‘SNL’ Cast Members You Didn’t Realize Performed in the Same Season
In some Reddit Saturday Night Live multiverse thread, users are imagining an alternate reality in which John Belushi performed alongside Kristen Wiig, a bit where Mike Myers invited Bill Hader to Wayne’s World or a sketch in which Joe Piscopo’s Sinatra joined Andy Samberg and Justin Timberlake on Dick in a Box. Sure, it’s fun to imagine the possibilities, but more of these what-if comedy team-ups happened than you might remember. Here are eight pairs of SNL cast members that don’t seem like they should have ever shared a stage — but that’s exactly what happened.
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Gilbert Gottfried and Eddie Murphy
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Talk about a missed opportunity. In the first season after the original cast said adios, Gottfried and Murphy were both chosen to star in Season Six. It’s difficult to even find a cast picture that shows both of them — Murphy didn’t appear until December of that year — but here’s proof during the goodbyes of the Charlene Tilton episode, with the cast reacting to Charles Rocket saying “fuck” on national TV.
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Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Martin Short
When Short, Billy Crystal and Christopher Guest joined the cast for Season 10, holdovers like Louis-Dreyfus were relegated to SNL’s background. There had to have been a better team-up than casting JLD as the secretary who brings in Ed Grimley for his Wheel of Fortune audition.
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Jon Lovitz and Robert Downey Jr.
It’s hard to remember that Downey ever spent a full season on SNL, much less that he paired with Lovitz in lame sketches like “Hildy’s Christmas Presents.”
Dana Carvey and Chris Farley
Carvey’s contemporaries feel like Phil Hartman, Jan Hooks and Mike Myers, while Farley ran with the Adam Sandler and David Spade crowd. But during Season 17, both Carvey and Farley appeared in sketches like “Il Cantore.” They also lived in the same Upper East Side apartment building, which must have made for some nutty lobby interactions.
Phil Hartman and Chris Rock
Like Carvey and Farley, Hartman and Rock seem like they belong in different comedy centuries. You can see where each cast member stood in Season 17, with Hartman headlining this BIll Clinton sketch and Rock relegated to Bland McDonald’s Cashier.
Janeane Garofalo and Adam Sandler
Garofalo had a miserable half-season on SNL, and Sandler was part of the reason. “The only thing you could count on in my day,” she says in SNL oral history Live From New York, “was if it was a Sandler or Farley sketch, it was on.”
Her complaints didn’t stop there: “For whatever reason, that season seemed to be the year of f*g-bashing and using the words ‘bitch’ and ‘whore’ in a sketch. Just my luck.” This Garofalo/Sandler sketch represents just what she’s talking about.
Will Ferrell and David Spade
Spade was still hanging on in the 1995-96 season as Ferrell made his debut, but his appearances were mostly snarky Hollywood Minute bits during Weekend Update. To find Ferrell and Spade sharing the screen, you have to scour cast goodbyes like this one with host Terry Hatcher.
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Jimmy Fallon and Kenan Thompson
The future Tonight Show host’s final season in 2003-2004 coincided with Thompson’s first year. Thompson didn’t get a lot of playing time as a rookie, and he appears deferential to a fault — in that season’s cast goodbyes, Thompson could usually be found standing at the very back of the stage. Fallon, not surprisingly, was often front and center, first in line for host hugs. Thompson made up for his lack of first-year reps by never leaving Saturday Night Live. Ever.