AVQ&A: Who's your favorite one-season SNL cast member?
From Chevy Chase to Tim Robinson, plenty of performers later found their voice outside of Studio 8H.
Maybe you’ve heard that it’s the 50th anniversary of Saturday Night Live. In that half-century, the sketch show has launched hundreds of careers, from long-running TV leads to movie stars. In fact, Robert Downey Jr. became the first SNL alum to win an Oscar last year, despite only appearing on the show for a single season in the 1980s. There is a whole slew of similar cases (with or without an Oscar) who were not exactly the best fit for the series, but are still wildly talented and went on to find a footing elsewhere. This week, News Editor Drew Gillis asked the staff to take a close look at those performers to answer: Who is your favorite one-season SNL cast member?
As always, we invite you to contribute your own responses in the comments—and send in some prompts of your own! If you have a pop culture question you’d like us and fellow readers to answer, please email it to [email protected].
Jenny Slate (Season 35)
There’s a bit of a personal stake in this choice: Season 35 was the first of SNL that I actively watched (read: recorded on my parents’ DVR). A lot of one-season wonders are remembered for being a below-average fit at 30 Rock but then found their voice better served elsewhere. But from where I sat, Jenny Slate really held her own in a season full of heavy hitters like Kristen Wiig, Bill Hader, Fred Armisen, and Andy Samberg. Unfortunately, Slate didn’t consider herself a very good fit for the show, surprised at how risk-averse the environment was. (She’s hardly the first.) Still, the comedian wrung so much out of the supporting roles she was granted in sketches. Her single season also contained the beloved Betty White episode, where she played a sister to Amy Poehler’s lesbian Gingy. Her delivery of “On the count of three, say ‘Cheese!’” is permanently etched in my brain. [Drew Gillis]
Christopher Guest (Season 10)Mere months after the release of This Is Spinal Tap and well before he became the mockumentary filmmaker with Waiting For Guffman and the truly great Best In Show, Guest made a splash in SNL’s season-10 premiere, playing a theater instructor tasked with teaching to two hapless, wanna-be synchronized swimmers (portrayed by Harry Shearer and a ridiculously funny Martin Short). I didn’t know what a mockumentary was when I first saw this on a best-of VHS as a kid, but I remember loving the TV-news-magazine formatting. And while Short might steal the show here (“I’m not that strong a swimmer”), Guest is quite good, nailing this particular talking-head moment: “I’ve been directing regional theter—Shakespeare In The Park—and if I ever do that again, I’m just gonna, you know, kill myself with a Veg-O-Matic.” (This segment, alas, isn’t on YouTube, but he delivers in the 60 Minutes spoof above too.) [Tim Lowery]
Most Popular Tim Robinson (Season 38)In my selection, there is both recency bias and the retroactive effect that Detroiters/I Think You Should Leave had on my ability to look at Tim Robinson’s face without laughing, but his Saturday Night Live work still contains some indisputable gems. Aside from the sketches he only wrote, which bear the “Oh, yeah, this guy isn’t long for this show” vibe familiar to eccentric SNL staffers who’d go on to better things, Robinson steals even the dumbest sketches with just a few seconds of affable idiocy. After what seems like hours spent with Bobby Moynihan and Cecily Strong insulting their coworkers, I love watching Robinson, dressed as an old man, stumble over, smiling and nodding like a schmuck. But beyond that, “Roundball Rock” has permanently changed the way I hear the NBA’s greatest theme. That sketch alone cements Robinson as an SNL great. [Jacob Oller]
Jon Rudnitsky (Season 41)As a Home Again truther, I think everyone has wasted the talent and charm of Jon Rudnitsky, from Saturday Night Live to Hollywood at large. Most newbies struggle to find their footing in the first year and Rudnitsky definitely had trouble getting airtime. Nevertheless, he had a couple of stand-out moments (including a memorable Dirty Dancing bit) and enough confidence in his performance that that could have improved over time. Since leaving the show, he worked steadily as a stand-up and appeared as the side character in Netflix rom-coms, but I think someone should let him play the guy: I see the potential there. In another universe, he could’ve had a Jason Sudiekis-esque SNL/post-SNL career as the handsome straight man who’s not afraid to get weird with it. It may be too late for that on SNL, but it’s not too late elsewhere! [Mary Kate Carr]
Related Content Chevy Chase (Season 1)Leaving SNL after one season may be the greatest of Chevy Chase’s many gaffes, but to quote Dirty Work, “Hindsight is twenty-twenty, my friend.” In that debut season, Chase’s pratfalls and unflappable straight men were test balloons for the show’s fitfully revolutionary comedy, Weekend Update, presidential impressions, saying, “Live from New York, it’s Saturday night,” and, yes, knowing when to leave. Though he may be the most consequential one-season Not-Ready Player, his bottom-shelf filmography and awful reputation make it embarrassing to call him my favorite. Nevertheless, what can I say, I prefer his version of smug asshole in Fletch, Caddyshack, and Vacation to any Ghostbuster sequel. That he starred in one of the best sitcoms ever, Community, is a testament to how good he can be when he’s in the pocket. Getting him to stay there is, unfortunately, a different story. But hey, that’s why he’s Chevy Chase, and you’re not. [Matt Schimkowitz]
Martin Short (Season 10)Martin Short is one of those acquired tastes I’ve spent my entire life acquiring, slowly coming to recognize the razor wit and occasional genius frequently cloaked (and sometimes smothered) beneath bursts of energy and weirdo character affectations. Short on SNL (1984) was probably too much—too much stress, too much pressure to play to the crowds and simply roll the hits. But watch him in “The Contestant,” his first time bringing his already-established Ed Grimley character to Studio 8H: The man is a portrait of unlikely restraint, letting the strangeness of his completely committed performance steadily bleed out. Martin Short makes big swings as his default setting, which means he can miss as often as he hits. But when he connects, it’s like watching a performance beamed in from another world. [William Hughes]
Aristotle Athari (Season 47)While I agree with William’s pick (because Martin Short is my forever favorite), I’m opting to shout out a recent SNL star with untapped potential: Aristotle Athari. He unfairly had less airtime than his other season 47 rookie counterparts, James Austin Johnson and Sarah Sherman, who got more opportunities to integrate into the show’s ecosystem and the audience’s heart. Meanwhile, Athari was basically stuck in background role purgatory despite two genuinely awesome characters in Angelo and Laughintosh 3000 (yes, I know about Mr. Zed and I think they’re distinctive enough robot characters, so don’t come for me in the comments). To me, it feels like SNL only scratched the surface of Athari’s humor before pushing him to the side instead of letting him flesh out his skills. At least we’ll always have “Say for me.” [Saloni Gajjar]
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