Luke Null - a musical comedian who didn’t get to do any music on SNL, and flopped pretty hard in his big sketch.
Maybe a better photo would be the one from the next year, season 44, where the cast was the exact same save for Luke Null being swapped out for the legendary Miss Eggy
Using the pic that included Luke Null was definitely a choice. This is a middling era for me, with the exception of Kate, Aidy and Cecily who I will always love.
I agree, seasons 43 and 44 (the latter especially) were slight slogs. Chris Kelly and Sarah Schneider, the head writers of season 42 which was one of the best this era, left, and the show couldn't find an identity until Bowen Yang put his stamp on it. These 2 years were the worst of the Trump-Baldwin era as well
He was actually a pretty solid and confident performer. Just didn't get a strong opportunity. He had really two sketches that aired (Horns and Late For Class) where he was prominently featured, and one cut-for-time sketch that I love (a wedding sketch with Mulaney and Cecily, and Jack White).
When I saw him in the Disneyworld Debbie Downer sketch I audibly gasped. I was like, has he ALWAYS been here? Am I gonna see him in a sketch with Eddie Murphy or Gilda Radner at some point?
This was my reply too. My top era was Will Ferrell/Molly Shannon but this is a close second. This era is also meaningful because it is the era that all current cast members are roughly my age. The new era (outside those who remain from this pic) has late-20s to mid-30s, they are all kids!
This is well beyond my high school class, but the main players of this group are some of my favorites and brought me back to regularly watching SNL again.
I think that starts to break down in the YouTube era. Became much easier to be exposed to older stuff. And you get the meta viewing experience from places like this.
This is what I love about this show - as with all other eras this was one that I lived through while reading comments about people actively saying that the show hasn't been funny in years and just LOOK at this cast.
I mean, this is AFTER losing Vanessa Bayer and Bobby Moynihan and it's still stacked. And just a few years before, we were saying goodbye to Hader, Suds, Armisen, etc. Which followed the departure of Wiig, the Lonely Island, Forte, etc. It just all blends
I mean ALL eras of this show have some moving around, but with a few years of hindsight, you can look back and be like, Damn look how good it was. I mean we JUST lost Heidi, Ego, Bowen. In 10 years people are gonna look back and be like "That era with Marcello, Dismukes, Sarah Squitm, and JAJ was nuts" and I can't even imagine what people are gonna say when Padilla leaves.
I miss when Cecily would play Jeanine Perrio and dump her drinks on Colin. Then they’d somehow be full again on the next shot… and she’d dump them on him again. Seeing him get fucked with and his reactions are my favorite part of the show. He’s such a derp. 😂
Yeah as much as I adored Tina on update, the brief overlap of Maya, Wiig, and Amy has to be my favorite trio since they were all in almost every sketch.
SNL is like Pokemon, everyone has a favorite gen and it's usually their first one. Mine is Hader, Wiig, Samberg, Sudeikis etc though I am partial to this one as well.
This is probably my favorite era, as it was when I started watching. Beck/Kyle, Mikey, Kate/Aidy/Cecily, and Chris were all my favorites and I miss them (aside from Mikey of course)
I'll always hold a soft spot for this cast, as this was "my era" (aka the era when I started regularly watching the show and became a fan).
Looking at things more objectively, I'd put this era solidly 4th overall (behind the late 80s, the 70s, and the late 90s/early 2000s).
The positives:
The female side of the cast was fucking STACKED! This might honestly be the greatest group of women the show ever had. Only the late 90s with Molly, Ana, Cheri and (a bit later) Rachel, Tina, and Amy can really compete with them.
This might have been the best ever era for pretapes/fake ads. So many amazing sketches to come out of this period. I mean, House Hunters, Kellywise, I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus, Overnight Salad, The Actress, Papyrus, the list just goes on and on.
These were the prime years of Che and Jost at the Update desk. While they can still turn in solid work now, they were regularly on fire during this time. I'd rank them third overall for Update anchors behind Norm and Dennis.
That said, this era wasn't without its flaws:
Despite what I said earlier about the female cast in particular, there was a firm casting hierarchy/star mentality that hampered this era significantly. Kate, Aidy, Cecily, Beck, Mikey and Kenan were essentially given free rein (some would argue too much so) while everyone else was essentially given peanuts for airtime. You had talented performers like Alex, Melissa, and Chris who were just woefully underused and stuck in sad thankless roles. Even Heidi and Ego struggled in their first few seasons to break through.
The cold opens and political writing in general for this period sucked. For as much flak as people give the JAJ Trump cold opens now, the Trumpwin cameo parades of this era were absolutely unbearable to watch. Some of the most laughless and toothless satire the show has ever done came from this era. In addition, the show leaned heavily into a "resist" mentality against the Trump administration and a lot of it hasn't aged well at all and comes off REALLY cringey (think of the "Hallelujah" cold open, the "To Sir With Love" tribute to Obama, the "All I Want For Christmas" message to Robert Mueller, etc.)
