Jump to content
DVDVR Message Board

Best SNL Cast Member Ever Tournament


Greggulator

Recommended Posts

The usually terrible Grantland has something good -- a Best SNL Cast Member March Madness-style bracket. (I'd link the bracket myself but it was way too big. Here's the link separately.

 

 

Who you got?

 

CHAMPION
Phil Hartman -- The most versatile SNL performer of all-time. I don't think another cast member, ever, could be in literally every sketch and bit on an entire episode. Not just that, but his great voice/over work also really added to commercial parodies and the like. Every sketch comedy performer should want to have that ability -- it's great to be the star, but it's also great to play the point. The Magic Johnson of comedy..

 

FINAL FOUR

Hartman

Eddie Murphy -- He saved SNL from itself. He didn't just make SNL culturally relevant after the first wave left. He also made it racially relevant, too, and brought in so many new fans. He's a super close number two and I'll gladly cede the floor to anyone who wants to take him number one.

Will Ferrell -- He has some of the most memorable and defining roles of his era. He also had a Hartman-esque run where he could play background roles but soon stole everything he was in. My only knock against Ferrell is he was pretty bad until he had his breakout moments - that cheerleader nonsense with Cheri Oteri was awful.

Bill Hader -- A sneaky good cast member. Stefon is an all-time great character. This quadrant's pretty weak but Hader could hang in the others. Wiig's also very good.

My Sweet 16:

Eddie Murphy

Akroyd -- So many defining moments in the early years. Bass'O'Matic was the sketch that got me into SNL.

Gilda Radner -- The first great female performer whose faux-gentle nature really helped smooth the edges and kept the show from becoming too macho.

Belushi -- Obviously. It's hard not putting him in the Final Four because of how wonderful he was. Like REALLY hard. But Eddie Murphy's sketches like "White People On The Bus" had cultural importance to it, giving him a slight edge. But I'll gladly hear arguments from him winning the entire thing and not just the Final Four.

Dana Carvey -- He's sort of overrated as a one seed, but that might be due to the fact his post-SNL career (which I'm not weighing in) was disappointing. He did carry the show's political edge with his great Bush I impersonation for so long. Choppin' Broccoli also holds up so stupidly well.

Chris Farley -- Just purely electrifying when he was on his game -- like Matt Foley and The Chris Farley Show. But, unfortunately, he had a lot of sketches that were "LOOK AT HOW FAT I AM!" Him stripping against Patrick Swayze is the key example of this.

Mike Myers -- So friggin' good and forgotten. Wayne's World is his most remembered material (and I have a Wayne's World hat on my desk at work). But Sprockets was also nothing short of amazing. If it wasn't for Hartman, he'd be my pick to escape this, The Group Of Death. (This bracket is nuts. Adam Sandler didn't even make it through the Sweet 16. There's a lot to not like about him now, but he had so many key moments and bits. David Spade had some moments, too. Jan Hooks was super underrated, too.)
Phil Hartman

 

Will Ferrell

Molly Shannon -- More here because of my hatred of SNL-era Jimmy Fallon. Dude got over because he couldn't make it through Will Ferrell bits w/o cracking up and rode Tina Fey's coattails on Weekend Update. But Molly Shannon had some funny stuff on her own.

Tina Fey -- My favorite Weekend Update host. She really carried that segment in an era where Jon Stewart grew in importance and almost made news mockery moot. She was also a great head writer. Just an awesome, awesome, awesome force-of-nature.

Amy Poehler -- Maybe the most miscast SNL member. Her stuff in Upright Citizens Brigade before SNL was great. I saw her live a bunch of times and she was always, always, always the best person on the stage. I'm not a Parks and Recreation fan for petty, personal reasons (involving one of the first-season writers, whom I detest as a person.) But she was always very good. She could have been so much more, though.

 

Kristen Wiig -- She really ended her run doing some terrific stuff.

Fred Armisen -- I always thought he was disappointing and didn't really have anything that truly broke out until Ian Rubbish, which came within his final two months as a cast member. Way, way better in Portlandia -- a sign that he never found a proper niche in the more mainstream SNL universe.

Bill Hader

Andy Samberg -- Not a huge fan. This bracket's really bad.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Final Four: Belushi, Hartman, Ferrell, Samberg

 

Seriously, I could do without the entire 2005-2014 bracket.

 

Belushi defeats Franken, Piscopo, Murray, and Murphy (though the Belushi/Murphy match-up would be the best of the entire deal).

 

Hartman defeats Sweeney, Lovitz, Myers, and Farley (if I could get rid of the whole purple bracket like I'd like, Farley and Hartman would both end up in the final four. . .personal preference only).

 

Ferrell defeats Sanz, Hammond, Shannon, and Fey.

 

Samberg defeats who cares except Kristen Wiig.

