YMMV / Saturday Night Live

• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • At this point, is Darrell Hammond's Sean Connery on Celebrity Jeopardy! for any reason other than repeatedly and proudly making Your Mom jokes and otherwise Troll Will Ferrell's Alex Trebek?
  • In the Shud the Mermaid sketches, it's a common interpretation that, going by classic fairy tale tropes, Shud's prettier sisters are evil sirens who will probably kill their lovers after running off with them. The inverse, that Shud would probably make a kind, loving wife, might be true, but her anglerfish friend wanting to kill her men suggests that might not be true.
• And You Thought It Would Fail:
  • Upon its creation, the show was considered filler for dead airspace that was only created to replace old reruns of The Tonight Show With Johnny Carson and only appealed to stoners and insomniacs, specially given a cast known as "Not Ready For Prime Time Players" for a reason. Almost 50 years later, one can't even consider television without this show, to the point of inspiring many imitators that didn't last anywhere as long, ranging from Fridays to In Living Color! and Mad TV.
  • One person who certainly didn't believe in the show's success was New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner, who happily agreed to donate several rows of old seats from Yankee Stadium (which was undergoing renovations when the show premiered) to accommodate the show's studio audience under the assumption that the show would be canceled and the seats would be returned to him within a year. The seats remain in the audience to this day—and the show still pays an annual fine to the city government for the code violation of having outdoor seating in an indoor venue.
  • Writers thought "Lazy Sunday" would not be well received by audiences. Instead, the audience loved the song, it became the most popular SNL skit in years and introduced the world to The Lonely Island.
  • When Jon Hamm was announced as a guest host in 2008, the fan reaction was mostly "Huh? The Mad Men guy? Whatever." But his first hosting stint turned out to be an instant classic episode and also boosted his career by showing he could do comedy exceptionally well.
  • When it was announced that Kim Kardashian would host in an early episode in Season 47, eyebrows were raised, given that she is known for having a flat delivery, the Kardashian family being rather controversial, and there were concerns that it would be in the same level of controversy as the episodes previously hosted by Donald Trump and Elon Musk. When the episode was aired, it was surprisingly well-received among viewers, and drew the usual amount of laughter the show is known for. The monologue was also well-received, as Kardashian would not only engage in Self-Deprecation, but also poked fun at her own family as well.
  • The announcement NFL player Travis Kelce would be hosting in Season 48 led to a lot of skepticism, primarily because of the show's mixed record of athlete hosting stints and Kelce being relatively unknown to non-football fans compared to past players who have hosted at the time of the episode's airing. Kelce's episode quickly became one of the most acclaimed of the season, with critics and viewers praising his comedic timing, character commitment, and chemistry with the cast.
• Audience-Alienating Era: The show has had plenty of ups and downs in its decades-long history. However, there are three seasons that are generally singled out as being particularly embarrassing:
  • Season 6 (1980-1): The first season after Lorne Michaels left the show and the entire cast was replaced (including the last of the original cast). Lorne wanted Al Franken to take over as producer, but NBC president Fred Silverman refused because of a segment Franken did on SNL mocking Silverman (Silverman was relatively humorless). Silverman instead chose Jean Doumanian to produce SNL, and she proved extremely inept at the task. Many of the sketches were extremely crass, and critics wrote scathingly of the show's decline in quality. Dick Ebersol took over as producer late in the season (only one episode was made that season after he was hired before a writer's strike ended it) and stayed on for another four years. Eddie Murphy and Joe Piscopo were the only Doumanian cast members to make it into the following season, and the entire season helped lead to Silverman's career taking a nose-dive after success in the 70's; this got an honorable mention in What Were They Thinking? The 100 Dumbest Events in Television History, which took several shots at Silverman.
  • Season 11 (1985-86): The first season after Lorne's return, the entire cast was replaced again, this time with a new cast that included such famous or soon-to-be-famous names as Robert Downey Jr., Anthony Michael Hall, Randy Quaid, Joan Cusack, and Damon Wayans. However, such an eclectic group didn't work well together, and the show once again faced critical bashing and danger of cancellation. Jon Lovitz, Dennis Miller, Nora Dunn, and A. Whitney Brown were the only cast members kept for next season, where a group of new cast members led by Dana Carvey and Phil Hartman saved the show.
  • Season 20 (1994-95) The first season after Hartman left (and two seasons after Carvey left), the cast was now led by the likes of Adam Sandler, Chris Farley, and David Spade, who weren't versatile enough to play the wide range of character types usually expected of the main cast members^note  In The Chris Farley Show book, Jim Downey compared it to a football team trying to win a game using only special teams players.. Sketches often had very thin premises, many centering around the O. J. Simpson trial, and levels of sophomoric humor reached critical mass, resulting in lambasting by critics. Also, reports of behind-the-scenes turmoil, much of it involving Janeane Garofalo (who joined the cast that year but left in disgust midway through), led to the perception of general decay. More than half the cast was replaced after the season, and a new group led by Will Ferrell helped create another resurgence.
• Award Snub: Pedro Pascal losing the 2023 Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series Emmy Award to Ted Lasso's Sam Richardson caught some fans off-guard, considering almost every sketch from Pascal's hosting debut went viral (two even received sequels prior to the delayed Emmy ceremony), while Richardson's winning performance was a simple appearance by his recurring character and the reception of Ted Lasso as a whole had taken dive in its third season.
• Best Known for the Fanservice:
  • Channing Tatum's first time hosting (who actually was a stripper for a year before becoming an actor), the monologue especially. The only non-stripper bits people remember from this episode is the Newt Gingrich: Moon President cold opening and the Weekend Update segment with Kristen Wiig as Lana Del Rey trying to defend herself against claims that her performance on SNL was a disaster because of her atonal caterwauling and inability to move around.
  • Pamela Anderson's episode is primarily remembered for her monologue, as she removed her clothes to do it in the buff (granted, it was pretty obvious she was wearing a nude-colored bikini under the Pixellation).
• Broken Base:
  • Dick Ebersol's era. Some regard it as the high point of the show after the original cast; others think of it as a bastardized version of the original concept, designed to pimp Eddie Murphy and Joe Piscopo (and later, Martin Short, Billy Crystal, and Christopher Guest) at the expense of everyone else. And there are those who say that it may not be as great as Lorne Michaels's original cast, but it is worlds better than what Jean Doumanian turned out in her short stint as executive producer.
  • Every season after the first five years has a Broken Base (save for the seasons that were universally bad — season 6, season 11 ^note though it does have some fans, if only for Dennis Miller as Weekend Update anchor, and much like season 6, is viewed today as "It sucks, but it's not as bad as everyone else says.", and season 20).
  • The Andrew "Dice" Clay episode, which got a ton of controversy from them even picking Clay to host it (hell, it even was one of the deciding factors for Nora Dunn to not seek contract renewal, as she was the most disgusted by the personality Clay is known to have). It was a polarizing choice for both the cast and fans for the penultimate episode of the 15th season. This is ironic because a good bit of fans seemed to have mixed feelings about Dunn, and there have been stories about how she was viewed by the cast (not to mention that she is somewhat still vocal about her time on SNL to this day, and some bad feelings still linger). It should be noted that Clay didn't want to host, citing burnout as a reason, but was prodded in to it by someone close to him.
  • The famous Chris Farley Chippendales skit has a mixed legacy with comedians and critics, particularly in regards to how it ends. Some, like Bob Odenkirk and Chris Rock, hate that the sketch ends with Farley's character being rejected for his overweight physique after performing shirtless and feel that it's poor writing with no comedic twist and a bad case of Don't Explain the Joke.^note And that's not even getting into how they feel the sketch affected Farley's mental health and self esteem Others, like Robert Smigel and Jim Downey, feel the sketch works because Patrick Swayze's character is honestly concerned Farley could beat him, the judges give a sincere evaluation of the performance, and praise his dancing abilities in of itself.
  • The increased emphasis on political skits and humor in the wake of the Trump presidency in Seasons 42-46. Many people enjoyed the coverage of the extreme chaos of the Trump administration and found the skits hilarious. Other people thought it was relying too much on anti-Trump humor at the expense of other current events and the jokes became stale, especially since Alec Baldwin's impressions of Trump seem too lazily-acted and inaccurate.^note He even admitted after Season 44 that he had gotten tired of the role, yet reprised it in Seasons 45-46.
