I need supports to have to clear the room. Stand up and walk now. Hello and welcome to The Watch. My name is Chris Ryan. I am an editor at TheRinger.com and joining me in the studio, it's Saturday night! It's Andy Greenwald. Oh, that was classy. Yeah, man. What's going on? Good to see you, Andy. Today, we're going to talk a little bit about SNL 50. It's Saturday Night Live's 50th anniversary this weekend.
And you and I are going to do what will probably be a not particularly competitive two-man draft of our favorite SNL performers. Not competitive because I'm going to dominate you like the Sixers. Sorry, the Sixers. The Eagles, D-line. You got, you pilled me. We were on Philly special this morning. I just talked about the Eagles. Your eyes are fucking dilated. Are you on Molly water right now? Cause you took, I'm.
Sixers in my head. I'm fired up. Oh, my God. Andy, you know what? People can watch us on the YouTube channel, Ringer-TV. Now they're going to watch us. They can watch us on the Spotify platform where they also listen to us at the watch feed. You can follow us. on instagram at the watch pod underscore and you can email us any of your thoughts and concerns the watch at spotify.com it's fantastic to see you
I hope so. I feel like I'm worrying you. Marathon here today. We've been on the Philly special again. We had to bring it back to SHIELD. And then we have a pod today. We're going to record our White Lotus thoughts. That'll be going up on Sunday night. Long weekend coming up. What are you feeling? How are you doing? I'm flying. I got to get back to work. I'm going back to London. I got to escape the rain in LA. Not flying because you've adjusted your own serotonin levels.
With chemicals. What's the blue stuff that you were telling me about? Methylene blue. That's what our health secretary is taking. Is that better than fluoride? I don't know. I don't think so. How are you feeling about the long weekend? Valentine's Day, romantic plans ahead for you? Solo. My wife is out of town. Are you raw-dogging Valentine's Day? You're just going to sit quietly at a restaurant, not eat?
I have to tell you how many, I cannot tell you how many times I've nearly texted a friend and been like, what up for Friday? Like not forgetting it's Valentine's Day and just be like, want to hang out? You should third wheel. I'm not going to do that. That would be fun. I'm not going to do that. You know, maybe I'll see Brave New World again. Just see if I missed anything the first time.
Andy, I have a couple of news items to discuss with you. They're all HBO related. Okay. I have a couple headlines for you too. I don't think you're ready for them. Okay. But you go first. No, I want you to go first. No, no. Yours are better. Are they? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Are yours TV related? No, it's all about methylene blue. Let's go, blue. Let's go. Oh, fuck us. I wanted to tell you a little bit.
about a little bit of a state of the HBO union that got delivered by Francesco Orsi, who's the head of... drama over at HBO. She talked to Deadline, I think some other folks, but Deadline specifically at the White Lotus premiere that was the other night. I know you went to that. I was there. I was not part of the gaggle though. I went to go see Cameron Winter's solo show.
at the Barnstall Theater. There are two wolves, huh? And one's cooler than the other? No big deal. Yeah. It's pretty moving. And here are a couple of things that she talked about. Okay. True Detective Season 5. Issa Lopez is coming back after Night Country. Has a location. Oh, did she announce it? Yeah. Jamaica, Queens. Wow, that was a roller coaster for me.
You said Jamaica, and I was like, is it get Millie Black again? Jamaica, Queens. I have long dreamed of a New York City true detective. Yeah, that's cool. I had no casting announcements. It sounds like True Detective Season 5 is going to shoot at some point this year and that it will be arriving in early 27, which is... We have to come up with a phrase for like, you know, survive till 25. Heaven in 27. I love it. Okay. I love it. Yeah, I'm very excited for that.
just because on the setting alone, even though I kind of tailed off of Night Country a little bit at the end. I thought it started really strong. Yeah. Well, there's something to be said also for letting people get some reps in. Now, I know that...
Get some reps in. It is an extremely expensive enterprise to make seasons of television in the prestige streaming era, but I am eager to see what she does with another crack at it. I've not checked Nick Pizzolatto's Instagram yet, so I don't know how he's feeling about it.
Oh, I can't wait for you to do that. And then tell me about it. A couple other updates from Orsi. She talked a little bit about Night of the Seven Kingdoms, which is the George R.R. Martin novella set about 90 years before Game of Thrones begins. And they are very high on it. The reason I wanted to bring this up, it's coming in the summer, is Orsi talked a little bit about how it's a more intimate, lower budget and requires less VFX.
They think that they're going to be able to get these seasons turned around more quickly. And they might even, if it gets renewed, which is always the HBO, like we'll see, you know, or it's like, I bet you guys have an idea. They might shoot two and three back to back. nice um so that these these seasons get out a little bit more consistently which i think is critical for like the television business to sustain itself is to get these shows out within some semblance of
of reasonable time. That's hugely important for a continued relationship on the audience level. But I think that what you're speaking to is also hugely important for the potential longer term financial viability of the entire industry, which is not everything.
can be, or needs to be, but even can be, a gigantic world-killing blockbuster. I mean, that was the trouble that Marvel got into where all the TV shows had budgets that essentially equaled their movies. Yes. That's not sustainable on any side of it. So to find a Game of Thrones that doesn't... costs the same amount as Game of Thrones, which House of the Dragon does, would be a huge win. And then the trickle down of that, it might just be a different vibe, which...
I would appreciate it. We might be craving. She talked a little bit about House of the Dragon. That's going to come in 26. What's your cute rhyming for 26? Hit the bricks. Hit the bricks in 26? Does that mean everybody gets fired? I don't want that. Yeah, that's not good. Well, I'll think about it. Anyway, they're basically like... It's all fixed in 26. Don't worry. We're opening with the Battle of the Gullet.
They keep saying that? Yeah, they're like, it's happening. What if they opened with Matt Smith talking to the tree a little bit more? Just being like, ooh, what else do you have? What wisdom is in the tree? Is that singing, dude? Can we reuse this set? Please. Please. Amortizing it. There's also another series that's in the works. She did not specify. She said it was in the Targaryen line. I bet that's Aegon's Conquest.