 

Can't decide whether I'd rather see Belushi or Hartman crush Ferrell in the finals after Ferrell stomps Samberg.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Eddie Murphy.  Not even remotely close.  And I think the fact that Lorne had absolutely nothing to do with his success (and Murphy's supposed "grudge" against the show) is why he isn't remembered more as the icon that he was.

 

Saturday Night Live would have been cancelled by 1982 without him.  And it almost was anyway.  But watch any of his shows from the 1981 and 1982 years (pretty much ends when 48 Hrs got big and it went to his head) and you'll see some of the greatest "taking the ball and running with it" performances ever.  Especially when you watch any sketch that he isn't it by comparison.

 

Phil was the greatest team player.  Won't argue that.  But if Phil was Magic, Eddie was Michael.

  • Like 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Murphy

Hartman

Hammond

Forte

 

Last half of the bracket is really weak imo. Just not a huge fan of the recent crop. When Wiig is your 1 seed, you know there's a problem. If Dana Carvey is on that side, he makes it to the title game.

 

And I'm sure this is controversial, but Farley made me laugh way more than Belushi.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Curtin shouldn't be losing to Short and Hooks shouldn't be losing to Schneider. That's the biggest drawback of opening this up to the general public who usually vote based on name recognition. Despite the rules specifically stating the voting should be based on "work done on SNL".

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hammond was a good impressionist. The political component of SNL is always a huge, potent force. But other than his Clinton, I can't remember much of what he did. And even Phil Hartman had a better Clinton sketch than anything Hammond ever did -- the one at McDonald's. Tina Fey's Sarah Palin was way better that Hammond's stuff. And I say that as a fan of Hammond.

Jane Curtin's better than Martin Short, but Short was in the "Synchronized Swimmers" video, which is one of the best things the show ever did.

Jan Hooks over Schneider in a walk. It's not even close. Schneider's most well-known thing was "The Rich Man" and that's terrible. Jan Hooks and Nora Dunn's singing sisters thing was so incredibly. The one with William Shatner is also on the short-list of best sketches ever.

Gilda might be the most underrated cast member ever, which is solely because she didn't have a big movie career and passed away. But SNL doesn't become the cultural phenomenon it did without her. She was the female voice in a sea of really macho guys. Jane Curtin was great, too, but she was best as the cold, hard-nosed Veronica Corningstone template.

I would say at least the Top 5 seeds from the "Lorne's Return" bracket would win the most recent cast. I might even go down to Jan Hooks and Jon Lovitz (who I don't really like all that much). Maybe I'm loyal to that era because it's what I grew up with but that's legitimately a murderer's row.

The "More Cowbell" era is so top heavy. I hate Jimmy Fallon but will concede he was popular and was fine enough on Weekend Update. But after that, ugh... the absolutely awful Cheri Oteri is a 7 seed.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yeah, but I think his SNL stuff isn't nearly as strong as his movie stuff.

 

Murphy/Hartman/Ferrell/Forte is my final 4, and the final is Hartman over Ferrell in a walk.

 

Bill Murray was so bad his first year on SNL, he actually did a sketch where he spent the entire time apologizing for how unfunny he had been.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I've always felt that the Hooks/Dunn/Jackson triumvirate was the best trio of females the show ever had, edging out Radner/Curtin/Newman, and miles above the ridiculously overhyped and generally horrible Shannon/Oteri/Gasteyer grouping...

 

Ana Gasteyer was one of those people who did well in everything she was in.... it just wasn't funny. Similar to Maya Rudolph.

 

Gilda Radner and Jan Hooks were the best female cast members.

 

And Will Forte is seriously underrated, but perhaps I'm influenced by his other work. I've enjoyed him in almost everything he's done, from flawlessly playing Ted Turner on Conan to his numerous Tim and Eric cameos.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Goddamit, this thing is going make me re-read "Live From New York" for the 100th time.

 

Get this instead:

 

http://www.amazon.com/Saturday-Night-Backstage-History-Live/dp/0688050999

 

It only covers the first nine years of the show's existence, but the stories in it are even better than the ones in Live from New York.  Especially the ones about the disastrous 1980 season.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

I've always felt that the Hooks/Dunn/Jackson triumvirate was the best trio of females the show ever had, edging out Radner/Curtin/Newman, and miles above the ridiculously overhyped and generally horrible Shannon/Oteri/Gasteyer grouping...

 

Ana Gasteyer was one of those people who did well in everything she was in.... it just wasn't funny. Similar to Maya Rudolph.

 

Gilda Radner and Jan Hooks were the best female cast members.

 

And Will Forte is seriously underrated, but perhaps I'm influenced by his other work. I've enjoyed him in almost everything he's done, from flawlessly playing Ted Turner on Conan to his numerous Tim and Eric cameos.

 

 

Agreed on Gasteyer, Radner, and Hooks. I think someone else said Radner was underrated, which is very true. To me, her and Belushi were the All-Stars of the original cast.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...