• Creator's Pet:
  • Lorne Michaels most definitely has his favorites. Some of these favorites include Jimmy Fallon, Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, Fred Armisen, Will Forte, Kristen Wiig, Taran Killam, Mikey Day and Kate McKinnon. There were surely some from the past, but it seems even more blatant now.
    • This wound up being subverted by Killam, as he and the similarly popular Jay Pharaoh wound up being let go despite having more time on their contracts. Given both were regularly contributing to the show in well received ways, their removal was not well received.
  • During Jean Doumanian's brief yet infamous time as SNL showrunner, she basically groomed Charles Rocket to be the "breakout star" of the show. She made him the lead in multiple sketches, put him in charge of the Weekend Update desk, and even gave him his own segment, known as the "Rocket Report". Hell, in the first episode, in which the new cast members compared themselves to past cast members (which in hindsight was seen as having not really helped the negative reception that season's cast members got, except Eddie Murphy), Rocket even called himself "a cross between Chevy Chase and Bill Murray". Unfortunately, many saw him as a poor man's version of both of them (Rocket's reportedly diva-like attitude backstage didn't help matters either. Notably, during the episode Murray hosted, he pointedly turns away from Rocket). This all culminated with Charles saying the F-word on live television. By the end of Season 6, both Rocket and Doumanian were fired, their careers tanked, and Rocket eventually took his own life in 2005.
  • For Dick Ebersol, Eddie Murphy (who managed to survive the cast member culling following Jean Doumanian's dismissal) was his pet up to eleven, and he wasn't shy about letting you know that. SNL was basically the Eddie Murphy Show from Season 7 to 9 (until Murphy left). After that it became the Billy Crystal/Christopher Guest/Martin Short show. Even people who defend Ebersol's tenure tend to admit that Ebersol definitely thought in terms of "This person/people are the lead(s), and everyone else is backup."
  • As listed above, Jimmy Fallon got hit with this quite a bit. While he did prove to be quite adept at impressions, resulting in plenty of roles, the fact that he could never get through a sketch without laughing became infamous. Despite many believing his laughing episodes took away from mute sketches, he was constantly out in the spotlight, which made him a highly divisive cast member. Not helping was that he also ran Weekend Update during his tenure, so Fallon's detractors were guaranteed to see plenty of him each night no matter what. He would go on to gain this reputation for the network the show runs on, NBC, as a whole after leaving, once he gained his own talk show in Late Night and was later given the coveted The Tonight Show franchise in the form of The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, additionally getting several hosting gigs for NBC broadcast award shows and SNL episodes and special, even getting to open up the show's fortieth anniversary. All this exposure caused many to jump on the Fallon hatedom and caused many accusations of him being the network's personal lapdog.
  • Kristen Wiig's herself was this for many fans during the 2008-2010 seasons. She was guaranteed to be in the majority of the skits every show, almost always playing the female lead. It didn't help that most of her recurring characters, like Gilly and her awful Kathy Lee impression, were incredibly grating and time-consuming (despite Gilly being widely believed to be her least funny character even by Wiig's fans, she even got a freaking holiday special!). Even worse, the other female cast members were shoved into background roles to make more, unneeded room for Wiig. With Wiig out of the cast, however, the rest of the female cast have now been finally given enough screentime to show their talents.
  • As of season 46, Aidy Bryant and Cecily Strong have become accused of being this as they've been allowed to miss several episodes of the season outside of pre-taped sketches done remotely so they could film their own television shows instead. Given the two of them have already been on the show for eight seasons, which are among the longest tenures in the show's history, many fans feel they've had their time and they should just walk away to strictly focus on their solo projects and allow some of the newer cast members to make their mark on the show.
  • Also for season 46, some feel that Maya Rudolph has become one. After making several appearances the previous year as then presidential candidate Kamala Harris, Rudolph continued the role after Joe Biden named Harris as his running mate. Suddenly, not only did Rudolph's Harris start appearing in almost all the cold opens, even when she was only slightly connected and therefore didn't have much to do, but Rudolph also started appearing in multiple other sketches throughout the episodes.^note In the episode that featured a parody of the second and last 2020 presidential debate as the cold open, Rudolph appeared as moderator Kristen Welker. While Rudolph is a very popular comedic actress and former cast member, some fans have criticized her sheer number of appearances this season as yet another example of SNL neglecting it's current cast in favor of big names. Thanfully, after the election, Maya has barely made any more appearances, making only one cameo appearance in Season 47.
  • As mentioned above, Kate McKinnon very much qualifies. A popular cast member, she went from initially being something of an Ensemble Dark Horse, as she found her role increasing as more of the bigger names in the cast started to leave, to become the show's MVP by that point in the eyes of many. She then went on to portray Hillary Clinton, widely regarded as the frontrunner for the 2016 elections, and won an Emmy for Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series not long afterwards. And then, by the next season, McKinnon's role started to greatly increase. She continued to portray Clinton until her shocking election loss, but then took over for a wide variety of Donald Trump's cabinet members, most of them men, as well as often finding herself at the center of sketches, to the point where she basically eclipsed her entire supporting actress to become something of a leading lady, with some people even seeing her as having filled the same mold Wiig was accused to have years before. This major exposure would continue for the following years, which some viewers thought was stretching McKinnon far too thin, with her work not being as fresh and exciting as it once was, likely due to such a large workload. This eventually culminated in, when the show debuted a Robert Mueller impression played by McKinnon, it being poorly received, which was not so much blamed on McKinnon herself but rather it being a symptom of the large workload granted by the show to McKinnon spreading her too thin, resulting in the role being recast with Robert De Niro to a much more positive reception. When McKinnon's absence at the beginning of Season 47^note Due to her shooting the film adaptation of Tiger King forced the show to utilize the other female cast members like Heidi Gardner and Melissa Villaseñor, many viewers admitted the change was refreshing and didn't miss McKinnon being a Spotlight-Stealing Squad. And similar to Kristen Wiig, with McKinnon leaving the show, this means that the other cast members (particularly the female ones) could now be given a chance to shine.
  • Pete Davidson has repeatedly been accused of being one. Several viewers have noted that having an actor who both has very little range and almost always breaks character is a poor fit for a live sketch show which requires playing a multitude of parts. There's also the fact that Davidson has repeatedly either barely appeared in or completely missed episodes, with accusations that he doesn't pull his own weight in comparison to the other big names in the current cast. And then there's the time where he was still allowed to remain on the show even after publicly criticizing his coworkers. Many have noted that due to Davidson gaining fame from his relationship with Ariana Grande and frequency discussing his poor mental health have caused Lorne Michaels to give Davidson free passes due to a combination of taking advantage of his fame as well as stopping his health from worsening. All this has caused Davidson to become one of the more divisive actors in the show's cast.
• Crosses the Line Twice: Frequently.
  • This is most invoked in the final Weekend Update segments of the calendar year and the season during the Colin Jost/Michael Che era, where they write jokes for each other which are deliberately made to be offensive and/or humiliating. Colin almost always has to read a joke Michael wrote about black people, in which the real humor comes from Michael's "offense."
  • The best/worst instance is likely a case where Michael makes Colin say he won't read the joke, not because it's offensive but because a black guy is holding his cue card. Colin then reads a line where he fires the man, and Michael admonishes him for firing a man on Christmas. In one of the editions of Weekend Update At Home, Michael used his recently deceased grandmother to coax Colin to read an offensive joke.
  • Season 42's finale has a mad scientist competition competing for most evil invention in the world. After a few contestants show off their Cartoonish Supervillainy projects, Host Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson's character, Roy, enters the contest with a child-molesting robot, which disgusts everyone else there.
  • A great example of Jost and Che reading each other's jokes is when one of them made a major dig at Scarlett Johansson for taking the roles of people of color (saying, when discussing the news of a Sammy Davis Jr. biopic, that Johansson would play Davis). The kicker is that it was read by Jost, her husband.
