about the IRS’ new tax guidelines that mostly consisted of one guy going “doot diddle doot doot” and the other guy hooting and wailing in a high register behind him. I thought I was going to literally die from laughing.
I had a crush on Tina Fey back when she was with the Second City in Chicago… and she wasn’t even that cute then… She’s such a flavor biscuit now.
I think Chris Farley and David Spade are two SNLers who were so hot at one point that it is now “cool” to downplay their importance.
Farley’s and Sandlers sketch where they played an old couple reading from Zagat’s guide… oh man… I loved it.
And the segement of Spade in America with what’s her name from Lois and Clark where they played eachother was just fun.
I also liked the guys who did the Bill Brasky sketches… truly bizarre humor that made me cry like God’s own face.
No one mentioning Julia Louise Dreyfus? Or Brad Hall? Or Charles Rocket… well Rocket was funny.
I have to nitpick here. While Ackroyd was the salesman pitching the Bass-o-Matic, Larraine Newman said the “Mmmm. That’s good bass!” line.
Farley and Spade in the Gap skits, too.
One of my all time favs from way back in the day: “This portion of our show is brought to you by Hershey Highway-- turning America’s tastes around”. I think I was in college and we all just couldn’t stop laughing.
The Martha Stewart gags are great. And I really, really, really liked Gilda, as someone already mentioned. Rosanne Rossanadana. The bit about the piece of bone in a hamburger that is actually a toe nail. Crack me up!
I haven’t watch much lately, but I did catch the latest point/counter point and even though I knew EXACTLY what they were going to do, I still laughed my ass off. Especially w/ Acroid doing it. Perfect!
Three people could make me laugh without even saying a word: Phil Hartman, Chris Farley and Will Farrell.
Jan Hooks doesn’t jump out like some of the other past cast members, but she was quite versatile and funny.
And I agree witht he OP that Tracy Morgan’s seranading of Britney Spears is absolutely golden. I don’t really remember how it goes, but I remember being impressed with the melody when I first heard it. And when when he ended the song with “Doo doo ball,” I about fell off the couch!
And the Astronaut Jones theme song is quite catchy too. Morgan can write funny little diddies, if nothing else.
Happy
“Chase the demons lightly,
deep inside your eye.
Up and down the sidewalk –
eat a doo doo pie.
I love you.” – the crazy man song for Britney Spears
It just dawned on me why they’re not using Hammond as much anymore: 1) Clinton is no longer President. Man, his impersonations of Clinton when he wasn’t in a press conference (eating Haagen-Daas and asking people for approval over the phone late at night and in bed with Hillary after the Lewinsky scandal broke… damn hell ass classics). 2) Will Ferrell is no longer Trebek, so he can no longer be Connery.
One sketch that I also regard as classic was one set in a small-town diner. Hartman and Nealon played the local half-wits with a crush on the waitress (Hooks, IIRC). Alec Baldwin is the HANDSOME STRANGER who comes in and causes a romantic crisis – it went beyond mere sketch comedy and into “legitimate theatre” Absolutely EVERYTHING was perfect in that moment.
Ackroyd, Bill Murray, John Belushi, Gilda Radner, Eddie Murphy, Joe Piscapo as Sinatra – do they even need to be mentioned?
Brian Doyle Murphy – better writer than performer. Ditto Conan O’Brien (when he was on SNL. Currently, however, he’s damned good.).
Doo doo pie. Right! :smack: