February 15, 2015
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Harry has a massive bleeding head wound, yet none of his friends feel comfortable mentioning it, even when the family dog starts munching on his open brain matter. Yup, it’s one of those weirdo writer-driven sketches from '90s SNL that makes your jaw drop with its audacity, though it's so childishly silly that no one could possibly be offended. Carvey played it all so endearingly straight that it’s a shame the character didn’t come back more often -- even though I’m sure that makeup + studio lights = quite an odor for the live studio audience.
Sarah Palin emerged on the 2008 election scene a fully formed parody figure. She was so irresistible that Tina Fey returned to SNL after retirement just to play the disgraced governor with hysterical “golly-gee” accuracy. Fey’s head writer and Weekend Update duties prevented her from getting much sketch action during her time on SNL, so, really, the greatest gift the Republican party ever gave us was providing the perfect character for Fey to cement her SNL legacy with. It’s almost a shame that Palin’s political career is washed up, because it means we will never see Fey play her again. Almost…
The name says it all. Phil Hartman donned some particularly hilarious prosthetics to play a caveman unfrozen in modern times who became an unexpectedly articulate top-flight lawyer. Sometimes when he gets a message on his fax machine, he wonders, "Did little demons get inside and type it?" His primitive mind can't grasp these concepts. But he can grasp the law and make mucho dinero for his clients. Yup, there’s really nothing else like it. Thank god for Phil Hartman’s preternatural ability to play any ridiculous concept completely straight-faced.
Will Forte was SNL’s secret MVP for years, but only ever got one breakout character. That character was MacGruber, a MacGyver parody with a magnificently quaffed mullet and an inability to defuse any bomb despite his many elaborate plans. The sketch was gold, went viral and spawned what just might be the best (and possibly last) SNL spinoff movie. No one is better at turning squealing panic into comedy gold than Forte, and MacGruber let him do that and nothing else.
Bill Hader’s eerie skill with impressions never got a better venue than this deeply underrated recurring character. Vinny Vedecci is a clueless Italian talk show host who is somehow forced into interviewing a non-Italian speaking guest every episode. It all leads to Hader perfectly impersonating his guest and offering his young son (Bobby Moynihan) cigarettes/wine. It’s even funnier than it sounds and and be appearing every week. There hasn’t been a stinker yet.
The best SNL celebrity impressions transcend impersonation to become surreal characters in their own right. Case in point would be Norm Macdonald’s Burt Reynolds from Celebrity Jeopardy and several other sketches. It’s not really an impression of Burt Reynolds. It’s Norm Macdonald doing his finest clueless a-hole routine with a Burt Reynolds moustache and a stick of gum. Yet, somehow, just pretending that a collection of swagger and one-liners is one of the biggest stars of the '70s is enough to induce crippling bouts of laughter every time. Especially when he calls himself Turd Ferguson. That’s just gold.
Chris Kattan may have been a notorious SNL backstage jerkoff of Chevy Chase proportions, but the man sure knew physical comedy. Possibly his greatest creation was Mr. Peepers, a half-monkey/half-man who specialized in humping and spitting apples on each week’s host. Simple stuff, but somehow never not funny. The sketch featuring Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson as Mr. Peepers’ equally rape-y father has to be seen to be believed.
Truthfully, almost any character out of these last 10 could have topped this list. But there could be only one No. 1, and that’s Chris Farley’s iconic motivational speaker who launched a thousand last-minute fat-guy Halloween costumes. The character perfectly hits all of Farley’s strengths, from the booming screams to the physical prowess, destructive falls and unexpected bursts of sweetness. Yet it’s also a strange, sad and somewhat disturbing figure thanks to the government cheese diet, clingy desperation and violent outbursts. No host or supporting cast member could ever get through a Matt Foley sketch without bursting into laughter, and all these years later, it’s still impossible for any viewer to do the same. Matt Foley defines the simple but cleverly written and performance-driven comedy that’s defined SNL for almost 40 years. And thanks to his instantly iconic performance, it also guarantees that the memory and legend of the late, great Chris Farley will never die.Everyone knows a pair of basement-dwelling burnouts with dreams of glory; Mike Myers and Dana Carvey were just smart enough to turn them into a slice of sketch-comedy gold. Broadcast live from their mother’s basement, Wayne and Garth used to show up every week to let America know which babes deserved a schwing and which rock stars we weren’t worthy of. It was a simple premise and one that became a well-deserved SNL phenomenon before spawning not one but two hit movies. In the '90s, few things were funnier than Wayne’s World. In the 2010s, they will make a comeback. That’s right -- and monkeys will fly out of my butt!