  • Another Michael Che example: when discussing Marjorie Taylor Greene's various conspiracy theories, he rolls his eyes and says, "I get it, you're my type." When the audience groans, he explains that he doesn't actually support Greene, because "Anybody who believes that stuff is as blind as Stevie Wonder is pretending to be."
  • The "Dear Sister" short. A character getting shot is usually a turning point, something dramatic and sometimes horrific. Characters just randomly shooting each other, repeatedly, while Imogen Heap's "Hide And Seek" plays every time someone gets shot, is hilarious.
  • The infamous "Word Association" sketch with Chevy Chase and Richard Pryor, which starts out harmless before the interviewer (Chase) starts using racist words and phrases, slowly angering the applicant (Pryor).
  • When Jason Sudeikis hosted in Season 47, he brought back his Devil character for Weekend Update and crossed a few lines. He follows up a joke about Prince Andrew calling him by revealing a photo of Andrew with the Devil and Jeffrey Epstein (who the Devil calls "J-Epps"), noting that it doesn't look good for Andrew but it's "street cred" for the Devil. Later, the Devil calls out Colin for making a deal with him to marry Scarlett Johansson, doubling down by accusing Colin of pulling The Baby Trap on her^note Johansson was pregnant at the time and noting that Colin screwed her almost as much as Disney did.
  • The Squid Game parody, that has all the blood and gore of the actual ''Squid Game", set to country music. Rami Malek sings how he lost everything and had to sell his puppy. Pete ducks behind another cast member during "Red Light, Green Light" and the chorus even stops every time the doll shouts, "Red light!" You can hear scandalized laughter from the audience. The song ends with him pushing Rami off the Stepping Stones Bridge, winning the money, only to blow it all when betting on the Jets. As a dying Rami lampshades, "Why the hell'd I play the Squid Game?" He prepares to reenter the Squid Games, but the guards are so annoyed by Pete that they kill him before he can even compete.
  • In the Zoe Kravitz episode, Kravitz plays a maid of honor giving a toast to the new bride (Cecily Strong). The maid casually reveals more and more horrifying facts about the bride, including that she was at the Capitol Riots, all her ex-husbands have killed themselves, she's slept with everybody in Jackass, condoned the maid of honor marrying her own student (who is seen childishly eating a plate of noodles), and she isn't allowed to see any of her estranged kids or their dads. The sheer audacity combined with how everybody reacts so nonchalantly — except the groom, who's convinced he's gonna die — makes it darkly hilarious.
  • A sketch in the Lizzo episode takes place in a Roman-era celebration for the king, where everybody plans to be as hedonistic as possible, complete with skinny boy toys, half-naked musicians, and Kate making out with a (real!) goat. The punchline? The king is a little boy!
  • The Japanese game show sketch where Chris Farley plays an American tourist who accidentally ends up on a game show where the players face Yakuza-style punishments when they answer incorrectly.
  • The Amy Schumer / Steve Lacy episode has an ad that promotes the coronavirus as a good thing because it gives you a paid vacation.
  • "Black Heaven" from the Dave Chappelle/Black Star episode has Chappelle force Mikey Day to take his place in the sketch so he can rest, with most of the sketch's humor coming from Day's discomfort at being forced to say lines that would be fine for a Black person to say, but sound racist coming from him, as well as Chappelle and his friends being positively gleeful about the torture he's being put through.
  • Eddie Murphy's 2019 return as Gumby crosses the line several times, saying about himself "He was just a regular coon boy till I saw him.".
  • A sketch in the Quinta Brunson episode features Chloe Fineman getting sexually harassed by her male bosses at work, up to and including them using her breasts as bongo drums, with all of her complaints falling on deaf ears. The sketch would be extremely uncomfortable were it not for the fact the bosses are played by Brunson and Sarah Sherman in drag and the bongo playing occurs during a choreographed dance number.
• Don't Shoot the Message: The Try Guys sketch from the Brendan Gleeson/Willow episode was supposed to mock the amount of attention the Ned Fulmer cheating scandal received from mainstream news given the other world events that were happening during the time (the approaching midterm elections in the US, the Russia-Ukraine war, etc.) as well as The Try Guys video series having a relatively niche audience compared to most popular media. However, the amount of attention the scandal received compared to these other issues was minimal and considered to be overrepresented by the show. Additionally, because the show inaccurately depicted the scandal as a simple extramarital affair rather than the serious case of workplace misconduct that it was, this led to the show generating criticism for seemingly downplaying the ongoing issue of sexual misconduct in the workplace and the sketch's intended message being lost in the controversy.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • The Blues Brothers. Their music was so good that they got not one but two spinoff films. While the second one is widely seen as awful, the first is a comedy classic and cemented the duo as icons.
  • Similar to the Blues Brothers, Wayne and Garth are undeniably Mike Myers and Dana Carvey's most beloved characters, helped by them starring in one of the only SNL films that people actually like.
  • The Ambiguously Gay Duo, for their memetic name. They may be a one note joke, but damnit if the crew didn't put their all into that joke, getting every laugh they could.
  • Steve Martin has never been a cast member, but his many times hosting and countless classic sketches has earned him a place as SNL royalty.
  • Much like Martin, Alec Baldwin was never a cast member, but his long tenure of hosting and excellent performances make him far more popular than most.
  • As always, Christopher Walken is enormously popular, as his strange charisma and delivery works splendidly with the format, and as noted below, he's uttered quite possibly the most iconic and beloved joke in the show's decades of airtime.
  • Justin Timberlake earned plenty of fans for his wonderfully energetic hosting that showed he's much more than just a singer.
    • Particularly beloved is his work as a showboating Christmas time charity raising mascot. "Bring it on down to Homelessville".
  • Adam Driver has become one of the most popular hosts in recent memory thanks to the actor combining his excellent comedic timing with much more dramatic intensity than most hosts ever bring to the show.
    • Especially beloved is Driver's performance as Kylo Ren going undercover as "Matt the radar technician".
    • Additionally, his work as ruthless oil Baron and Abusive Parent Abraham H. Parnassus has been called one of the greatest SNL performances ever, thanks to his sheer commitment to being covered in makeup and hai frightening amulet hilarious delivery.
  • No stranger to comedic acclaim, Melissa McCarthy was already a popular host, but her performance as Sean Spicer truly cemented her status as a beloved one.
  • Dave Chappelle's out of nowhere hosting was very well received, particularly for his standard excellent standup in the monologue. Reprising several of iconic roles also helped. Chappelle's performance also synced up with something of a Career Resurrection with him appearing in many more high profile projects than he had in a long time. Even in his lesser second hosting, his very long opening monologue was heralded by many as fantastic.
  • Bill Hader's Stefon is very much loved, thanks to his Cloudcuckoolander tendencies, nonstop flirting with Seth Meyers, and watching just how long Hader can go reading such ridiculous lines before he breaks down.
  • John Mulaney is quite popular both for his past as an SNL writer, his usual wonderful comedic timing, and his commitment to ridiculous subjects such as his recurring musical sketches.
  • Much like he is everywhere else, Tom Hanks is a beloved figure on SNL, reminding people that he was a highly successful comedic figure before he became a pro at drama.
    • His absolutely strange but unflinching portrayal of Davis S. Pumpkins has been called one of the best moments the show's had in a very long time.
  • Timothée Chalamet earned instant acclaim for his hosting performance thanks to his commitment to his character performances as well as the strong comedic chemistry he had with Pete Davidson in several of the episode's sketches. Many viewers took to social media to call for the duo to star in a film together and were delighted when Chalamet came back for a cameo later in the season during a filmed musical sketch with Davidson and Kid Cudi.
• Fandom-Enraging Misconception: SNL fans really don't like the sketches being referred to as "skits." There is a subtle difference — "skit" is associated with shorter ideas that require less rehearsal, while "sketches" are seen as more formal explorations of a comedic concept. When Elon Musk tweeted about "skit ideas" prior to his hosting gig, he was mocked by fans — and even a few of the cast members!
• Fandom Heresy: With Jean Doumanian's time as producer being considered Canon Discontinuity to the extent that Saturday Night Live has a canon to begin with, it takes a lot of grit and energy to defend her 12-episode era.
• Fan Nickname:
  • The SNL girl group uses "Nasty Girls" or "your girls" at times, but according to fans it's "Fifth Harmony in ten years".