Just listen to you. Just if I had to guess. Is that what you were rapping about at the Barnsdall Art Center with Cameron Winter? I was like, hey, brother, that's a cool vintage t-shirt you have on. What do you think about Aegon's conquest? Does it have legs? What other gems are in the Targaryen line, my man? It's an interesting year for them because Task is coming out in the fall. That's the Brad Inglesby show.
Francesco Orsi talked about basically being like, I have season tickets for Brad Inglesby, and if he wants to keep making this, let's go. Same. Same. That's his Philadelphia crime show with Mark Ruffalo. It sounds like it and industry, not it, dairy. Welcome to dairy and industry will be the sort of last two big notes of the year.
Do you want to... I can... Kaya, can you mute me while Chris could deliver... Do you want to talk about another upcoming HBO show? Oh, yeah, sure. It's rumored that... I'm going to just dead... I'm going to ice cream you. Go ahead. Okay. John Lithgow is apparently going to play Dumbledore in the Harry Potter series. What else you got? What else you got? You said you had a bunch of headlines for me. Okay, yeah, so...
I can't believe you didn't jump all over this. This is a headline that I'm super excited about. Miles Teller wishes Fantastic Four first steps, quote, all the best. Honestly, dude, he just won a Super Bowl. I'm sure he's just like...
That's so cool, though. I just like the idea of being like, good luck with that. You know, that's probably somebody door stopping him and being like, you know, hey. No, he was... doing promo for the gorge this film and he was just like i don't wish anybody maybe i'll fire up the gorge tomorrow night that is a sexy valentine's day for my guy you're gonna unwrap a whole bag of hershey kisses and just dive into the gorge of yourself like
Just gorge while watching the gorge. Hashtag gorge. That's awesome. Anyway, I'm not dragging him. You rarely actually get quotes like this where an actor says, I don't wish anybody to be part of a bomb. Yeah, it took him a while to recover from that. That's rough. Yeah. Okay, one other thing. Speaking of the Targaryen timeline, were you excited to learn that Amazon Prime Video's The Rings of Power has been renewed for season three, but plans a major time jump?
Oh, I didn't know that. I didn't finish season two. They're jumping to the 1970s. So it's going to be like New York when it's kind of bankrupt down on its luck. There's just orcs just kind of wandering. Who's the president who said drop dead? Ford. Ford to city, drop dead. Ford to Sauron. Sauron to city, drop dead. What if it was the new season of Rings of Power, but it was the deuce? Yeah. It was like, would punk thrive in Mordor? Just listen.
We can dream. I just think it's funny. I do think it's funny that we've become so fixated on like, where does this fit in on the sacred timeline? You know what I mean? Like of just all these made up things. That's just funny to me. I mean, that's great. You know what time they should jump to? The time of the movies that everybody liked. I know, it's true. That's my advice. People like that. I was watching The Two Towers the other day was on HBO.
I was like, this is a good movie. Yeah, it's not complicated. Although I really, I still stand by the fact that if for the real heads, they need to make a cut without Frodo and Sam and Gollum. Because those guys do the same thing for nine hours. That's a drag, yeah. Yeah, they're just climbing up a mountain and getting betrayed by a goblin. What if they were like, Amazon Prime Video announces the new season is just the three towers. It's like, there was a third tower the whole time.
Would you like that? No, it does say that they're jumping to the height of the War of the Elves. Oh, okay. Which is incredible that their initial pitch was like, we're just going to slow walk the war of the elves. We're going to have the skirmish of the elves, the disagreement of the elves. Do you think that they're like, we need more battling here? Yeah, I mean, it's just this thing where you set down your...
your fence posts of the story you want to tell and you don't set it at the most interesting thing you know this is a recurring thing with the big IP stuff where it's like we're going to make a show about the time before the interesting stuff happened yeah right right well it worked for Rogue One give me them wars let's go
I want to watch some elves in combat. Yeah, I want to see some elves struggling with the cheap, but the rents are cheap, and so art is on the rise. Saving private elf. What if it was Rachel Kushner's The Flamethrowers, but with elves? Is that the only way that the flamethrowers can make it to the screen? Apparently. Yeah. Not mad at it. We're here to talk about Saturday Night Live. I did have one other one, but we don't need to do it. You can tell me. You're the one with the hard out.
I do. I have to go. It was just that I was excited to learn that Elon Musk's sister... is pouring her heart and finances into Passionflix, a steamy streaming platform built on the unifying power of love. You laugh. He may control all of our money soon. You're going to be working for Passionflix. I can't wait. I have some pitches.
I have a passion for flicks. Briarpatch season two, but more humping. Yeah. By the way, that was my mistake. I'm sitting here being like, you should tell the most interesting part of the story. Yeah, I was like, season two is just an orgy. Why didn't I lead with that? I was so naive. So naive. SNL, man. Okay. I was thinking about this the other day because I was listening to Bill and Bellamy on Bill's Pod. Great segment.
And they were talking about all the inside baseball stuff. There's also a really good Reeves Weidman piece in New York Magazine about life after Lorne or whether there will ever be a life after Lorne for the show. It's a really cool... portrait of this guy in his 80s who's still in control of the show but not doing as much as he obviously used to just because of his age um and like who are the perspective kind of
heir apparent and would there be one so Tina Fey and Seth Meyers have been kicked around and I was wondering whether or not you go in for the palace intrigue part of SNL and all of the the kind of behind the scenes myth making that happens as much as you do or more than you do for the show because I think sometimes in certain eras it's like SNL can ebb and flow but the SNL gossip industry is always at a constant
Yes. I mean, I'm always fascinated by that. I'm just fascinated by the real workplace economics of making something funny. But the longevity of it is the extra piece, right? That these same offices... have been witness to half a century. of creative and financial skirmishes, all controlled by the tastes and whims of the same guy. It's absolutely insane. It's totally unprecedented. And I thought one of the more interesting things about that article, the Reeves Weidman article, wasn't just that...
