Wasn't That Special: 50 Years of SNL Podcast

In this free episode, we discuss Season 35 of SNL, including the f-bomb being dropped in the season’s first episode, the rise of Kenan Thompson as the backbone of the show, the regression of Kristen Wiig and Fred Armisen, the all-time classic episode hosted by Betty White, and the emergence of newcomer Nasim Pedrad as a worthy cast member. We also talk about Will Forte’s career on the show and the role he played in creating two of the greatest recurring characters in show history.

We discuss all these things, plus a lot more in this episode of Wasn’t That Special. Please subscribe and join us for a trip through every year of SNL. And consider joining at the Executive Producer level, where you get a whole load of extra commentary and clips that will help you become an SNL expert.

Sarah Palin, Sarah Palin, Sarah Palin.

Season 34 will likely be known forever for one thing, and that’s returning cast member Tina Fey’s impression of the 2008 Republican vice presidential candidate.

But the 2008-09 season had a lot more going on than simply politics. For one, the show bumped the number of episodes up to 22 per season (up from 20). And be…

The Wasn’t That Special Season 34 episode will be a day late next week, so as a peace offering, we recorded a review of the new movie Saturday Night, which “documents” the 90 minutes leading up to the first SNL episode on October 11, 1975.

Did we like the movie overall? What did it get wrong and what did it get right? What would we have liked to have seen? How accurate were the actors playing the first SNL cast? And was Andy Kaufman really that tall?

All these questions are answered in our new free podcast, so have a listen. And don’t forget to go back and listen to our first two episodes, which document the lead-up to the first episode and the entire first season.

Thank you for listening, and if you like what you hear, sign up as a paid subscriber!

Every season of Saturday Night Live has its classic episodes and its real bombs. In virtually every case, these peaks and valleys average out to make each season simply “pretty good.”

But what if there was a season that had no bad episodes but no great ones? That is the case with Season 33, in which no single show reaches the heights of the past, but no …

Real-world Saturday Night Live events are dotting the calendar at this point. Season 50 officially kicked off on September 28 (did you like Maya Rudolph, Dana Carvey, Andy Samberg, and Jim Gaffigan?) and the new SNL film Saturday Night is in theaters on October 11. Reviews for the movie so far are … well, let’s not talk about that right now. But you can…

Every now and then in Saturday Night Live history, you have these seasons in which an older, established cast is on their way out, and a newer cast is on their way in. They cross paths for maybe a year or two, and looking back, it is hard to believe all these people were on the same cast at the same time.

This certainly happened in Season 16, when the es…

Please enjoy this complimentary edition of Wasn’t That Special - every few episodes we will release for free so you can hear what you’re missing out on by not being a paid subscriber.

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The cast in Season 30 returns with very few changes - Lorne Michaels effectively swapped out Jimmy Fallon, who left to do movies, with newcomer Rob Riggle.

And while Fallon was a workable cast member, his absence doesn’t seem to change the show much. That is because of the meteoric rise of one of the cast members, who basically becomes the backbone of the show, showing off their incredible talent in ways they hadn’t before. (To find out who, you’ll have to watch the episode!)

This season is also known as the season in which musical guest Ashlee Simpson is caught lip-syncing her second performance of the episode, causing a nationwide scandal. Further, SNL mocked her for weeks after the event, even though they had to know she was going to lip-sync and they allowed it.

The show also featured some strong guests hosts this year: Paul Giamatti, Ben Affleck, Jude Law, and Jason Bateman all demonstrating their talents. Some of the best musical guests included Kelly Clarkson, Keane, Modest Mouse, and Beck.

We discuss all these things, plus have a major disagreement on the quality of Weekend Update this season, in this episode of Wasn’t That Special. Please subscribe and join us for a trip through every year of SNL. And consider joining at the Executive Producer level, where you get a whole load of extra commentary and clips that will help you become an SNL expert.

(Also, for those interested, Christian’s Substack can be found here.)

After Will Ferrell left following Season 27, Saturday Night Live began the process of remaking itself without Ferrell’s star power on board. They brought in new cast members like Fred Armisen and Will Forte to join Jimmy Fallon, Maya Rudolph, Amy Poehler, Seth Meyers, and Rachel Dratch, but none of the sketches reached the heights they had during the Fe…

In Season 27, Saturday Night Live viewers occasionally got a glimpse of what the show would look like when one of its all-time great cast members bolted. For a few episodes, Will Ferrell was off filming movies like Old School, leaving the rest of the cast to pick up the slack. And the results weren’t promising.

In Season 28, the show has to grapple with …

When Will Ferrell joined Saturday Night Live in 1995, the show was on the ropes. Adam Sandler and Chris Farley had been fired and SNL was on the brink of cancelation.

But then Lorne Michaels brought on Ferrell and fellow Los Angeles-based Groundlings Cheri Oteri and Chris Kattan and suddenly the show once again had life. These new cast members, coupled w…