  • In the Sofía Vergara episode, One Direction made an additional appearance as stereotypical South Americans, intended as Sofia's children, briefly earning the name "Juan Direction".
• Franchise Original Sin:
  • The actors breaking character and laughing. Given it's a live sketch show that's on every week, this sort of thing could be excused when the sketch is genuinely funny, the actor is actually trying to keep a straight face, and it doesn't happen too often. But as time's gone on, more and more cast members and hosts can't help laughing, causing the idea to wear thin, especially when the jokes weren't even that funny to begin with, leading to claims that some of the breaks are intentional to get laughs in poor sketches, something that the show itself had acknowledged.
  • Accusations of certain cast members hogging up too much spotlight go all the way back to the days of Eddie Murphy, with the man literally hosting an episode while he was still a cast member. People didn't complain then because Murphy's legendary run was viewed as being just that good and he was only on the show for four seasons so his time in the spotlight was fairly brief in the grand scheme of things. But in recent years, many of Lorne Michael's favorites receive backlash from overexposure, particularly since many of these cast members now stay on the show for over ten seasons. This also works in individual cases where a cast member may be great, but when they're pushed to the center stage so often it feels like too much of a good thing.
  • Starting in the 2016 election season, the show's faced criticism for using Stunt Casting with former castmembers and celebrity guests in satirizing major political figures instead of some of the show's regular castmembers, most notably with frequent host Alec Baldwin playing Donald Trump. Although this was a practice that stretched as far back as the 1990s, e.g. a 1993 sketch had Phil Hartman as Bill Clinton appearing with former castmembers Jan Hooks as Hillary Clinton and Dan Aykroyd as Bob Dole, despite neither of the latter two appearing as a host. The practice didn't garner as much criticism back then due to the fact the show mostly stuck to using previous cast members who did quality impressions rather than impressions of varying quality from any celebrity they could get to appear. Plus, they didn't appear on such a frequent basis that they could be considered a Fake Guest Star, like Baldwin as Trump.
• Growing the Beard: The Season 1 episode hosted by Richard Pryor took the show from being a grungy, New York-style variety show into the edgy, late-night sketch comedy show where anything can happen (scripted or otherwise).
• Harsher in Hindsight: Has its own page.
• He Really Can Act: A ton of the non-actors who have hosted the show—musicians, politicians, athletes—have proven to be very talented comedians as well. Even the actors themselves—plenty of well-known dramatic actors have turned out to be very funny people (Christopher Walken in particular credited his appearances on the show with his ability to pivot into something of a career second wind as a comedic actor after being well-known for drama.) And the musical guests who haven't hosted but have still participated in a skit have generated plenty of laughs too. There's also occasional moments where underused cast members finally get a chance to shine resulting in this.
• Heartwarming in Hindsight: The first "Debbie Downer" sketch in 2004 had Debbie (Rachel Dratch) saying "By the way, it’s official: I can't have children.". In 2010, Dratch gave birth to a son, sharing afterwards how surprised she was that she managed to become pregnant in her 40s.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: Also has its own page.
• Hollywood Homely:
  • One of the "Kirby" sketches is a spoof of Aliens, where one of the space marines claims that they've been on the ship for so long that even the Captain Ersatz of Vasquez is "starting to look good". "Vasquez" is played by resident hottie Cecily Strong.
  • There's also Cecily as Cathy Anne, the hilariously unattractive chain-smoking white trash woman with one glass eye (only revealed after her good eye was blinded in an eclipse).
  • Before Cecily joined up, the Shana sketches headlined by Kristen Wiig would often have Abby Elliot cast as the less attractive female in contrast. Then again, this is Shana we're talking about...
  • The Matt Shatt sketches, where Mikey Day plays a dork who always lands a ridiculously hot wife. The gag is that Matt is so unattractive that his wives must be blind, forced into it, or some other impairment that makes it impossible for him to get such hot women. However, Matt is just Mikey wearing glasses; it's mostly his geeky interests (like being a Smurfs fan) that make him come across as unattractive.
  • Season 49 has a sketch about the "Fugliana" sex dolls, intended as unattractive sex dolls for unattractive men. It involves most of the female players in unflattering wigs, and that's about it.
  • The Sydney Sweeney episode features a sketch where she plays a Hooters waitress and annoys the rest of the waitstaff by making significantly larger tips than they do. While Bowen Yang doing poorly makes sense (and even that's largely a combination of an awkward costume and Incompatible Orientation), the other two waitresses are played by the very attractive Chloe Fineman and Sarah Sherman, making it bewildering why the male customers find them unattractive.
• Just Here for Godzilla:
  • Most people who watch the show only watch it just to see one thing (be it a favorite sketch/recurring character/cast member/favorite host) and cite it as the main reason to watch the show. Weekend Update is commonly cited as the best example of this, since the simplicity of the sketch means it can be consistent even as the rest of the show wobbles.
  • A lot of people mainly watched the Jonathan Majors-hosted episode to see Taylor Swift perform the full ten minute version of "All Too Well", especially since the re-recording of Red and the short film of the song were just released at the time, both of which were met with critical acclaim. It certainly helped that the cheers for Swift were much louder than what musical guests usually receive prior to performing.
• Memetic Loser:
  • Garrett Morris is the prototypical example of a cast member whose career went absolutely nowhere after leaving the show, while his tenure in the show itself is held as a prototypical example of how African-American cast members fared on the show during its early years (not getting enough screentime or roles, unless they were stereotypical). Many later black cast members have said they took pains not to end up like him. Morris has carved a niche as a comedic character actor, though, notably appearing in 6 seasons of hit sitcom '2 Broke Girls'.
  • Joe Piscopo and his bizarre career trajectory. From co-headliner in the Eddie Murphy years to largely forgotten movies and solo comedy projects to an amateur Bodybuilding phase and finally a stint as a right-wing radio host.
  • Luke Null, who had just about every fan wondering why the producers even hired him as he was given a grand total of one showy part in his time on the show...which was cut from broadcast.
  • Shane Gillis will likely always be best known as the guy who got fired from SNL for racist jokes before he even got to do a single episode.
  • In general, actors who always laugh during sketches often get made fun of for it, sometimes in an affectionate manner, sometimes in an uglier way.
    • The most infamous example of this would be Jimmy Fallon, who could seemingly never make it through a sketch with character fully intact. This both attracted the ire of cast mate Tracy Morgan, who implied that Fallon's laughing fits were intentional, and resulted in SNL joking about his breaking, including once by Fallon himself.
    • Due to frequently Corpsing right by Fallon's side, Horatio Sanz has gotten a similar reputation. Not helping matters is that unlike Fallon, he wouldn't go on to host The Tonight Show, with his SNL work being the high point of his career.
    • Pete Davidson has been pointed to by many as the show's biggest breaker since Fallon, with the same accusations of doing so intentionally being hurled his way. And unlike Fallon who was at least a strong impressionist, Davidson is often seen as having little if any in the way of range, thus leading to questions of why he's even on the show.
    • Bill Hader is actually somewhat of a subversion, as while he's acknowledged as Corpsing quite often, his variety of acclaimed performances both on and off the show have given him a strong enough reputation to overcome it, and it's been said that Hader would put in genuinely valiant efforts to keep from laughing, even if they often failed. It's also worth noting that Hader is very open about his frequent laughing fits both on SNL and other projects.
  • Kyle Mooney is considered one due to the fact the majority of sketches where he played a starring role during his tenure were cut from episodes due to time constraints and left to be uploaded to the show's YouTube page, to the point of often being nicknamed Kyle "Cut for Time" Mooney. Many viewers would note that the sketches were often funnier than the ones that were actually broadcasted, exacerbating his status as this. Season 47 seemed to mitigate this, as the sketches he had a starring role in were broadcasted more. However, after it was announced he would be leaving the show when the season ended, he wound up being the only departing cast member^note The others being Kate McKinnon, Aidy Bryant, and Pete Davidson who didn't get a "sendoff" sketch, which brought him back to this status and caused many to note it summed up his time on the show very well.