Eddie Murphy did countless funny things while becoming the king of '80s comedy, but his funniest creation just might be his ghetto Mr. Rodgers, Mr. Robinson. The wholesome smile, indoor sweater, comfy shoes, cornball songs, gentle vocal tones and life lessons of Mr. Rodgers are all there. The only difference is that Mr. Robinson unexpectedly teaches children how to steal or properly scream at your landlord, and when the cameras turn off, he’s clearly someone you should be frightened of. The loud/quiet combination of street-tough philosophy and smiling children’s entertainer is comedy perfection, and no one shifts those gears better than Murphy. It’s a shame Eddie never comes back to host SNL, but the guy hit so many home runs while he was there (in his late teens and early 20s!), how could any performance live up to the expectations? Steve Carell and Stephen Colbert just missed out on becoming SNL cast members on their way to Daily Show fame. But longtime SNL writer Robert Smigel was so amused by that team of Steves that he gave them a recurring sketch anyway on his animated Saturday TV Funhouse segment. That sketch was, of course, The Ambiguously Gay Duo, a parody of '70s superhero cartoons that starred Carell and Colbert as a heroic duo who tend to beat their foes by somehow grabbing or biting each other’s junk before speeding off in a penis car. It’s a cheap gag, but hilarious every time. Even though Carell and Colbert don’t talk about it much these days, it was through that ambiguously gay partnership that they first entered America’s hearts (and possibly each other). Steve Martin has been part of SNL as a host for so long that he’s practically an honorary cast member at this point. He deserves it, too, because he carved out a place in SNL history from his first appearance, thanks to the wacky pair of Czech immigrant swingers he created with Dan Aykroyd. Their Festrunk Brothers love American ladies (as well as their big American breasts) and will do anything to get them. The only trouble is that the ladies are at best mildly amused by the brothers and at worst terrified of their accented perversion. But audiences? They love ‘em. After all, they are two wild and crazy guys (trademark: Steve Martin)!Long before TV stardom, John Belushi turned his love of Samurai movies into a perfect comedy creation. It’s a testament to Belushi’s legendary physical comedy chops that you never need to comprehend a word of the Samurai’s faux-Japanese dialogue to understand exactly what he is saying. Whether working at a deli, a bakery or a laundromat, the character always tortured a befuddled Buck Henry exquisitely and tickled audiences accordingly. Belushi even sliced Buck’s ear with his sword for real during one broadcast, but Henry loved the character so much that he didn’t even mention it until the commercial break so that he wouldn’t spoil the sketch. Now, that’s funny.
For years, Tracy Morgan was wasted on SNL. Then he invented Brian Fellows and everything changed. Brian Fellows is not an accredited zoologist, nor does he hold an advanced degree his environmental science. He’s simply an enthusiastic, sexually ambiguous young man with a sixth-grade education and an abiding love for all God’s creatures. He doesn’t tend to trust most animals or understand sentences with too many syllables. But he’s also played by Tracy Morgan at his most unhinged, and is, therefore, cripplingly hilarious.From one bad fake Italian accent to another. Don Novello was never an official SNL cast member, but his chain-smoking Vatican gossip columnist/rock critic was just too damn funny to keep off the air. A Weekend Update correspondent and talk-show fixture for decades, this surreal vision of the world’s most laid-back priest would be an ideal template for the new replacement pope if the Vatican had any sense of humor or irony. So no chance of that happening then.
