Of all the reasons to start a podcast, spite seems to be near the top of the list. For too many years, we have seen ridiculous “best of” lists ranking Saturday Night Live cast members, seasons, and sketches that were clearly written by people who had only watched a small fraction of the show. Norm MacDonald the seventh-worst cast member of all time? Jenny Slate ahead of Bobby Moynihan? Beth Cahill above Joe Piscopo? Pamela Stephenson ahead of Will Forte?
If SNL had a justice system, these would be capital crimes.
Naturally, any good holder of grudges would spend two years watching 1,000 hours of SNL to set the record straight, and that is what we did. Based on our careful notes and observations we made our own list of best cast members, and we’re starting to count them down with this list.
Some ground rules to start: We picked out 38 cast members who only served one season or less and excluded them from our ranking. There is simply no way to rank this morass of people. Think of them all being tied for number 129.
You may note that some notable cast members only served one year - Billy Crystal, Martin Short, and the like. We left these people in because the changes to the show were structural - they were not related to the performance of the cast member.
With these loose rules in place, the excluded cast members list (alternately known as the “thank you for your service” list) includes: Aristotle Athari, Peter Aykroyd, Morwenna Banks, Paul Brittain, Beth Cahill, George Coe, Jim Downey, Christine Ebersole, Dean Edwards, Siobhan Fallon, Janeane Garofalo, Lauren Holt, Yvonne Hudson, Laura Kightlinger, Matthew Laurance, Laurie Metcalf, John Milhiser, Jerry Minor, Luke Null, Mike O'Brien, Emily Prager, Rob Riggle, Tim Robinson, Jon Rudnitsky, Tom Schiller, Sarah Silverman, Jenny Slate, Pamela Stephenson, Ben Stiller, Chloe Troast, Dan Vitale, Nancy Walls, Michaela Watkins, Patrick Weathers, Noel Wells, Brooks Wheelan, Fred Wolf, and Alan Zweibel.
From then on, we move to the list of featured players who merited ranking. Below are the rankings, along with the rank given to each cast member by Christian (CS) and Scot (SB). You will see that in some cases, the disparity is pretty large. (The final ranking is determined by averaging out each host’s score.)
So listen above to our commentary on the list - we get into why we ranked people where we did and discuss some of our biggest disagreements.
Thus, without any further ado, the final list of cast members between 76 and 128 are:
128. Charles Rocket (CS 127, SB 127)
127. Ann Risley (CS 124, SB 128)
126. Robert Downey, Jr. (CS 125, SB 125)
125. Kyle Mooney (CS 126, SB 123)
124. Paul Shaffer (CS 128, SB 118)
123. Jeff Richards (CS 123, SB 122)
122. Anthony Michael Hall (CS 118, SB 126)
121. Jay Mohr (CS 122, SB 120)
120. Molly Kearney (CS 119, SB 116)
119. Melanie Hutsell (CS 120, SB 113)
118. Jane Wickline (CS 112, SB 117)
117. Damon Wayans (CS 111, SB 115)
116. Jim Breuer (CS 114, SB 111)
115. Michael O'Donoghue (CS 105, SB 119)
114. Finesse Mitchell (CS 103, SB 121)
113. Emil Wakim (CS 109, SB 114)
112. Casey Wilson (CS 113, SB 109)
111. Brian Doyle-Murray (CS 116, SB 106)
110. Gilbert Gottfried (CS 117, SB 100)
109. Devon Walker (CS110, SB107)
108. A. Whitney Brown (CS 115, SB 99)
107. Terry Sweeney (CS 87, SB 124)
106. Don Novello (CS 104, SB 101)
105. Tom Davis (CS 91, SB 113)
104. Brad Hall (CS 95, SB 108)
103. Michael Longfellow (CS 99, SB 103)
102. Colin Quinn (CS 106, SB 94)
101. Punkie Johnson (CS 97, SB 102)
100. Abby Elliott (CS 94, SB 105)
99. Tony Rosato (CS 107, SB 91)
98. Michael McKean (CS 121, SB 77)
97. Harry Shearer (CS 108, SB 84)
96. Gail Matthius (CS 101, SB 88)
95. Danitra Vance (CS 88, SB 99)
94. Melissa Villaseñor (CS 89, SB 95)
93. Denny Dillon (CS 92, SB 90)
92. Robert Smigel (CS 71, SB 110)
91. Ellen Cleghorne (CS 77, SB 104)
90. Jay Pharoah (CS 83, SB 96)
89. Rich Hall (CS 96, SB 81)
88. David Koechner (CS 98, SB 78)
87. Sasheer Zamata (CS 74, SB 97)
86. Ashley Padilla (CS 82, SB 89)
85. Pete Davidson (CS 90, SB 80)
84. Mark McKinney (CS 102, SB 68)
83. Julia Louis-Dreyfus (CS 100, SB 70)
82. Chris Redd (CS 85, SB 82)
81. Horatio Sanz (CS 70, SB 92)
80. Marcello Hernandez (CS 80, SB 79)
79. Chris Rock (CS 69, SB 86)
78. Randy Quaid (CS 84, SB 69)
77. Chloe Fineman (CS 78, SB 75)
76. Nora Dunn (CS 63, SB 87)
Check back in next time, where we review cast members ranked 26 through 75. And thanks for listening!
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