  • Mikey Day has gradually become one thanks to his repeatedly getting cast as a straight man whose sole purpose is to violate Don't Explain the Joke. Many fans are baffled at the show's writers apparently being unable to come up with anything else for him to do.
• Mexicans Love Speedy Gonzales:
  • Bill Swerski's Superfans, the recurring sketch that portrayed Chicago sports fans as fat, drunk, imbeciles with thick accents who were delusional about the abilities of their favorite players, was extremely popular in the 1990s, but especially with Chicago sports fans. The characters were so embraced there that the Chicago Bears adopted their catchphrase ("Da Bears") as an official team slogan and the actors even appeared in-character during the Chicago Bulls 1993 championship celebration.
  • People from the panhandle area of Florida often joke that the "Floribama Shore" sketch featuring Saoirse Ronan is "not a skit, but a documentary." In response to a skit parodying Love Island starring Phoebe Waller-Bridge, UK viewers also confirm that Love Island really is just like that.
  • Soap opera parody "The Californians" is fairly popular with real Californians, who find the Surfer Dude voices and constant name-dropping of California's highways to be close to home.
  • The season 49 horror film trailer spoof "Pilates" was immediately embraced by actual Pilates trainers and studios, who all applauded the accuracy and gleefully shared the sketch on their instagram stories.
• Memetic Mutation: Nearly every other sketch has spawned a meme. See the Memetic Mutation page for more details.
• Mis-blamed:
  • Adam Sandler and Chris Farley bore the brunt of the criticism of the infamous season 20 of the show. But as producer Mike Shoemaker pointed out in Farley's autobiography, their sketches were the ones that got the most laughs during that season. Most of the problems with the show actually stemmed from the dysfunction in the writers room.
  • Elon Musk received criticism online after he declared himself the first SNL host with Asperger Syndrome during his monologue, when it was actually Dan Aykroyd.^note (Though Aykroyd was not open about his diagnosis until years after he first hosted.) While Musk's claim was inaccurate, he can hardly be blamed for the gaffe as he wasn't the one who wrote his monologue. Michael Che, Colin Jost, and Jasmine Pierce were the writers and Musk simply read the cue cards.
• Speaking of cue cards, fans sometimes will point out when it's obvious that the host is reading from a cue card, and the less informed fans have been known to rip the host for not memorizing their script. In fact, sketches are being rewritten almost literally up to air time, so it's useless to try to memorize lines since odds are they'll get changed at some point.
• More Popular Replacement:
  • Often happens when a new cast member joins the show and becomes much more popular than the one they replaced. For instance, Nancy Walls was let go after one season (Season 21) after failing to make an impact and was replaced by Ana Gasteyer, who quickly became one of the most popular cast members of the late 90s-early 00s era.
  • Jay Pharaoh's version of Barack Obama was seen as better than Fred Armisen's, helped by it being a more accurate impression and Pharaoh actually being black, unlike Armisen.
  • Alec Baldwin quickly became iconic as Donald Trump after having been portrayed by Darrell Hammond during the 2016 primary (and through the 2000s as a private businessman), solidified by Baldwin reprising the role all the way through the Trump presidency.
  • Robert De Niro as Robert Mueller was welcomed with open arms after Kate McKinnon's poorly received (for reasons listed above in Creator's Pet) portrayal.
  • After several divisive short-lived attempts at casting a Joe Biden impersonator during his presidential campaign and run (with Jim Carrey relying too much on his own persona and Alex Moffat getting a very lukewarm reception to his one-time appearance), James Austin Johnson's portrayal was the first to receive a near-unanimous welcome reception for having the most accurate Biden mannerisms. Similarly to Darrell Hammond above, though Alec Baldwin had cast a very big shadow over the role of Donald Trump with his frequent guest appearances (with Taran Killam stepping in as he began to taper off), Johnson's Trump — the impression he became most popular for on social media before joining the cast — was also met with overwhelming praise. The mere fact that he got to lead the opening sketch in the first episode of a season, let alone his own first season and still as a featured player, speaks to the confidence put in him.
• My Real Daddy:
  • Played for Laughs in the 25th anniversary special during the Weekend Update segment with three popular, former anchors. It begins with Chevy Chase talking about how he originated the sketch and how he did it "the best ever". Then Dennis Miller enters and takes issue with that, comparing Chase's one season to his six. ("You might've knocked her up, but I married her.") And then Norm Macdonald shows up. (Though in a nod to his infamous firing, Norm says he didn't know about the special and just saw them on TV).
  • The fortieth anniversary Weekend Update seems to settle on Jane Curtin (Chase's immediate successor and host for Seasons 2 through 5, largely considered some of the show's best), as well as Tina Fey and Amy Poehler (whose mid-oughts run regularly caused the segment Internet popularity.)
• Nausea Fuel:
  • Mr. Drubbler holding out the "sweatiest hand you've ever seen" during the "Peace be with you" in the St. Joseph's Christmas Mass Spectacular sketch. We get a close-up of his dripping wet hand and the other guy reluctantly shaking it. The studio audience even lets out an audible groan of disgust.
  • In "A Girl's Halloween," we see Cecily vomit right onto a pizza pie.
  • Almost everything about the Overnight Salad, which starts out innocently, if unconventionally. Then the ingredients start getting weirder, such as ungodly amounts of mayo, cookie croutons, pepper and raisins, before the crowner of letting the dish sit all night on the radiator. The audience can be heard groaning in revulsion at several points.
• Never Live It Down: Jean Doumanian will forever be known as the woman who almost ran the show into the ground during the 1980-1 season.
• No Such Thing as Bad Publicity: While the Season 41 episode hosted by Donald Trump received terrible critical reviews, it was a ratings hit and was argued by Trump's opponents to have helped legitimize him as a Presidential candidate. In a sense, the show's been trying to live this down ever since.
• Offending the Creator's Own: One criticism levied at the "Gen Z Hospital" was that it was offensive for conflating African-American Vernacular English (AAVE) with general "Gen Z" slang. Michael Che, a black man, wrote the sketch, and responded saying that he wasn't trying to be offensive, and he hadn't even heard of the term AAVE before.
• Older Than They Think: While writer Don Novello started appearing as Father Guido Sarducci in 1978, he'd originated the character several years earlier (after stumbling on a used monsignor outfit in a thrift store), performing him in comedy clubs and on local TV in San Francisco, then in network prime time as part of the cast for the Smothers Brothers' short-lived 1975 comeback series.
• Once Original, Now Common: Over the years, the show would grow a reputation of not being considered an edgy sketch show, thanks to the many Dueling Shows that always try to one-up the humor — the biggest offenders being Fridays, In Living Color!, and Mad TV. In particular, the classic reputation of the earliest seasons often baffles younger viewers, who little realize that SNL was one of the very first shows to employ the raunchy, sex-and-drug-fueled humor that is all-pervasive on television today.
• One-Scene Wonder: With the online release of the cut-for-time "My Little Stepchild" sketch, viewers are heaping praise on the Creepy Child actor and questioning the decision to leave this one sketch out of broadcast.
• Overshadowed by Controversy:
  • After a rough start, the Jean Doumanian-produced season 6 actually had some decent episodes as the year went on, but that all went out the window when Charles Rocket made his Precision F-Strike, which became what both that season and Rocket himself were best known for. Only hardcore SNL buffs even remember who hosted that particular episode (Dallas's Charlene Tilton).
  • The Tim Robbins episode from season 18 is remembered almost exclusively for being the notorious episode in which Sinéad O'Connor ripped Pope John Paul II's photo and screamed, "Fight the real enemy!"
  • The episode hosted by Alec Baldwin and his wife at the time Kim Basinger on February 12, 1994 will forever be remembered as the episode that had the "Canteen Boy Gets Molested" sketch.
  • The episode hosted by Martin Lawrence, which immediately followed the Alec Baldwin/Kim Basinger episode, will be remembered for Martin's raunchy monologue about women's hygiene, which was so tasteless, it nearly got everyone on the show fired and is often cut in reruns and replaced with title cards explaining the gist of the monologue and why it can't be shown on TV anymore.