It’s almost impossible to pick Will Ferrell’s funniest SNL creation, but for my money, that honor belongs to Harry Caray. Based on an eccentric Chicago Cubs broadcaster, Caray was a shaky and constantly confused nutcase who was the perfect vehicle for the comedian’s most bizarre improvs and non sequiturs. Caray’s finest hour came when interviewing Jeff Goldblum on an astrology show. Not even the typically stone-faced straight man could hold it together when Ferrell asked him, “Would you rather be the top scientist in your field or get mad cow disease?” Trust me, you won’t be able to avoid laughter either. Jake and Elwood Blues weren’t particularly funny until they hit the big screen, but nothing cemented the rock-star status of the original SNL cast quite like Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi’s iconic creation. Born out of the comedians’ shared love of blues and soul music, Aykroyd and Belushi developed complex backstories and completely disappeared into character whenever they appeared as the Blues Brothers. They took the music very seriously, though, and ended up with a No. 1 album and sold-out stadium tours for their troubles.Dana Carvey is one of SNL’s all time MVPs, and whenever he returns for a victory lap as the host, you know the Church Lady will appear. The host of a public-access Christian talk show, the Church Lady can find disgusting sin in even the mildest of guests, and if you give her a minute to dissect any topic, she’ll determine that it’s the work of Satan. In the '80s, these sorts of evangelical TV hosts needed to be taken down a peg, and Carvey delivered. But these days, the satire has dulled but the hilarity remains.
Martin Short only did one single year on SNL, but he brought along one of his finest SCTV characters with him. Of course, I’m talking about pointy-haired, high-pants-wearing living cartoon nerd Ed Grimley. The character has appeared on a variety of shows, but his finest hour probably came in an SNL sketch in which Ed was invited to be on Wheel Of Fortune. The prospect of meeting Pat Sajak made him absolutely mental. Yup, it’s even funnier than it sounds.Tim Meadows had one of the longest tenures of any SNL cast member and spent most of that run playing straight man to the comedy stars surrounding him. But before leaving the show, Meadows did create one icon: Leon Phelps, The Ladies Man. Phelps hosted a call-in show offering men sex advice. Most of this advice involved drinking Courvoisier and doing ladies in the butt. So you might not want to consider the sketch educational, but you should still laugh heartily. His spinoff movie was actually pretty underrated, as well.
Darrell Hammond’s pitch-perfect Sean Connery was a fixture of the show’s Celebrity Jeopardy parodies, and as the sketches wore on, he became an increasingly surreal creation. For some reason, Connery seemed to have a psychotic hatred for Alex Trebek and yet kept getting invited back on the show. He dedicated every appearance to mocking Trebek’s mother and turning innocent Jeopardy categories into filthy puns. Hopefully the real Connery is nothing like this. And, more importantly, hopefully Hammond hasn’t retired his version forever. Not many SNL hosts have created characters so memorable that they belong on this list, but Christopher Walken is a special case. His flagship SNL character is The Continental, an Italian lover who speaks directly to the camera while trying to seduce the latest lady unfortunate enough to wander into his apartment. This being Christopher Walken, all of the seduction techniques end up being mild attempts at rape. And, thankfully, with this being SNL, that’s always hilarious. Everyone can do an Arnold Schwarzenegger impression these days, but frankly most people aren’t doing an impression of Arnold. They’re doing an impression of Hans and Franz. The duo of padded Austrian bodybuilders were created at the height of Arnie’s mass-murdering blockbuster stardom, gleefully mocking Schwarzenegger’s cocky attitude and distaste for flabby girly men. The characters might seem a little dated and obvious these days, but that’s only because Dana Carvey and Kevin Nealon’s surreal Arnie cartoons were so simple and perfect that every hack comic in America was doing their own version onstage the day after the first Hans And Franz sketch aired.Weekend Update rants are where most SNL cast members cut their teeth and earn their first minutes of airtime. Gilda Radner set the template for these segments with her iconic nasal-voiced ranter. Roseanne Roseannadanna had big hair and an ever bigger attitude. She would scream about any major issue and cram as many disgusting adjectives into machine-gun sentences as possible, in between flailing gobs of split. The character’s purpose was to offer the audience advice. Well, that advice was never worth taking for non-psychopaths, but the character served as an example of how to grab attention with only a few minutes on-screen, and virtually every major SNL star has followed it since.