you know, the specifics of whether Loren hangs out as much or he's as involved creatively, but more about how he has so completely centralized and coalesced his power so that he is essentially a... like a third arm of comcast nbc universal and if and when he
goes, there is no plan for how to account for any of it. Right. That he is above the budget of anything. That he hand-selects the executive that covers late-night because he is in charge of all of NBC's late-night programming. Yeah, he just felonated Seth Meyers. I didn't...
know this, although I guess anyone paying attention just in terms of like the sets and the guest stars and everything over the last few years, but that every episode of SNL costs $4 million, that it is the most expensive show that they make. basically yeah and also that there are all these like hilarious reasons why that is like they have very small elevators and they shoot it in a skyscraper rather than like at a sound stage in long island moves out to queens that's essentially part of it um
It is outrageous and and unprecedented. And, you know, 10 years ago, we probably on this podcast idly talked about because they did the SNL 40. I mentioned it the other day. And the reason for having that big party. was lauren michaels saying well i'm still here and i'm still doing the job and also all of our original cast or many of our original cast members of course
are healthy enough to participate. And who knows if that'll be the case 10 years from now. And at the time we did the same kind of, you know, back and forth banter that everyone did, which is, is Seth Meyers being groomed to take over this job or would Tina Fey ever want it? 10 years later. It's the same candidates, none of whom really, they all make sense, but who would really want this? It's an impossible chalice and an impossible responsibility. And yet...
SNL seems more essential to NBC's brand than maybe at any other point in its history. So it is a succession drama waiting to happen, even as the comedy continues to deliver for them.
For me, as an institution and as an idea, it's not that it's cool, it's cutting-edge comedy. Because obviously you can go all over the place to find comedy that is probably a little bit less... restricted or it doesn't have to work in like the sort of formats that they have but the sheer idea that they do this is really cool to me and it is still very romantic to me that
It's a quintessentially New York thing that takes advantage of the nocturnal kind of energy that New York has, where these writers, perhaps with less cocaine now, are still staying there. until 1, 2 in the morning all week. They shoot this show, although I do a dress, then they do the live show on Saturday night. Then they go out until five in the six in the morning at the after party. And then they start and do it all over again next week. And even though it's essentially now being, I think.
processed or consumed in a different way because largely it's like For lots of people, I think they wake up on Sunday and they just sort of watch the clips. So it's not really the experience of like, oh, I can't believe I'm like participating in this live event. It still seems to be one of the few.
monocultural kind of experiences that we can have on television, even in its diminished state, even in its fractured kind of, hey, here's a bunch of clips of this rather than like a one and a half hour experience. I just still have nothing but admiration for what it takes to make it. I've gotten to go once. Did you really? Yeah, I went in 2007 for the Jake Gyllenhaal episode. Wow.
it was awesome. And, you know, I was talking to Craig Horlbrecht, went to the Timothee Chalamet episode a couple weeks ago. He was on screen. I saw him. He was on screen. And he too was like, I can't believe it. Like, you just don't know. how much work is happening right off camera to get the next sketch ready.
And how small that room is. It's tiny. It's so small. I've been in the studio, but I've never been to a table. And just the whole thing with like when they're bringing you up, like you're basically standing in a hallway and you're seeing the cast members running around, getting ready. It really is like... eighth grade play levels of high school theater production applied to having movie stars and music stars and also these iconic TV comedy actors.
showing up every week for work and that the the immediacy and the unpredictability of it has just continued not just made it stay relevant. It has tripled its relevance. You know, like just the other week when Martin Short hosted again and he joined the Five Timers Club and like, I will never miss a Five Timers Club sketch because it's still a thrilling... Do you ever watch it live, quote unquote? I mean like...
I don't stay up that late. I didn't even stay up that late for the Eagles celebration. SNL's not going to do it, but I used to. And I remember that was like you built in high school, you'd build a weekend around that. Like the fact that all these people will show up and do the knowing winks and the in jokes and anybody could be there is so electric. It's so exciting. And it's still so fun. And it's.
remarkable. As we have done this podcast and talked about the decline of everything we used to think of as TV, whereas the only things that have lasting value and increasing enormous incomprehensible value is live sports. SNL is the live sports of comedy. Yeah, I can't remember what the actual data point is, but it's basically the most popular non-football.
television it's the highest rated show on NBC yeah week to week which is crazy considering when it airs and that was never the goal yeah or even something they could have even considered so It's fun, and it's fun that it gets to remain an institution in our lives as much as we want it to be. Dip in and dip out. Bill has been talking...
For a while, I think that there's been a rumor about this, and Bill talked about it with Bellany on his podcast the other day, about the idea that when Lorne retires... or if there was any sort of weakening of S&L that Netflix would launch their own.
like basically Friday Night Live because Sarandos is such a huge comedy fan. That's interesting. And is basically obsessed with Lorne anyway and has obviously made all these inroads. He goes to a lot of tapings a year. He's going to the 50th. Netflix is a joke festival already. like he's given Mulaney this show you know like that he's they're upping their live thing anyway but part of it for me at least you know
I don't know what it is because I've only been to it once and like I don't really actually even consume that much media about it compared to like Sean or Bill. There's something about... the studio. There's something about 30 Rock. There's something about that specific vibe that the bandstand has. That is why I keep going back to it at all.
I don't know if it's replicable or you'd have to really re-imagine it. I hope if anybody makes a run at it, it's actually something different rather than it's Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. Which didn't work for any number of reasons. physical space is one of them. And Lauren has always understood that. Before we get into talking cast, what is your, do you carry a immaculate cast in your head? What is your era? I think that there's a degree to which it's probably dictated by...
If you're not a lifelong super fan obsessive, then it's probably your late middle school through high school generation. Because I think that's when your first... at least in my house, like allowed to stay up later, you know? And then Saturdays are like this, like, it's not like you have like super, a lot of plans on a Saturday night at 14 or 13, but you can stay up and watch SNL for a while, or at least I was. So that.