  • Elon Musk's hosting gig in Season 46 will forever be remembered for the intense backlash the announcement of his appearance received on social media, including from a few of the show's cast members, with several users comparing it to the show's infamous decision to let Donald Trump host in Season 41. The actual episode itself was generally seen as inoffensive, with Musk doing a serviceable job as a host who wasn't an entertainer and being a good sport who allowed himself to be the butt of many jokes, unlike Trump.
• Pandering to the Base: When Bill Hader hosted the show in 2014, a new Puppetry 101 skit with his puppet Tony was done, as Bill had appeared on Howard Stern's show shortly before that episode, and Stern told him that the previous skit with Tony was his favorite of all time. Bill even hinted that Tony may make a comeback when he hosts, and even said if he did, people could thank Howard Stern for it.
• Parody Displacement: Some of their parodies are subjected to this, since the style of the show allows the producers to work with as many mediums as they want (e.g. cartoons, movies, TV shows, commercials, etc.). For the most part, the show either sticks to more well-known media or gives the audience a clearer hint of what they're parodying. But sometimes, they'll focus on more lesser-known or outright obscure content (such as MacGyver (1985) or The O.C.).
• Production-Related Period Piece: The cold open of the episode hosted by Jennifer Lopez in 2001 features Will Ferrell apologizing to her for his treatment of her earlier in the week. What is this in reference to? A sketch from a special prime-time episode of SNL which aired the previous Thursday night and probably hasn't been repeated since its original airing (unlike the regular episode hosted by Lopez)
• Questionable Casting:
  • Fred Armisen being the original actor to play Barack Obama, given he looked absolutely nothing like him. While hair and make-up helped on a little bit, the real life figure is light-skinned, and Armisen is of mixed race^note born to a Venezuelan mother and a half-German, half-Korean father with fairly dark skin, the actor ultimately just doesn't pass as a black man. There was also the fact that his delivery sounded little like him, as if the only direction the actor was given is "this person pauses a lot." While Armisen is a beloved cast member, pretty much everyone was happy to see Jay Pharoah take over as the president.
  • Then-presidential candidate Donald Trump hosting was met with quite a bit of backlash given Trump had already become quite controversial at the time. Combine that with the man's lack of acting skills, and the result was a panned episode that everyone involved seems to regret.
  • Pete Davidson's continued involvement on the show has been fairly divisive, as many have called out that he has very limited range, can't go through a sketch without breaking, and has started to contribute less and less as his tenure goes on, to the point where the show itself lampshades this. Even fans of Davidson have noted that his talents don't translate well for this kind of show.
  • Similarly, Leslie Jones's work on the show had come under fire due to her roles mostly amounting to Jones playing some variation of herself. That, combined with her making several noticeable gaffs have caused some to say that Jones didn't really fit in with the format.
  • Many viewers, critics, and even former cast members such as David Spade and Taran Killam have questioned recent seasons' reliance on Stunt Casting for politicians, as it's been said that the current cast could be easily be playing these roles instead and it's unfair to take these opportunities away when the cast members already have limited opportunities to be on screen due to the large cast size (Season 46 has 20 cast members in total).
  • Kate McKinnon playing so many members of Donald Trump's cabinet (and even the occasional Trump opposition politician, such as Senator Elizabeth Warren), with an especially high number of performances in drag, has been criticized by a few as stretching out a joke far too thin, and yet again giving McKinnon too much on her plate in favor of cast members who rarely get a chance to shine. Her impression works in some cases, but others don't represent the politician much more beyond "Kate being her wide-eyed quirky self." Perhaps the best example of the latter is her portrayal of Warren; during the sketches centered on the 2020 Democratic primaries, it was often common for McKinnon to forget to speak in the soft, whispering tone the real Warren does, and instead speak in her trademark energetic delivery before catching herself.
  • After several attempted impressions of Joe Biden failed to catch on, Jim Carrey (who had previously guest hosted three well-received times) was brought in as a special guest in the first stretch of Season 46 to handle the role. Reviews of his impression were mixed, however, with more than a few viewers noting that Carrey's typical Large Ham performance and mannerisms were too different from the soft spoken, calm real life figure — indeed, as early as his second appearance Carrey's performances often veered away from parodying Biden to other celebrities (such as Jeff Goldblum and Bob Ross), to the point that (at what ended up being his final appearance) he would end up pulling an Actor Allusion to one of his most famous roles. After Biden won the election, Carrey announced he was retiring from the character, being replaced by Alex Moffat for the rest of Season 46 and then new cast member James Austin Johnson in Season 47.
    • After the show had seemingly settled on Johnson as the show's Biden impersonator, the show suddenly decided to replace him in the role with Mikey Day in Season 49. This decision, presumably made on the assumption that Donald Trump would be the 2024 Republican presidential nominee and require Johnson for that part, has been received poorly by both critics and viewers with the general consensus being that Day, whose impressionist skills were already considered subpar, is a major step down from Johnson's acclaimed impression. Detractors also note that the show has previously had no issues having one cast member portray two presidential candidates, as when Dana Carvey portrayed both George H. W. Bush and Ross Perot during the 1992 election, so there's no reason Johnson can't portray both.
• Replacement Scrappy: Quite a few examples throughout the show's history. Sometimes it's following a cast member's retirement and sometimes it's years later, but if one actor comes across as similar in terms of personality, character, roles, and so on, you can definitely expect comparisons to pop up alongside the phrase "Poor Man's Substitute".
  • Believe it or not, Bill Murray was considered a Poor Man's Substitute for Chevy Chase when he joined in the second season, to the point where he received hate mail. Obviously, Murray wound up redeeming himself in the eyes to the public, to the point where he's much more popular than Chase now.
  • The season six cast. The first episode's Cold Open had the new castmembers introduce themselves to the audience by comparing themselves to previous castmembers. Gail Matthius described herself as a cross betweeen Gilda Radner and Jane Curtin, Charles Rocket described himself as a cross between Chevy Chase and Bill Murray, and Gilbert Gottfried described himself as a cross between John Belushi and "and that guy from last year who did Rod Serling, and no one can remember his name" (Harry Shearer). This did nothing to endear them to the audience and by the end of the season, everyone was given the boot except Joe Piscopo and Eddie Murphy.
  • Lampshaded by Colin Quinn on the monologue he gave on the first episode in which he replaced Norm Macdonald in the Weekend Update sketches. The monologue was well-received, but Quinn did not prove popular and didn't last long in the position before being replaced himself.
    Colin Quinn: You know how you go to your favorite bar, and your local bartender isn't there? You ask, "Where's Jeff?" "Jeff no longer works here, I'm Steve." Then you're thinking, "Hey, who's this idiot? I like Jeff." But you still want your drink. And even though Steve doesn't mix your drink the same way you're used to, like Jeff, you still like the bar. You don't want to have to go to a different bar. And even Steve might feel kinda bad because Jeff trained him. Jeff showed him how to work the cash register, where the tonic was on the soda gun, who tips, who doesn't. Well, I'm Steve. What can I get you?
• Rescued from the Scrappy Heap:
  • Bill Murray was hated by fans for replacing Chevy Chase. In his early appearances, he seemed awkward and forgot his lines. By the end of the second season, he won audiences over by evolving into his sardonic, sleazy know-it-all persona and giving them Nick the Lounge Singer and Todd DiLamuca.
  • Colin Jost initially drew numerous criticisms as a Weekend Update host for seeming smug, wooden, and unfunny. His Gallows Humor jokes received a lot of audible boos and groans from the audience. However, after they changed his co-anchor from Cecily Strong to Michael Che, he became more well received, with many praising the strong banter he has had with Che. Today the two are seen as one of the most stable parts of the show, especially on nights when the other sketches might not be as strong, and their semi-annual "Joke Swap" segment is widely considered one of the show's best.
• Retroactive Recognition:
  • Many cast members with short and forgettable tenures went on to major stardom that had nothing to do with their time on the show. Gilbert Gottfried (before his comedic person took shape), Anthony Michael Hall (SNL's youngest cast member at 17 years old), Harry Shearer, Randy Quaid, Robert Downey Jr. (nephew to Jim Downey, a one-time feature player and former writer on the show), Joan Cusack, Sarah Silverman, Janeane Garofalo, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Ben Stiller, Jenny Slate, and Damon Wayans were all cast members at some point. Additionally, Larry David, Conan O'Brien, Bob Odenkirk, J.B. Smoove, and John Mulaney were all writers on the show who made occasional appearances as extras in sketches.
