Not Every Stand-Up Makes for a Great ‘SNL’ Cast Member
Punkie Johnson’s departure from Saturday Night Live this week is the latest evidence that, more often than not, stand-up comics have a hard time making the transition to sketch comedy. Bill Murray called it. “Nowadays there’s probably more stand-ups that end up on the show, sort of more individual guys, than there used to be,” he says in SNL oral history Live From New York. “They’re individually good, but they maybe don’t have that particular skill or training or as much experience in that area.”
“That area” is sketch comedy. That’s why so many of the show’s all-time great cast members — John Belushi, Gilda Radner, Phil Hartman, Chris Farley, Will Ferrell, Tina Fey, Kristin Wiig, Kenan Thompson and Bill Hader, to name a few — came to the show from a sketch comedy background, often trained at Second City or the Groundlings. In Murray’s view, his cast “made bad sketches work, or made sketches that were incomplete work,” thanks to that ensemble education and experience.
Stand-up comics, on the other hand, have a much spottier track record on the show. Even standouts like Dennis Miller and Norm Macdonald, both of whom came to the show from the stand-up stage, brought their solo acts to SNL by manning the Weekend Update desk. There’s a reason you rarely saw Miller in a sketch, cha-cha.
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But there’s hope for Punkie Johnson — stand-ups who stumble on Saturday Night Live often find more success after they leave the show. Here are five good examples…
Chris Rock
Other stuff may have been going on during Rock’s tenure — the show’s lack of Black writers didn’t help — but Rock never completely found his groove as a sketch comic. (He didn’t exactly kill it on In Living Color either.) The good news for Rock: Leaving the show freed him up to be the best stand-up comedian in the world for a good stretch.
Sarah Silverman
Silverman was likely too young, in addition to having no sketch experience, when she floundered for a year on SNL. A decade later, she won hearts with stand-up specials like Jesus is Magic.
Colin Quinn
Quinn’s likable-loudmouth-at-the-end-of-the-bar persona didn’t translate well to sketch characters — or even to telling jokes on Weekend Update. He was much more in his element on Tough Crowd, his Comedy Central panel show where he could riff with other stand-ups.
Gilbert Gottfried
The beloved stand-up couldn’t stand out on SNL, even among what is often recognized as the worst cast ever. It was only in the back half of his career that Disney (in Aladdin) and the folks at Aflac (in their commercials) realized that the best (and, really, only) Gilbert Gottfried character was Gilbert Gottfried.
John Mulaney
How did it go when Mulaney auditioned for SNL? Let’s just say it was the kind of tryout that gets a “You’re a writer!” response. To be fair, Mulaney later showed some decent sketch chops as a five-time show host.
The lesson here: Stand-up comics have a much worse track record as SNL cast members than comedians trained in ensemble work. Of course, every rule has an exception. As Saturday Night Live stand-ups go, Eddie Murphy did okay.