Phil Hartman, 88 to 94 run is my golden era. So Dennis Miller into Norm MacDonald, Mike Myers, Adam Sandler, Dana Carvey. Yeah. That's the formative one for me too. Although I kind of think in preference, the 10 years later cast with. Tina and Amy and Will Ferrell and Kristen Wiig and Forte. Also amazing. I think that that and Maya, I think we could debate it. Maybe we will debate that too at some point. That just might be the most loaded cast in terms of talent.
um and also chemistry and then because a lot because our era was a lot about like individual greatness like people creating characters trying to get their movie franchises trying to sort of break apart and you could pull out you know even chris rock was briefly there in that era of like people who had individual personalities but that early 2000s cast you know even just last night tina amy and seth were all on fallon like there is a
personal camaraderie and closeness, but also a complimentary. So it's a question of like, do you like a heliocentric style play? I think there's something to be said to Chris Princeton passes there, you know, that group of people.
Because, you know, for as many people who left SNL and then became movie stars like Mike Myers or whatever, you know, and Hartman, obviously, his life ended tragically, but was like... on news radio you know it wasn't like people necessarily always left I think what what the polar Faye Myers generation had was um
tubes to go into that would like send them out into the world that made a lot of sense like yes you know Amy Poehler went and did Parks and Rec and Seth Meyers did Weekend Update for a very long time and then became a late night host and like
This was also the tentacles and the consolidation of power. But this is the consolidation of power and the understanding of the levers of power that only someone like Lorne Michaels can accrue over time. Because what he did at the beginning was, you know, he... He held on to people as tightly as he could, and you...
you really could only make a movie in the summer if it lined up for you. You could not take time off from the show. That has changed radically in the last few years where he's let people like Kenan and Aidy Bryant. Bo and Yang. Bo and Yang went to do Wicked, but Aidy and Kenan made separate shows that took them away.
I mean, Heidi Gardner is on shrinking. I mean, like people are like doing TV shows now. So that was more of a loosening of the reins. But what he did 20 years ago was he was just like, I will build you, as you said, the escape pods to go into, which led to him pollinating all of late. night taking over the tonight show and then the late night show with fallon and myers um producing credit through broadway video on 30 rock and basically just
continuing to stay involved in people's post-SNL life, having both a financial stake and you could say maybe a fatherly or creative stake as well. That's certainly changed. And there's been interesting conversations recently about how it's just not a star-making vehicle anymore, but it is a brand.
burnishing thing or reputation making thing what was the last person who was just like fully minted by that Pete Davidson yeah probably but also Pete Davidson like stuck around for a really long time because like and would And for what? Like, you know, I think he probably just really enjoyed it. Yeah, I mean, you could say it still makes stars, but maybe the conversation is more about like, what are stars anymore anyway? Because Mulaney is an SNL star, but he made what like...
a handful of appearances at the Weekend Update desk in front of the camera until he started coming back as a host. Like, he's so thoroughly defined by and suffused with the DNA of that show and wrote some of the greatest sketches ever, but he wasn't like... He didn't get a holding deal at Paramount for a movie because of his one appearance that one week. When it comes to a 50th celebration thing like this, I remember 40 was like...
cool, but like very long and mostly about like, you know, let's bring this person back to do this, this character. Are you excited for 50? I am excited for 50. It is going to be odd watching it on like a pirate. VPN peacock feed or something. I don't know what the deal is in the UK. It's like 4pm. 4pm the next day. But yeah, I'm really, I am excited because I am a sucker for this stuff. I like it when...
like the crowd work, like in the 40th when Seinfeld came up to do a bit and then he's talking to Larry David who's in the crowd and he's talking like, I like when these things crash into each other because they share this DNA. It is a, one of the few throwbacks to. Hollywood or show business that we even have anymore. The crowd thing is interesting because I, as Bill and Bellany discussed, this is the hottest ticket.
like in recent showbiz memory there's like a hundred chairs in that room right maybe i think it's like 300 people can go to it and like you're talking about a guest list of potentially thousands between uh former cast members, people who've worked on the show, musical guests that might be luminaries that you'd want to bring back. Lauren's pals. Friends of Lauren Michaels.
NBC executives, Comcast executives, and guest hosts who would be brought back in. So that's a pretty interesting... Is Craig going? No. I don't think Craig made the cut. But I do think it's pretty fascinating what kind of room it'll be. It'll be a warm room? Well, it's not, but it's not like...
fans, right? Like it's not like people who come go to see Saturday Live or have been waiting outside of 30 Rock for five hours to get in. It's like people who are like part of the show. So I could see it being like a very boisterous crowd, but I also could see it being a little bit different than every other Saturday Night Live. Well, one thing that you hear about alums of the show is that it is always high school forever.
And that, you know, there is that alum feeling when you go back and suddenly all the old resentments or petty stuff just washes over you. Do you think Marc Maron got invited? I can't wait to hear his thoughts on it. But I think that, you know. Marin famously has his story about being rebuffed, but I feel like even the people who made it still carry some of that sense of being rebuffed. So, yeah, that'll be an interesting element as well. We were going to draft our favorite performers.
Can I, yeah, so the assignment here is that we are each going to draft a seven-person cast. We are also going to each draft a update anchor. and a digital shorts maker, even before they were called digital shorts, but a filmmaker who makes stuff for SNL. Interstitial shorts.
Here are the lanes to success as an SNL cast member, I think. Tell me how you feel about this and give me an example if you have one because I forgot to write them next to the things that I thought of. Okay. There are jesters.
who are just people who are reliable, they will make you laugh. And I feel like Bill Murray. Chris Farley. Bill Murray. No, I have a different category for Farley. You can have more than, you can fit into more than one category. But someone like, just make you laugh all the time. That's like a Murray, a Farrell type.
Glue Guy. Can play anything. Can do anything. Always be solid. Always be good. That's the classic Phil Hartman. That's what Kenan has morphed into, I think. Kind of need an impressionist. Back from the... like Rich Hall days all the way up to Dana Carvey and Bill Hader. Yeah. Melissa Villasenor, I believe, did some impressions on the show. Wild Card. A...
completely unique and idiosyncratic sense of humor that doesn't really fit into the overall chemical dynamics of the show, but in fact makes their own compound every time they show up. I would categorize a Will Forte as this. I'm sure there are a hundred other better examples, but he was just front of mind. I would almost say weird, almost out there comedy.
an avant-garde comedian type. So you got jester impressionist. Kyle Mooney would be one as well, I think, in that wildcard category. Jester impressionist, glue guy, wildcard. There's a long tradition of the classy lady. Whether by performance or just general vibe, that started with Jane Curtin. Jan Hooks was one of our favorites growing up. The Music Man.