  • Kirsten Dunst and Noah Segan (Henry from KaBlam!) both appeared as child actors in the show before becoming more famous.
  • Stephen Colbert wrote for the show and did voicework for The Ambiguously Gay Duo (and appeared as Brain-io on the live-action version of The Ambiguously Gay Duo).
  • Gates McFadden appeared in the March 7, 1981 episode as an audience member whom host Bill Murray shares a kiss with, several years before she was cast as Dr. Beverly Crusher on Star Trek: The Next Generation.
• The Scrappy:
  • Kyle Mooney’s take on Baby Yoda/Grogu from The Mandalorian has been poorly received by viewers due to taking a beloved, innocent character and turning him into a hideous, crass, sex-crazed jerk. It also comes off as the show desperately trying to be hip by cashing in on the character’s popularity, especially since Mooney’s take constantly threatens Baby Groot, who has not been relevant in years. Nonetheless, the show kept bringing him back to raucous applause by the studio audience. Some fans actually expressed relief that he hasn't interacted with The Mandalorian star Pedro Pascal, who didn't host until after Mooney's departure.
  • Steven Seagal is widely regarded as the worst SNL host after his April 20, 1991 appearance for his insufferably serious demeanor, a sentiment by both audiences as well as cast and crewmembers, including Bob Odenkirk, Norm Macdonald, David Spade, and Lorne Michaels himself, who joked about Seagal in the September 26, 1992 show hosted by Nicolas Cage:
    Nic: They probably think I'm the biggest jerk who's ever been on the show!
    Lorne: No, no, that would be Steven Seagal.
• Seasonal Rot: While any season can fall into this depending on who you ask, three are commonly highlighted as low points of the show: Six (1980-1981), as the entire original cast and writing staff had left and the new producer knew nothing about comedy - by the end of it, NBC stepped in and fired everyone except Joe Piscopo and Eddie Murphy; Eleven (1985-86), where Lorne Michaels came back and assembled a cast of semi-famous people as cast members only for them not to gel (the show was almost canned due to plummeting Nielsen ratings); and Twenty (1994-1995), which relied too much on juvenile comedy and sketches about the O. J. Simpson murder trial. Some other seasons are usually seen as of low quality as well (in particular if a fan-favorite cast member leaves the show will go through what's called a "rebuilding season," which means that the show's humor quality will be mixed at best. See They Changed It, Now It Sucks! below), such as:
  • Season 28, due to Jimmy Fallon's constant cracking up and the absence of Will Ferrell.
  • Season 30 had very mediocre political sketches during the 2004 election, the Ashlee Simpson lip-synching fiasco had people asking if the show was even live anymore, and everything just seemed kinda slow and dull. The upside was that Tina Fey and Amy Poehler did a good job on Weekend Update.
  • Season 33, but only because the Writers Guild strike caused a lot of potentially good episodes to go unwritten.
  • Season 35 wasn't seen as too bad while airing, but in hindsight fans have faulted it for sketches that tended to be a bit on the bizarre and underdeveloped side, a reliance on Stunt Casting, the oddity of bringing in two new featured players (Nasim Pedrad and Jenny Slate) who looked almost exactly alike and were really hard to tell apart at first, too many recurring sketches, and obvious favoritism toward certain cast members (Fred Armisen and Kristen Wiig in particular).
  • Season 38 had the poorly-received Justin Bieber Valentine's Day Episode, and was too reliant on Bill Hader and Fred Armisen (who both departed at season's end).
  • Season 39 saw criticism for not having a more ethnically diverse cast, unbalanced sketch-writing quality, pretaped sketches being better and more popular than live ones (suggesting there wasn't much of a point to the show being live at all), the absence of Bill Hader and Fred Armisen, and too many new cast members who weren't "seasoned" performers ^note though Kyle Mooney, Beck Bennett, Noel Wells, and Sasheer Zamata were commended for their performances, John Milhiser slowly improved, Colin Jost had only started as a Weekend Update anchor, and while not that many people cared much for Mike O'Brien or Brooks Wheelan, Brooks started to be featured more in sketches and not just as a background character.
  • Seasons 44-47 have caught flak for what is perceived to be an overreliance on Kate McKinnon's talents, the feeling that several of longer tenured cast members have overstayed their welcome and take too much screen-time from the newcomers, as well as humor surrounding the Trump administration that lacks the satirical bite of programs such as Last Week Tonight with John Oliver and The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. Additionally, many skits (especially those focusing on the Democratic primaries in Season 45) rely on Stunt Casting from both former cast members and celebrity guest stars^note For example, in this sketch based off the December 2019 primary debate, only three of the eight candidates depicted (McKinnon as Elizabeth Warren, Colin Jost as Pete Buttigieg, and Bowen Yang as Andrew Yang) were portrayed by current cast members. beyond the week's host to vary degrees of effectiveness. Even Alec Baldwin admitted he became tired of appearing as Trump. The announcement that Jim Carrey would play Democratic presidential candidate and eventual winner Joe Biden in Season 46 got as many groans as cheers from fans who feel that a season with 20 cast members shouldn't need a ringer to play the part, especially when his appearances tended to quickly move away from an impression of Biden into contrived parodies of other celebrities (Jeff Goldblum, Bob Ross, etc.) and even Carrey's own character Ace Ventura. Notably, Carrey retired from the part just after Biden was elected, resulting in the show having little to no presidential sketches. Making matters worse is that the coronavirus protocols during filming has made for some messy execution due to the lack of rehearsal time previously allowed, and the difficulty in getting audiences have caused the viewers to seem noticeably colder to all the jokes.
• Shallow Parody:
  • The (very brief) portrayal of Cousin Greg from Succession in a sketch was criticized by fans given he didn't act or sound even remotely close to the actual character, not to mention it didn't reflect anything about the show it was parodying.
  • They also came under fire for this with the Wario sketch from the Season 46 episode hosted by Elon Musk, where the main joke was every Mario character acting like Italian stereotypes, including Peach, who has never been depicted as Italian, just to set up the punchline with Andrew Cuomo talking about anti-Italian discrimination. There's a scene where the lawyers use Wario's wiki page as a source of information, as opposed to referencing any specific appearances.
  • The skit mocking the The Try Guys controversy with Ned Fulmer has been lambasted for its errors, as well as downplaying the issue of sexual misconduct in the workplace. The remaining Try Guys, Keith, Zach, and Eugene, are portrayed as simply being mad at Ned because he had a consensual kiss and didn't tell them about it. The reason Ned was fired was because he not only cheated on his wife and had a long-term affair, but had it with one of their employees, which would put the company in legal trouble. The skit also portrays them as using the situation to get attention despite the Try Guys waiting for weeks before making an official statement, the situation starting to blow up before they confirmed Ned's actions.
• Signature Line:
  • Being on air for more than four decades has resulted in many iconic and beloved lines, but Christopher Walken's many cries for "more cowbell" arguably stands out above all else, particularly the one below.
  "The" Bruce Dickinson: Guess what?! I got a fever! And the only prescription... is more cowbell!
  • It was there in the first episode, and while it hasn’t been uttered in every episode, it has been said more often than not. It has been referenced and parodied, and even people who have never seen the show recognize it:
  Live from New York, it's Saturday Night!
• Signature Scene:
  • The one time Chevy Chase couldn't appear on the show and winds up calling on the phone, after which they replicate his Prat Fall by pushing the phone off the table.
  • For the 90s this would have to be the More Cowbell sketch, which is still being referenced in places like Fortnite nearly 20 years later!
  • Kate McKinnon's emotionally charged cover of "Hallelujah" for Season 42 after Hillary Clinton's 2016 loss (also a tribute to Leonard Cohen, who died that same week). It even got a big Call-Back in the season finale's cold open, and four years later got a Book Ends moment when Alec Baldwin performed "Macho Man" in the wake of Donald Trump's defeat in the 2020 election.