NPR parody doesn’t sound like comedy gold in theory, yet Molly Shannon and Ana Gasteyer’s hilariously soft-spoken and unintentionally dirty radio hosts brought some of the biggest laughs to their time on SNL. There are many wonderful Delicious Dish sketches, but the characters are legendary for the one in which Alec Baldwin stopped by to let the ladies taste his Schweddy Balls. That sketch is such a classic that you can even buy Schweddy Balls now. Be careful, though -- they’re saltier than you’d think.In the mid-'90s, you couldn’t turn on TV without stumbling onto some soft-voiced spiritual guru telling viewers to love themselves. Longtime SNL writer Al Franken was clearly more irritated with those soft pricks than most, and channeled his rage into the funniest self-help parody that will ever be. The sweater, the slogans, the diet plans -- Stuart Smalley was perfect. It’s easy to see why: He’s good enough, he’s smart enough and, gosh darn it, people like him (well, in a sketch anyway -- not so much on the big screen).
The Little Rascals might not be a pop-culture touchstone anymore, but Eddie Murphy’s straight-faced parody of the kiddie racial stereotype remains a successful laugh factory. The concept is almost embarrassingly simple: Buckwheat is funny because he doesn’t speak clearly. Yet there’s something about Murphy's glazed expression as he stumbles over every sentence that never ceases to tickle. He’s also one of the few SNL characters ever killed off on air, and even though Buckwheat remains a classic SNL creation, that was probably a good idea.Molly Shannon just might be the most unfairly dismissed former SNL cast member in the history of the show. She came up with Will Ferrell and beat him to becoming that generation’s first star through a series of surreal creations. Shannon’s finest character was the repressed, armpit-sniffing, super-powered schoolgirl Marry Katherine. The deeply odd and at times disturbingly hilarious character even spawned a decent movie, despite what Rotten Tomatoes suggests. It’s about time Shannon had a career comeback, wouldn’t ya say?
If you want to know where Ron Burgundy came from, you need only look to Will Ferrell’s deeply bizarre portrayal of Robert Goulet on SNL. It’s not really an impression at all. It's just Ferrell cutting loose and loosening up the bladder/bowels of his audience in the process. The moustache, the hair, the pomposity, the remarkable self-delusion, the voice -- all of the Ron Burgundy trademarks are there in Ferrell’s Goulet, and the character is just as funny in the sketch format as he was in Anchorman. The weird thing is that no one ever acknowledges that connection. I don’t understand why. It’s kind of a big deal.Even though he’s possibly the most famous and funniest SNL veteran, Bill Murray surprisingly didn’t invent many classic characters during his time at 30 Rock. The one exception is Nick The Lounge Singer, a pitch-perfect parody of the type of semi-talent you might see “entertaining” people in a low-end nightspot. Murray’s goofy/sleazy '70s charm was pushed to the limit with this deliberately annoying character, but his self-satisfied crooning about Star Wars will be a part of SNL highlight reels until the end of time.
The Waterboy was Adam Sandler’s first full-on comedy blockbuster, and yet the studio went out of its way not to acknowledge that the character came from SNL. The reason is simple: Sandler founded the underbite-sporting dimwit as a recurring sketch character who was constantly sexually abused on camping trips by his scoutmaster. Canteen Boy’s finest hour involved a bare-chested Alec Baldwin, hot oil and a sleeping-bag surprise. It’s still a shock that one made it to broadcast, and it remains Sandler’s most outlandish SNL moment, during the brief edgy phase of his career.
For a few years, SNL was consumed with these head-bopping clubbing idiots, and, eventually, they even got a movie. The Roxbury brothers will never be remembered as Will Ferrell’s finest hour, but they will be known for their silent slapstick parody of club-hopping douchebags, and the characters certainly had their moments. Their best appearance remains their first, with Jim Carrey’s manic energy matching that of Kattan and Ferrell at their most mugging. It’s a shame Carrey didn’t show up for the movie. I suppose the required neck strain just wasn’t worth it.
Bill Murray and Gilda Radner were the on-camera power couple of the original SNL cast, and they transformed their real-life love into comedy bliss via Todd DiLaMuca and Lisa Loopner. These two noogie-loving kids were nerds before it was cool, and their nasal stabs at affection created some of the funniest moments of '70s television. It’s not easy to be stupidly funny and heartwarming in a single sketch, but Murray and Radner were just talented enough to pull it off every time.