Someone who probably would rather be playing with a band. Armisen, Ackroyd, people like that. Fallon, even to a degree. The big kid. That's where I would also put... Farley. Belushi, like people who are just going to be absolutely, Sandler to a degree too, like be absolutely silly at times. And then it's always helpful to have an old head.
in the cast. Someone who might be a little bit older, a little bit removed. That's the Daryl Hammond, who is also an Impressionist. That's, again, what Kenan has become. Those are my archetypes. Old head... I don't even know how many other examples beyond. Well, it generally like people who weirdly like Chevy Chase was a little bit older than some of the people in the cast originally, I believe. And he sort of stood apart or placed himself apart.
the infamously like the Dick Ebersole seasons um when he just when he replaced Lauren briefly and then even when Lauren came back that first year I think they brought in some bigger names that's when Martin Short joined the cast okay I think Michael McKean joined the cast later in his career i think that um who is there was some guys from kids in the hall who briefly came down dave not dave foley but bruce mcdonald
I don't know if it was Bruce McDonald or Scott McKinney. Scott, not Mark McKinney. Mark McKinney did. It was Mark McKinney joined the cast. So like. getting someone who is a little bit established in a comedic lane and having them folding them in. Okay. But I can take pushback. I don't know if there's a tried and true test of this, and I'm definitely not drafting to fit.
this perfectly yeah okay so we're not drafting into these categories no seven favorites and we can mention like what they might be able to slide into yeah exactly okay and it'll be really interesting what happens when you grab my four favorites and I only have like 12 here? Well... Because you're... Here's the last thing we should say. You are a... You are the Mel Kuyper of this stuff. You are the draft king. No, I'm not. I often...
embarrass myself in these situations where I get distracted by like a conversation I'm having and then fuck up. I just did this yesterday on a big picture draft. Were you drafting favorite scenes in Captain America Brave New World? Yeah. Cool. Cool. Okay. I'm going to give you the first pick. You get the first pick. Yeah, you should. No, I'm giving you the first pick. Okay.
Make your dreams come true here, man. There's really no bad picks in this. We're not going to be here long enough to have bad picks. Okay. I am going to go chalk, as they say, and pick the person who I wrote about in Grantland's...
best SNL cast member of all time bracket. Number one on the big board is Will Ferrell, who is probably like the purest batting average of just... laughs per sketch can do anything can play the straight guy and even make the straight guy funny and generally when I think about the things that have made me the laugh hardest in the last 25 years he's been at the heart of it yeah okay that's a good pick thanks I definitely would have
would have been tempted to take him if I was number one. But at number two, or my number one pick, is the person that I wanted coming in, which is Eddie Murphy. And you could pick Eddie Murphy for his iconic characters, but what he also has is that... catching a star on the way up feeling. That I think is really, really awesome when you're like, I have to watch SNL because it's going to be crazy to tell my kids or my teenage ward.
that I was watching Eddie Murphy on Saturday Night Live, you know, when he was just a kid coming up. So, I mean... It is unique. I wasn't watching SNL when Eddie was on it. I was not either. But you can watch all of the... archives on Peacock and it is pretty awesome to go back and watch the Eddie season and I have watched like I remember renting
and renting and re-renting from West Coast video. The video. The video of like the best of Eddie Murphy. Yeah. What's interesting, and again, I'm not saying there's one right way to do this. He's undeniably, and I feel like Lauren would say too, probably the single most talented person ever to be on the show, even though it wasn't during Lauren's tenure.
But, you know, I'm drafting a cast here. I'm not drafting a showcase for a single star. But that's interesting. It almost felt like at a certain point, Eddie Murphy's batting average was too high. Yes. Like he had... All of his characters. All of his characters got the, like, applause when they would enter a stage. But, like, that is also the dream, I think. You know, he just had the world in the palm of his hand in Studio Age. But you never see him...
I'm not, I'm not, we're not going pick for pick here, but like, like Farrell being Alex Trebek, just, just lobbing pitches over the middle of the plate from Norm Macdonald or whoever else was the guest that week. I appreciate a groundling for that. Well, you've got your second pick right now. I got my second pick. Wow. Okay. I have to go for the probably... God, I feel like I'm not... Maybe it'll get more interesting later, but you've given me the full board and I can't let Bill Murray...
be up there for a moment longer. Bill Murray was not an original cast member. He was the replacement in the second year for Chevy Chase. Can you imagine just like Bill Murray, like one of the most singular performers of the last 50 years, just like coming in off the street from Chicago and joining this rocket ship? Yeah. And being as... idiosyncratic and memorable and charismatic as he's always been. I'm into it. Bill Murray's a great pick.
I'm going to go maybe off of what people would expect as a big board and try and build like a good cast here. Okay. And that's why I'm taking Phil Hartman. God damn. All time favorite Saturday Night Live performer. And. In my memory, I have not gone back and crushed tape. That era that we're talking about, where he was integral to everything that they were doing, that era also...
It felt like it had good acting, like, or rather discipline about the sketches where I don't personally remember them reading off of cue cards as visibly. or breaking... Although it's always been cue cards. Yeah, I know that's always been cue cards. I don't think that they're like, you know, off book or something. But like, it felt when I was a kid, like these sketches were being performed as pieces of theater rather than like...
can you believe we're doing this? And like, we're all cracking up at Kate McKinnon. Yep. And that mattered to me for some reason, like in... It was a pure form of... I think that like... I always really appreciated that Horatio Sands and Jimmy Fallon and all these people were doubling over with laughter in scenes. It's not that I think it's illegal to break, but it seemed like that was more almost like...