• Special Effects Failure:
  • SNL has always been known for flimsy sets, cheap costumes, and obvious Stock Footage (Lorne Michaels even said on an E! special about SNL's history that the show had this problem), especially in the 1970s and 1980s episodes. This doesn't happen so much in the episodes of the 1990s and 2000s, and the 2010s have been fairly good with the visual effects given the close deadlines, but it still does crop up occasionally. More recent seasons have occasionally added in bad Chroma Keying as well. Some sketches have used this and ended with the cheap set getting destroyed in some way.
  • On the Matthew Perry episode from October 4, 1997, the Celebrity Jeopardy sketch has Alex requesting a category about The Renaissance be changed to Shapes. A hand can clearly be seen flipping the category card.
  • Something of the reverse happens in season 43, when Leslie Jones has to rip up a pair of jeans at the end of the sketch, but apparently nobody thought to give the jeans a once-over and maybe cut out some stitches or something, leading to Leslie just pulling at it ineffectively before giving up. Either way it makes a heck of a Product Placement opportunity.
  • Season 46 features a spoof of The Muppet Show where it's abundantly clear that, unlike the actual Muppets, separate people are doing the puppeteering and voice work, and just can't quite sync properly.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: The near-constant changing of writers and cast members is one of the most common reasons why fans have a love/hate relationship with the show.
• Surprisingly Improved Sequel: The original "Love Letters" skit, in which a wartime woman writes to her enlisted husband, played the woman straight and had the soldier be the silly one she loses patience with. Many felt it should've been the other way around, especially feeling the wife was being unfair towards her husband, considering he's literally fighting in a war. Naturally, most later versions of the skit indeed reverse the roles.
• Suspiciously Similar Song: The peppy LGBT anthem "It's Pride Again" from the Anya Taylor-Joy/Lil Nas X episode sounds very similar to Madonna's "Holiday." This is likely intentional, given Madonna's LGBT Fanbase.
• Tough Act to Follow:
  • When Norm Macdonald was fired in the midst of a mild controversy, Colin Quinn's first episode as the Weekend Update anchor acknowledged this trope essentially saying "don't shoot the new guy."
  • The reviews for Season 43 (2017-18) were noticeably harsher than for the triumphant Season 42 (2016-17).
• Unintentionally Sympathetic: All of the "contestants" on Meet Your Second Wife!, who have their present lives completely ruined on the show that seems to exist only to do just that.
• Unintentional Period Piece: Inevitable for such a topical show. The sketches and musical guests will date an episode to the year and even the very week it aired. Sometimes, at least, much like South Park and MAD Magazine in its heyday, this show tries to avoid being behind the times.
  • The Celebrity Jeopardy! sketches maintain the look and feel of the show's "sushi bar" set used from 1996-2002, even after that set was retired. The real Alex Trebek shaved off his mustache in 2001, although Will Ferrell kept it for the sketches.
  • In the second Celebrity Jeopardy! sketch, Alex Trebek asks the three celebrities to write the current year for Final Jeopardy! Alex drops a hint that "It starts with a 19"; it would no longer be true three years after the episode aired.
• Values Dissonance:
  • One skit involved a group of teenagers (played by Andy Samberg, Shia LaBeouf, Bill Hader, and Will Forte) very unconvincingly trying to pass themselves off as adults to a store cashier (played by Kenan Thompson) so that they can purchase beer without the use of an ID. English viewers were baffled by the teens repeatedly to prove to the cashier that they're over 21, as the legal drinking age in the UK is 18.^note Although, teens at the age of 16 and 17 are allowed to drink as long as they're accompanied by an adult.
  • Christopher Walken's "The Continental" recurring character is based around the premise of a wealthy lothario trapping women in his deluxe hotel room and trying to force himself on them. This use of Rape as Comedy was already edgy for the time period but certainly wouldn't fly today. Dan Aykroyd's "Fred Garvin: Male Prostitute" skits would be similarly viewed, as the joke is that Fred won't take no for an answer.
  • Two of Alex Trebek's quips from Celebrity Jeopardy! when Will Ferrell was a cast member. He asked whether a celebrity was English/Icelandic (Minnie Driver/Björk respectively) or retarded. Sean Connery also says that Robin Williams might be "legally retarded."
  • The entire purpose of the character Pat (played by Julia Sweeney) was everyone else's inability to determine Pat's sex. In the '90s, the concept was absurdly hilarious and even praised by some who felt it balanced out the sex divide among the cast at the time. However, Pat would be horrifyingly offensive today with the increased presence of the transgender community and awareness of the troubles they face regarding their sex, especially with increased awareness of genders outside the male/female binary ^note though Sweeney herself has denied that Pat is transgender.. Julia Sweeney has conceded that Pat wouldn't have a place on the show today and is a product of a different time.
  • The infamous sketch where Will Ferrell portrays Robert Goulet crooning rap music, in the process dropping the N-word twice uncensored. Tellingly, NBC has tried to hide it in recent years.
  • As iconic and hilarious as John Belushi's Samurai character is, there's no way a white man playing a Japanese man would fly nowadays without accusations of cultural appropriation. Similarly, "The Arakawa Group", meant to be a Japanese takeoff on "The McLaughlin Group", featured four white men playing Japanese men and doing so in a manner that would have been considered incredibly offensive even at the time it was aired—such as introducing themselves with exaggerated bows and "Hai!"
• Values Resonance:
  • The "Buckwheat Dead" sketch was originally meant to satirize the way the American media handled John Lennon's murder and the assassination attempt on Ronald Reagan. Today it seems to be even more relevant than it was in the early '80s, as the problems/phenomena the sketch presented (inadvertently glorifying killers by extensively focusing on them and turning them into celebrities; desensitizing audiences to violence by showing it repeatedly; inappropriate product placement) are still with us, even more so. Additionally, it showcasing how everyone who knew killer John David Stutts was aware of his plans to murder Buckwheat but did nothing about it became far-sighted in wake of The Columbine High School massacre, which sparked debate about whether it could have been prevented if those who knew the assailants would have seen the warning signs and intervened. Multiple states have since enacted "red flag laws" to this effect.
  • The "Black Stereotype Sketch" where host Louis Gossett Jr. and Eddie Murphy start off with portraying a black father/son in a broken home before breaking character to complain that this stereotypical depiction of black people is absolutely nothing like their own life experiences as well as how the sketch was written by white writers based on their limited knowledge of the community. This aired in 1982, long before conversations about proper representation of minorities in media came to the forefront in The New '10s and The New '20s.
  • The first Matt Foley sketch features two parents who found drugs in their children's room. Instead of stigmatizing them or yelling at them, the parents calmly and maturely try and reach out to their kids. Nowadays, with the War on Drugs under greater scrutiny, this 90s skit seems to have a more up-to-date approach to the issue of kids using drugs.
• Win Back the Crowd: After a long period of being seen as stale and worn-out, the show massively regained its lost popularity during the 2016 Presidential elections and the subsequent Trump administration, likely due to the heated political climate during the former and the massive controversy surrounding the latter. This in turn ended up getting the show its highest ratings in over 20 years. However, this has started to cause a Broken Base between the show's viewers. Many people enjoyed the coverage of the extreme chaos of the Trump administration and found the skits hilarious, but there were also people who saw anti-Trump humor in general to be stale — or at least toothless compared to what shows like The Daily Show with Trevor Noah, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, etc. — and tuned out as a result.
• The Woobie:
  • Kate Mckinnon as Olya Povlatsky, a Russian woman from a small village that's basically a death sentence with an area code. It goes well beyond just a Hilariously Abusive Childhood, as she's shown to be a Death Seeker at times.
  "This is how I wake up every single morning, just watch." (mimes sleeping, then Catapult Nightmare and sobbing uncontrollably)
  • Kristen Wiig's mom character in the "Christmas Morning" sketch, who does everything for her family but only gets a discounted robe for Christmas. She gives a dejected look when she sees the dog got more gifts than she did. Commenters on YouTube apparently felt so bad for her that some rushed out to get their own moms more presents.
  • The second "Protective Mom" sketch claims that Luis suffered from depression as a kid, and that Claudia didn't offer much help besides ordering him to feel better. According to Casey, it didn't stop Luis from eventually relapsing into depression. Judging from YouTube comments on both the complete and shortened versions of the sketch, any non-privileged viewer could relate to him.

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