Dan Aykroyd was probably the most versatile cast member on the original SNL, and while many of his creations created an aura of cool for the early star, Fred Garvin brought out his inner nerd. The nasal, business-minded male prostitute apparently started as a bedroom game between Aykroyd and one of the show’s female writers, and while the TV version was inevitably less X-rated, Garvin quickly became one of Danny-boy’s finest late-night comedy creations.
Jon Lovitz is a little man with a big voice, and never were those qualities better applied than in his Master Thespian character. The delightfully pompous and shrill stage veteran would treat viewers to weekly lessons in overacting, and no matter how silly things got, you could tell that Lovitz had a very real self-obsessed actor type in mind. The character’s peak came when overacting specialist John Lithgow joined in as a colleague. The fact that those two never got a buddy comedy out of those laughs remains one of the biggest missed opportunities in American comedy.
During Eddie Murphy’s reign of terror on SNL, it seemed like he could make absolutely any concept cripplingly hilarious. The ultimate proof of that wild claim is his take on Gumby. Murphy transformed the claymation children’s favorite into a cigar-chomping bitter old Hollywood type with a heavy Jewish accent. It really shouldn’t work and should probably be offensive. But in the hands of the Reagan-era Eddie Murphy, even a foam rubber racial stereotype can be comedy gold.
Jon Lovitz is a criminally underappreciated cherub of comedy who helped bring SNL back to prominence in the late '80s. The character that made him a star was Tommy Flanagan, a compulsive liar who always managed to tip off the audience that his grandiose statements weren’t entirely accurate. In fact, you might even say he was the greatest SNL character ever created… Yeah, that’s the ticket.
I can’t imagine even Bill Hader thought Stefon would take off. Yet the effeminate club kid with peculiar tastes in nighttime hotspots, like a place that reminded him of "the visions a dying gay man would have if he was under too many blankets,” proved to be a pop-culture phenomenon. These days, everyone knows a Stefon, but if you’re smart enough not to follow him into the clubbing abyss on a Saturday night, you can always laugh at Hader’s surreal vision of the character from the safety of your living room.
The Coneheads essentially created the “reoccurring SNL character” and launched a million lazy Halloween costumes (plus a movie, but let’s just pretend that never happened). They are a group of aliens with bizarre heads and robotic vocal patterns who have managed to hide in the U.S. in secrecy by claiming to be from France and gobbling up beer 'n’ processed food in massive quantities. The characters haven’t aged particularly well, but they are iconic. And if you ever need proof of just how many drugs were consumed by the original SNL cast and writers, just take a peek at this sketch and imagine where it came from. That should nail it home for ya.
Nothing gets laughs quite like uncomfortable sex, and the SNL reigning champions of cringe-inducing bedroom activity are the Love-ahs, played by Rachel Dratch and Will Ferrell. They are a pair of college professors so deeply in love that they enjoy describing their sweating nightly passions in uncomfortable detail to anyone within earshot. Usually they do it in a hot tub while stroking graying wigs and unleashing guttural sounds of pleasure to the discomfort of the guest host and/or a giggling Jimmy Fallon. It was never less than hilarious, even when you wanted to flee the room in horror.
Jack Handey never appeared on-screen. Instead, he offered words of wisdom through the brilliant segment "Deep Thoughts." They were kind of like Hallmark card sentiments written by a psychopath and best represented with an example. So here we go. For best results read in a sedated New Age guru voice and picture a gentle sunset: “The face of a child can say it all, especially the mouth part of the face.” 'Nuff said.
Since so many SNL stars come out of Chicago’s Second City, the show tends to have an uncommon amount of local Chicago humor. Yet no Chi-town sketch can top Bill Swerki’s Superfans, a collection of overweight sports nuts who worship “Da Bulls” and “Da Bears,” subside exclusively on pork products, and have a handful of weekly heart attacks. George Wendt flew into New York almost every week to keep the sketch alive, and it helped cement the legendary status of Chris Farley and Mike Myers. Overeating, boozing, Ditka, and moustaches have never been funnier.