Isn't it fun to hang out with these people who all clearly are having such a good time rather than these sketches are expertly performed? That also may have been the moment when the generational shift happened where the people on the show...
were completely indoctrinated and grew up as fans of the show. And so that feeling that we're talking about that we like of hanging out here started to permeate Studio 8H as well. Like, I can't believe we're here. We're all laughing that we're here. I totally agree with you.
kicking myself. Phil Hartman could have gone at any point in this draft. When I did that thing for Grantland, I wrote the finals was Hartman versus Farrell, which I think is the rare case of the internet voting everything exactly correctly. Oh, wow. Phil Hartman is... so underrated because of his untimely passing and second in my mind really second only to feral in terms of like
can do absolutely everything and anything. And would be the best thing in a sketch from the third or fourth on the call sheet to the person it was built around, like Unfrozen Caveman lawyer. Always the best in every sketch he was in, no matter what the sketch was. And yeah, good job. Good job by you. I am going to go wig because similarly, like I just think that the unique ability to make everything funnier always. And.
deeply, deeply weird in what she finds funny and what she is willing to do. Just an all-timer and kind of a sneaky all-timer. Because at least when she started appearing on the show as a featured player, like that was still when I was paying enough attention to be tracking people's migrations or lack of migrations from featured player to regular cast. Okay. I got to say, you know, I've been going to the Combine a long time.
You've been in Groundlings? I didn't see it. I didn't see it, what they saw. And I was wrong about her early. And I'm happy to have her join the squad. Similar era. One of the most delightful performances in the history of the show is Maya Rudolph. I'm going to go with her. Maya, great. Also, in your categories, you could probably say Music Man. um obviously has like uh is able to like integrate music into her performances incredible impressionist incredible uh
classy lady if she needs to be, but is just an absolute delight. And from that era, you could put her in almost anything. I'm getting nervous because I want to make sure that I do at least make an effort to fill my quotas. So I do think I need an impressionist. And I think his value to the show is weirdly underrated. I'm going to go hater. Yeah, no, it's not underrated. I think the rumor is he is not going to 50.
because I don't know why, but like I was, I was, it was at least it's online. It's like haters not going to 50. He, I mean, it's fascinating to talk to him about anything or to hear him talk, but like, I don't know. I'm not enough of a 30 rockologist to know if this is actually true or not, but like, did he, is he the highest output in terms of like enjoying it the least?
Because he talks quite openly about having panic attacks and the anxiety of it. And like what Lauren's voice did to him or does to him. And yet he's so, so... He's so funny in everything that he does. Yeah, and even he had said, like, Lorne Michaels went up to him and was just like, you can work here for as long as you like. You can relax. And he couldn't do it. Yeah. Man, okay. It's almost weird. It's like, it's easier to pick the...
the blue skies rather than like now I'm trying to like make sure I'm like these people can't fall these people can't fall it's also interesting that we haven't picked anyone from your preferred era I don't think other than maybe Hartman The star-studded early 90s. I'm going to correct that and pick Mike Myers. Okay. Now here we go.
Maybe in a world unto himself, like a real writer, a real performer. And his future work kind of proved that out where it's like he's only really capable of doing... a Mike Myers like fully formed realized character not like I'm just in even in Inglourious Bastards he's like he's playing a 1950s British movie version of that character. But man, Wayne's World, you know, Dieter. The characters, it's weird. Like the way that we...
I don't know if modern... I should try to see if my daughters respond to any of those sketches just because they're kind of getting into SNL. Because... What we understood to be the parameters of comedy, he was the Picasso of it. Yeah. And like the feeling of going to like parties in middle school or high school, parties or sleepovers to expressly to watch SNL. Yeah. And be like.
they're doing it again. Lothar is the funniest thing I've ever seen in my life. And thank God they're doing it. We're going to talk about sprockets all week. Yeah. And then there is a kind of, but then he started to do that in movies and Wayne's World was so wildly.
Sorry, Austin Powers was so wildly funny. But then I do think there was kind of a kind of a pushback against that kind of just like programmed intense character study bits. I mean, the success or lack thereof of the love guru sort of. reinforces that but it's kind of I guess the question is how well does this stuff age but at the time it was as good as it gets your turn you can't do this and leave Belushi out there too long I was waiting you gotta get Belushi I mean again
cut tragically short, but absolute like Oppenheimer level nuclear reactor of performance. Do you ever go back and watch first season? Yeah. I mean, as much as I go back and watch anything, but recently I have been, because again, we're doing a little bit of a history lesson at home. No, that sounds really dull, but they like it with SNL. So trying to...
check back with some of that. I rewatched the 40th and there's a lot of Belushi in it. And even that first, the first sketch they ever did, the first cold open where it's like the translator, it's Belushi and I forget who the other guy is.
person teaching Belushi to speak English has a heart attack, and then Belushi has the heart attack? Yes. It's Michael O'Donoghue. It's Michael O'Donoghue, right, who's remembered as an insane person and a writer, but not really remembered as being in the cast. Did you see Saturday Night? No, I haven't watched it yet.
It's streaming now, I saw. Check it out. It might be a good plane movie for you. I'm being serious. O'Donoghue's also in the, is it the Lampoon movie? Yeah. Someone plays him? I watched that. Anyway, Belushi, always funny. Always kind of dangerous. And you can't... take your eye off him and that you need that energy in a cast so i've picked one two three four i have four right you've got four i got my eye on two more i'm curious if you're gonna steal
I'm going to take Amy Poehler. Good pick. Good pick. Respect it. Love her. And not just because she's making a podcast for The Ringer. No. That Kaya's working on. But I thought she seemed to be actually like... the best like she brought both the qualities of I'm having the best time ever doing this but I'm also made built for this yep you know so like you enjoyed watching her enjoy doing her thing she's also a great
We can update. Yes. So I could put her in there. I'm not going to. Okay. But I am going to take Amy Poehler. I love Amy Poehler. She makes everything she does. Anything that she does is made better by her being in it. I'm also grateful that you did that because. My board is still pretty clear. Okay. I am going to go... I did Belushi last. I'm going to go a little more recent. I am going to take Kate McKinnon. Yeah. Who I think is another one of those just...
