Jon Rudnitsky Also Departing Ahead of Season 42
by Michael Ausiello
August 9, 2016


The "Saturday Night Live" bloodletting continues. In the wake of TVLine’s scoop that Taran Killam and Jay Pharoah would not be returning for Season 42, an NBC spokesperson also confirms that featured player Jon Rudnitsky has been let go.

NBC isn’t commenting on the reason for the mass exodus, but in an interview late Monday Killam intimated that he was fired, telling Uproxx that SNL boss Lorne Michaels inexplicably decided not to pick up the final year of his seven-season contract.

“I had sort of had it in my head I would make this upcoming year my last year, but then heard they weren’t going to pick up my contract,” he said. “I was never given a reason why, really.”



Early Tuesday, Killam cheekily addressed his ouster on Twitter, writing:

“A big thank you for all the Love from my fans. Lorne was kind enough to understand I needed more time to dedicate to my undefeated @RamsNFL.”

http://tvline.com/2016/08/09/snl-jon-rudnitsky-leaving-saturday-night-live-season-42/

https://www.yahoo.com/news/m/268c0d66-ef0a-38c0-80eb-e4fc4249eb8f/how-saturday-night-live-just.html

Behind-the-scenes changes at Saturday Night Live never garner as much press as the more obvious hiring and firing of cast members. (Case in point, it took several weeks before anyone noticed that Colin Jost had quietly stepped down as head writer last year.) But the changes you don’t see often have much more impact on the long-running comedy institution than the ones you do. In addition to firing Jay Pharoah, Taran Killam, and Jon Rudnitsky, S.N.L. is welcoming two new head writers to the team that could lead to a rebound in the ratings and a dramatic change in tone to better fit with younger, modern audiences. Chris Kelly and Sarah Schneider will be added as head writers while the current team

wow - that is a pretty terrible move, Taran Killam was in just about every SNL sketch they did in the past couple years; if anything they leaned on him too much because they don't have anyone else that can fill all the roles he does.

Jay Pharaoh is hilarious and his talents are boundless - losing him will leave a gaping hole that you couldn't fill with a half dozen new cast members.

John Rudnitsky was pretty much underused the entire time he was on the show, but when he was put front and center he really shined; I don't think losing him will hurt the show as much as the other two, but they really didn't give him much of a chance and wasted his talents.

The show's main problem has been the lackluster writing and tired lazy sketches; new writers might help a bit, but not if they don't have a decent cast to pull it off. That and they need to just give up on the failed Colin Jost experiment - he's not really getting any better and he is really dragging down what in recent years had pretty much been the only thing keeping the show alive. Anyone could read a teleprompter as plainly as he does, it should be pretty easy to replace him.

"SNL" Adds 3 to its Season 42 Cast
September 12, 2016
by Seth Abramovitch


SNL has added some new faces to its ranks. Mikey Day, a writer on the show since 2013, will transition to on-camera talent this upcoming season, the late-night institution's 42rd.

Also joining the cast are Alex Moffat and Melissa Villasenor. All three will be featured players making their debuts on the Oct. 1 premiere.





Day is a member of the Groundlings, the famed Los Angeles comedy troupe and talent incubator that has produced such SNL all-stars as Will Ferrell and Kristen Wiig.


Villasenor is an L.A.-based comedian and was a top 16 finalist on Season 6 of "America's Got Talent".


Moffat hails from Chicago, where he taught teen improv at The Second City. He also is head writer and a castmember on "Maya & Marty", which, like SNL, is another Lorne Michaels-produced NBC sketch show.

That series — a showcase for the talents of Maya Rudolph and Martin Short — aired six episodes over the summer. It has yet to receive a renewal for a second season.







The new hires and promotions follow a round of behind-the-scenes bloodshed at the famed Studio 8H. This time around, the cast cuts were more shocking than usual, as Michaels chose not to renew the contracts of Taran Killam, Jay Pharoah, and Jon Rudnitsky.


Killam, who was with the show for six seasons, recently boarded Showtime's Jason Katims pilot "Mating".


Pharoah, also on SNL for six seasons, next stars in Showtime's Jamie Foxx pilot "White Famous".

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/snl-cast-additions-season-42-927040

SNL Boss Lorne Michaels Breaks Silence on Taran Killam, Jay Pharoah Ousters: "They Served the Show Well"
by Michael Ausiello
September 30, 2016


Ahead of this weekend’s return of "Saturday Night Live", exec producer Lorne Michaels is speaking out for the first time about his surprising decision to pink-slip longtime cast members Taran Killam and Jay Pharoah.