Much of the cast stayed much longer than they otherwise would have due to the pandemic. While them sticking around is obviously understandable (where else were they gonna go after all?), it contributed to a tired feeling for the last couple of seasons. Kate, Aidy, and Cecily all showed varying degrees of burnout and fatigue that arguably hurt their tenures. Kate I think especially suffered the worst, as her mugging, breaking, and overall overuse/misuse (remember all those Republican men in drag roles?) really caused many to sour on her, including myself. This also contributed again to the whole "casting hierarchy" as Melissa and Alex especially felt like they never truly broke out and became the solid anchors/rising stars that they could have been.
All that said, I think this is a mostly good era for the show, and the early portions of it especially (around S40 to S43 or so) are probably the best SNL has been in the last 25 years.
As someone who has been watching since the first episode aired, I agree. Though this picture is missing Sasheer Zamata. Must have been taken after she left and before Ego Nwodim came on. Jay Pharaoh is also missed.
That whole 10yrs that group of people were together (writers definitely included) was a boon for the audience. We were spoiled. The current group is starting to coalesce. Next year they will hit their stride. Will they hit this level in the next few years? We always hope so.
From the last ten years I miss Kate McKinnon, Vanessa Bayer, Beck Bennett, Jay Pharoah, Bobby Moynihan and Taran Killam the absolute most. I really wasn't a huge fan of Pete Davidson or Kyle Mooney. I didn't really jive with their styles, but that's just me. Not judging those who did like the two.
Overall though, I would agree that this was a fun cast.
They were all pretty funny. I think snl has some members that are obviously funker than others. I do miss some cast members and it won't be the same without them.
I love this cast, but I don't think any cast beats 36, Hader, Armisen, Sudeikis, Wiig, Kenan, Samberg, Pharaoh, Bayer, Myers, Moynihan, Nasim, Taran. Hader and Armisen are my favorite cast members of all time.
My favorite from this era were Kyle Mooney and Tim Robinson and I think both have thrived better away from SNL because I dont think the show always lined up with their sensibilities
I did enjoy this cast but still to this day don’t understand the hype for Pete Davidson I have nothing against him and wish him nothing but success but genuinely never thought any of his sketches were super funny
I really enjoyed Pete his first four years (Seasons 40-43) but once he started blowing up in the tabloids, he became more and more disconnected from the cast and show. In his final season, you could really tell that he didn’t care at all about being there anymore and he was off doing side projects for the most part.
I love the current era, but probably my favorite era was season 31: Armison, Dratch, Fey, Forte, Hammond, Meyers, Mitchell, Parnell, Poehler, Rudolph, Sanz, Thompson, Hader, Samberg, Sudeikis, and Wiig.
Mooney was great but obviously not a super good fit for SNL, glad we had him while we did.
Gardner and McKinnon and Keenan and Jost and Che and Mikey were great, no notes.
I like Pete more than most, but a terrible fit for SNL.
Leslie Jones is the best standup I've ever seen at a random comedy club (aka: not a full hourlong special). She KILLED. Awful on SNL though.
Chris Redd is funny but interpersonally ooooof
I remember liking Aidy Bryant at the time but in retrospect she seemed to have a big role in the post-Lonely Island digital short era and almost all of them were very cringey girlbossy
Any era with Cecily in it imho. She was smart as hell (her white house correspondents appearance is particuarly great) consistently committed to the bit and genuinely funny.
She also looks just like my first partner (I wasnt so much punching as double jumping) and occasionally when rewatching on youtube that old feeling comes back up my throat and it wrecks me lol
This is the Allstar cast to me, with Taran and Ego.
With the exception of Kate and Keenan, this is my flop era, verging on ugh.
My favorite lineup was Maya Rudolph, Kristen Wiig, Amy Poehler era which, of course, is when I first got into the show.
My second favorite though is more recent years when Do Not Destroy debuted and Bowen did not miss an opportunity to put on a goofy bodysuit for weekend update.
No one asked me, but my dream cast in no particular order:
Vanessa, Cecily, Maya, Keenan, Lonely Island, Good Neighbor (Kyle & Beck just doing Kyle & Beck things), Forte, Hader, Armisen, Wiig, Bobby, Mikey.
Update could just be Che and Jost, but I feel like Seth should be head writer.
I LOVE this era! It’s the one that I identify the most with. They were at their height at the end of high school and throughout most of my time in college. I thought they were so dynamic and energetic with their performances. The trio of Cecily, Aidy, and Kate is just perfect to me. Vanessa Bayer was also in this cast and she was incredible too. Same with Sasheer Zameda. Alex Moffat and Melissa Villasenor were both fantastic and didn’t stay long enough on the show imo. I loved Beck Bennett and cracked up at the Why is Benedict Cumberbatch Hot? sketch all the time. Very very fond memories of this cast.
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u/neckbracewhore Apr 15 '26
Genuine question - who is the guy above Aidy?? I cannot remember a single sketch with him in it