You got Wig and McKinnon just weird now. Just goofing. Just goofing. But with such a high batting average for the weirdness. I don't know. In terms of rewatches, I'm not sure if anything has made me laugh harder than rewatching the alien abduction sketches that she does with Ryan Gosling. Yeah. Or make Ryan Gosling laugh harder. That's the thing. I mean, like, we can go back and forth on the value of breaking, but sometimes...
it is effective, especially when it's just bowing in front of a comedy god who is undeniable. Like, I get it. I didn't, when Fallon did it, no matter what anyone said, wasn't always on board. I get it when it's McKinnon. I'm going to go Farley. See, you need the wild card. You need the wild card. He also like... You need the big kid. He... In terms of like absolutely dying, like crying with laughter, rolling around on the floor, like...
He brought it between Chippendales and Van Down by the River. I think that was the hardest I ever laughed at. Still. SNL, probably. I still sometimes reference the way he would hitch up his pants. Yeah. Because my kids, the thing that my kids hate more than anything else is when an adult kneels down to talk to them on their level. That is their number one pet peeve. Just heads up to all aunts and uncles out there. Don't do that. Okay.
So whenever I do it to annoy them, I tend to do it like Matt. What's the guy's name? Matt, what's his name? Anyway, you can Google it and everyone knows what we're talking about. Matt Foley. I'm done. I've got one pick left. I'm loving... Frankly, I'm loving my squad. You can't have a bad draft here. No, this is kind of exciting. I am going to keep it weird and keep it 21st century. And I'm going to take Tracy Morgan.
That's a great pick. Tracy Morgan, because any era of Tracy Morgan is just pure comedy. I like, frankly, I like the longevity play here. I like to get all parts of him. I'm sort of thinking of him. post-SNL as well, like a 30-rock Tracy Morgan. I'm thinking of, you know, we're not drafting a writing staff, but like in the hands of the right people, like Tina Fey, there's no one funnier. I'm going to take Chevy Chase.
Wow. So you're not worried about clubhouse culture. I think that... You think the institution is strong enough... You're like when Andy Reid signed Michael Vick. I'm not interested in what, like, I know that you are an emo vibes guy. I'm a clubhouse guy. I want the results. I don't care about the process. Wow. Wow. I didn't know we were drafting for internal harmony. Well, because this is...
they have to make a show together. Oh, maybe I only get one season of Chevy. That's all anybody got. Yeah. And you're getting peak Chevy. Yeah. You're not getting contemporary Chevy? Not contemporary Chevy. All right, so let's run it down. Oh, no, we have to do our other parts. So you did Chevy. Now it's time for Anchor. I am going to surprise no one, probably, and I'm taking Tina Fey.
who I think can also do, much like another anchor, like Seth Meyers, did Double Duty as head writer. So her sensibilities are there. I've got her on the squad. And I still, I've loved Dirty Rock. I love pretty much everything she does. I'm excited for the four seasons. maybe is never funnier than when she's just doing her super cutting stuff from behind an update desk. I'm going to do Norm MacDonald. That was the other choice. I'm very tempted to take Dennis Miller.
Dennis Miller was so foundational to us, I think, in terms of like, oh my God, this guy's got long hair and he's so sarcastic. And he just makes all these references. And I was like, what's that? He's smart. He was like when we used to use a lot of footnotes at Grandland. But Norm Macdonald was like flying without a net. Norm is the best choice here. I completely... Okay, so now you need to pick a... Digital shorts team. Yeah.
Well, see, like going first in this, I feel like there's a super, there's chalk and then there's whatever this is. But there are a lot of more interesting choices after the top of the draft. I feel like I'm locked into Caleb Williams here just for the upside. Sure. And the body of work. But who's Jaden Daniels?
I think I know who Jaden Daniels is. Is it Albert Brooks? But yes, kind of, yes. I got to take Lonely Island. Okay. Just because, God damn it, those were good. And still good. The one that... The one that they did this season with Charli XCX is god tier. Yeah. Unbelievable. So that would be... I think that I would probably... I mean, I guess I'm forced to sort of pick...
Do you want me to give you the field? Should we list the field? So who I was considering for this? Contemporary would be... I like that this will destroy you guys. Please don't destroy. Please don't destroy you guys. Those are the current kids. You could go back to Ben Stiller. You could go back to Albert Brooks. You could do a wildcard pick, Robert Smigel, ambiguously gay duo. Those are digital shorts, technically.
I haven't picked anybody from the recent cast. The current cast. So I'm going to do a Please Don't Destroy. You're picking the kids. Yeah. You're voting on Upside, right? Yeah. They're very young. Yeah. They could be with us forever. They seem like they're good locker room guys. Do you think... Can you imagine what Chevy Chase and Eddie Murphy would do to these kids? Let's recap our...
Our picks. I came out of this great. I'm thrilled. So like I just picked, I did Please Don't Destroy as my digital short creators and I have Norm Macdonald as my update anchor and my cast is Maya Rudolph, Phil Hartman, Mike Myers, Chris Farley, Eddie Murphy, Chevy Chase. That's pretty good. And Amy Poehler. That's pretty good. My cast is Will Ferrell, Bill Murray, Kristen Wiig, Bill Hader, John Belushi, Kate McKinnon, Tracy Morgan, Tina Fey at the desk, Lonely Island on the...
Dex. Tape Dex. Thanks so much for doing this. That was really fun. Now I'm excited. I wish this was real. Would you pick a host for your episode, your premiere episode? I'll do Hanks. Hanks? Yeah. So... What is the consensus? The big board would be Hanks, Steve Martin, Alec Baldwin hosts a lot. I think Chalamet is really good at hosting. That would be a wild card pick. But I would take Hanks. Would you take Baldwin? No.
Paul Rudd's really good. Do you know who I'd pick? I'd pick Mulaney. I'd bring Mulaney back into the building. I love him. I think when he hosts an event, you get the younger people, aka my children, watching. He has his trademark sketches and stuff.
you have Hader in the cast, you can do a Stefan. I think it's going to work for me. Also, we have so much big, I have a lot of big stars who are essentially hosts, you know? Right. And have hosted. Yeah. You need kind of, you need, see again, I'm just thinking chemistry.