Proving once again that there’s nothing funnier than a wacky German, Mike Myers won the hearts and poisoned the minds of America as Dieter, the host of Sprockets. Dieter was a pretentious, arty, expressionist/minimalist talk-show host who seemed bored by his guests and was determined to have them pet his monkey. Watching Sprockets is like stumbling onto a nightmare vision of German television and Myers ensured that every sketch was surreal enough to tickle even the highest audience member who stumbled upon it. This list entry has become tiresome, so now is the time on Sprockets ven ve dance!
Of the original SNL cast, Dan Aykroyd might have been one of the most stable people in real life, but no one put on a sleazeball performance for the camera quite like him. The sleaziest of all Aykroyd creations is Irwin Mainway. If his greasy moustache and uncomfortable response to an interviewer’s questions don’t give that away, then some of the toys he sells to children should. These products include a bag of broken glass and a human torch costume that consists of oily rags and a lighter. Delightful bad-taste gags abound, and hearing Aykroyd calmly defend them as Mainway was priceless.
Mike Myers’ love of British comedy all but guaranteed he’d crank out at least one classic SNL character in drag. That lovely lady ended up being Linda Richman, a New Yawker with massive nails, a Barbra Streisand obsession (“she’s like butta!”) and a tendency to get verklempt with emotion. She was one of Myers’ first breakout characters and also one of his best. Richman is a recognizable New York character turned into a big-shades-wearing cartoon without completely abandoning realism. That’s what SNL and Myers do best, folks. But you know, no big whoop.
Kristen Wiig created a number of memorable characters during her SNL tenure, but none stick in the mind quite like Junice Merill, if only because she’s such an inexplicably funny/disturbing image. Merill is a physically, developmentally and emotionally challenged member of an all-sisters singing group who would seduce a new man every week with her hefty forehead and baby doll hands. Just try to wipe that image from your mind after you see it. I dare you.
When Adam Sandler kicked off his stardom on SNL, it was through a childish goofball surrealism that he rarely touches in the Grown Ups phase of his career. His breakout character was Opera Man, a Weekend Update correspondent who sang his contributions in a ridiculous Italian accent that only Sandler could pull off with a semi-straight face. Like with all of Sandler’s work, you can’t explain why it’s funny. It just is. Like an armpit fart.
During Lorne Michaels’ brief absence from the helm of SNL in the '80s, established stars like Martin Short, Christopher Guest and Billy Crystal were brought in to soup up a season of SNL. The most famous character of the star crop was Crystal’s Fernando Lamas impersonation. His character hosted a sycophantic chat show that delightfully embarrassed each week’s host (the Hulk Hogan/Mr. T sketch is a classic) and eventually even got his own MTV single. The character is catchphrase comedy at its most aggressive, but it was funny. Well, as funny as Billy Crystal can be anyway.
Love 'em or loath 'em, Cheri Oteri and Will Ferrell’s manic cheerleaders got the most screen time of any SNL creation during their era. Their shtick involved being impossibly perky and doing zany dances, and America was more than happy to tolerate them on their televisions for a few years. It brought out the best in Oteri and the worst in Ferrell, but thankfully the most annoying SNL spinoff movie ever made was avoided before the characters were sent off to the big pep rally in the sky.
SNL’s Digital Shorts may have kept SNL relevant in the internet age, but the one-off goofs didn’t tend to produce memorable characters. Well, except for Andy Samberg and Justin Timberlake’s delightfully pervy music duo, of course. Whether offering up the greatest present one can give a life partner or crooning about the joys of banging each other’s moms, these characters were SNL’s gift to the viral video nation and proved Justin might even be as good at comedy as he thinks he is. The rumor that Kenan Thompson would leave SNL after its 40th season is, thankfully, false. His characters rank among some of the show's best, so we thought this would be the right time to stroll through memory lane.The comedic geniuses at Saturday Night Live have created everyone from uptight church ladies to male prostitutes over the last four decades to make us giggle. With that in mind, we thought we’d take a look back at the 50 finest characters ever spat onto our screens by Saturday Night Live. You might find some of your favorites missing or disagree with the order, but that’s unavoidable. There are simply too many hilarious SNL characters for a definitive list. This list is as good as it gets, though... NOT!
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