I didn't really think about the chemistry as much, but this goes into knowing what people were like while they were on the show. I know you're a vibes guy, though. I'm a ball knower. Okay. That was really fun. We were going to talk about Paradise, but we... are running up against the clock here. Yeah, do you want to punt? I think, would you just like to punt it into the sun? Like, what do you want to do? Well, I mean, I had a lot of fun watching the first few episodes of Paradise on Hulu.
and joking about it and talking about it with you on the pod because it felt uniquely batshit and auteur-ish. It was Landman-esque for me in the sense that Dan Fogelman, who created it, clearly is not getting notes or not listening to them and doing whatever he wants, including, like, layering every episode with an incredibly melodramatic cover of an 80s cheeseball metal ballad. Uh-huh.
And I was kind of here for a show that's like every episode was just like, nope, they're actually in a silo. Guess what? He's dead. The problem is, it's... written to the melody of This Is Us circa 2013. So it is absolutely turgid. Like it is so, so, so slow. and so serious about the weight of its revelations. Until it is a car without brakes going downhill. Yes. Just the conceit of, like, we're going to do flashbacks for everything. Yeah. Including, like, the charming...
Secret Service agent played by, again, great guy, great actor, Johnny Beavers. And we learn in the third episode that he is a murder machine capable of punching anyone to death. That's why he's been brought down into the cavern is because he's a killer. Was he told that? in terms of his performance for the first two episodes because that wasn't a vibe where he's just like, I just turned off the cameras to play Wii Sports. The...
They let them have a Wii down there, huh? I just, that sounds pretty good to me, honestly. No wonder everyone's fine. What console would you take down? Switch. Switch. All the fun of the Wii, but like a little bit. All the fun of a Wii. Like, Wii's are, like, okay. Wii's are fun. Wii's are incredible. What would you bring down? You'd bring your Xbox 5 so you could just grind Call of Duty. We don't know what's waiting for us above the surface. I gotta start fracking.
No, man. I can't let my Nottingham Forest boys go for that long. I must play FIFA, even in the post-apocalypse. Is your version of the post-apocalyptic silo essentially the same as your Valentine's plans? I think my first reaction, if there was some sort of A, an apocalypse, and B, I was brought down into a...
colorado mountain cavern i would immediately appoint myself real madrid manager like in real life i'd be like we don't know if madrid is still there but would you be sending off is there any other person who's willing to take that role who would you be offering to buy Just like, I'll take Mbappe off your hands or whatever. We don't know what happens to Mbappe in this world. I think he's fine unless Special Agent Billy gets him in his rifle sights up above the surface.
Yeah, the show, I wanted it to be good-bad, and increasingly it's bad-bad. The scene that kind of lost me was there's the entire episode that's devoted to the sexy therapy flirtation between Sterling... Brown's Xavier and Sarah Shahi's Dr. Tarabi, I believe her name is, who is the president's...
Apparently the only psychologist. Which also sounds like a Troy McClure movie in The Simpsons. There is like The President's Therapist is a movie, I think. Is it? James Coburn, yeah. That sounds great. Should we talk about that next week? Because... They go to the diner that they recreated, and a lot of the show is spent being like, I can't believe they recreated a bar. Like, that's the only place they should recreate.
therapy offices and bars is the only thing I'm interested in seeing in my post-apocalyptic mountain silo. You would actually enjoy the silo because, I mean, we shouldn't be calling it a silo because there's a show called Silo. They don't seem to know there's another show. Can you imagine if you were just like, they just like simulated football?
And you were, like, getting updates about the Eagles winning yet again. And I didn't have to watch it. Oh, I just looked at my, like, little Fitbit, and it was like, the Eagles win again, their third undefeated season. I was like, AI Jalen Hurts crying. I would be so happy. Like, oh, look at this.
Then I would go to the bar and just sit at the bar with the president and be like, that's cool, sir. This is a dream. And then I would go to therapy. Yeah. Oh my God, this does sound amazing. And also it could always be kind of sunny, which is kind of what I want.
generally because I'm broken. All that works. But so Dr. Tarabi and Agent X go to the diner and she's like, they recreated the best cheese fries in the world. And like, by the way, cheese fries are something that AI... thinks people like well it's also like how hard is it to recreate any cheese fries there's like a sort of two elements to it cheese fries aren't good I'm sorry they're not good the idea is good this just got clipped dog yo
Tell me how they're good. They're really good. They're not good. Both things are good. Dipping a perfect french fry into molten fake cheese, phenomenal. So then what's the problem? Pouring. the molten cheese onto the crisp french fries, so you just get this congealed, soggy mess? I think it's like the idea is that you're creating a fry nachos situation where there's just layers to it. I mean, most people, when they're doing cheese fries, they're also doing other elements.
Most nachos are bad, too, because it's soggy shit you don't want that you don't get enough of, the parts you do want, on the chip. These are all overrated foods. But you've recreated this in the diner, and she's like, and the best part is the cheese is made of cashews. and chemicals. What are we doing? Then they sit and they eat these fries that are neither fries nor cashew cheese. It's whatever they came up with. The prop department. On the day.
And then they just fall into this golden light reverie where they just start naming. And I filmed it and sent it to you. And this was 30. You did. 39 seconds of screen time. I believe I said it looks like a tampon ad. And it sure does. We spent a lot of time watching mysteriously emotional commercials during the Super Bowl being like, is this for women's sports or Jesus? Or AI. Or for AI. And sometimes it was for all three. Or Kanye, yeah. And X is just like...
golden sunlight, and soft shell crab. These are the things they missed, right? And she's like, summer peaches. Shut up. We actually have to stop podcasting because we have to start podcasting again. I'm just saying, that is...
You clip that and it's unintentionally incredible. Yeah. But it's kind of a drag to be in the bunker with these people watching the show with its reveals and it's like... you know it's doom core covers of more than words and it's just like come on man come on make if you're gonna make
a nutso apocalypse show. Yeah, tell me about the lies that the electric vehicle companies are telling me. All right, let's wrap it up there. Andy, thank you. Kaya, thank you. CT, thank you. We will be back on Sunday night to talk about White Lotus. Hope everybody has a nice long weekend. We'll talk to you soon.