“I think they were great, and they did wonderful work when they were with us,” Michaels tells USA Today. “They served the show well, and are two people I really care about. But change is the lifeblood of the show; it always has been. And you have to keep bringing new people in. Hopefully it’s for the best. I’m not worried about either of them going on to success.”



Killam and Pharoah — who recently signed on to headline separate Showtime comedy pilots — were let go one year shy of their seven-year contracts. The decision blindsided Killam.

“I had sort of had it in my head I would make this upcoming year my last year, but then heard they weren’t going to pick up my contract,” he said at the time. “I was never given a reason why, really… I honestly don’t know what happened on the other side.” (Rookie featured player Jon Rudnitsky was similarly shown the door.)







Michaels also addressed this fall’s other big SNL headline: The casting of Alec Baldwin as Donald Trump. Turns out, it was Tina Fey’s idea.

“She said, ‘You know who would be a great Trump is Alec!’” he recalls. “I talked to Alec, who was finishing a movie, he was getting ready to have a baby — it couldn’t have been worse timing. But, slowly, the idea grew on me.”



The decision had “nothing to do with” Baldwin’s predecessor, Darrell Hammond, who Michaels insists was “obviously great at” playing Trump.

But “just as Darrell took over from Phil Hartman doing Bill Clinton, these things have to change. I don’t know how many people have played Hillary Clinton.”

http://tvline.com/2016/09/30/snl-taran-killam-jay-pharoah-leaving-season-42-cast-saturday-night-live/

Oh well, change is to be expected, of the three new cast members I only recognize Mikey Day from MTV's Wild'N'Out.

And as for Colin Jost he isn't funny on Weekend Update so I don't care where they put him.

wow - that is a pretty terrible move, Taran Killam was in just about every SNL sketch they did in the past couple years; if anything they leaned on him too much because they don't have anyone else that can fill all the roles he does.

Jay Pharaoh is hilarious and his talents are boundless - losing him will leave a gaping hole that you couldn't fill with a half dozen new cast members.

John Rudnitsky was pretty much underused the entire time he was on the show, but when he was put front and center he really shined; I don't think losing him will hurt the show as much as the other two, but they really didn't give him much of a chance and wasted his talents.

The show's main problem has been the lackluster writing and tired lazy sketches; new writers might help a bit, but not if they don't have a decent cast to pull it off. That and they need to just give up on the failed Colin Jost experiment - he's not really getting any better and he is really dragging down what in recent years had pretty much been the only thing keeping the show alive. Anyone could read a teleprompter as plainly as he does, it should be pretty easy to replace him.

http://www.pajiba.com/saturday_night_live/colin-jost-and-michael-che-are-the-exact-wrong-anchors-for-this-era-of-weekend-update.php

Saturday Night Live had a notorious reputation through the first two decades of its run for being a “boy’s club,” a show dominated by male cast members like Chevy Chase, Bill Murray, Eddie Murphy, Chris Farley, and Adam Sandler, among others. There were a few female stars who were able to work with the men — Gilda Radner, for one — but there were plenty of female cast members who weren’t able to break though until after they left the show (Julia Louis Dreyfus and Janeane Garofalo, for instance, both of whom had fairly unpleasant runs on SNL). A shift began to occur, however, with the 1995 arrivals of Molly Shannon and Cheri Oteri, and soon, Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, Maya Rudolph, and Kristen Wiig were able to push SNL’s reputation for being a boy’s club to a tipping point. By 2016, female cast members — Kate McKinnon, Cecily Strong, Leslie Jones, Aidy Bryant — had become the show’s focal point.

Except on “Weekend Update,” where the boy’s club vibe of the 1970s, 80s, and early 90s lives on under anchors Colin Jost and Michael Che during an era — and an election season — where it couldn’t feel more unwelcome.

That was never more apparent than over the weekend during the SNL season premiere. Any hopes we might have had that “Weekend Update” would help to undo the damage that SNL had done to normalize Donald Trump last year by having him on as a host were immediately dashed when Colin Jost opened the segment by suggesting that Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump were equally unappealing choices. “The first debate is over,” Jost said, “and it’s official. We still have to choose between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.”

The choice is basically between “Tang and prunes,” Michael Che continued. “It didn’t even feel like I was watching a debate. It felt like I was watching a divorced couple fighting over custody of a kid who hates them both.”

Jost even added that it was the first debate where Americans were asking if both candidates “were on drugs,” as though Clinton’s behavior was in some way comparable to the unhinged remarks of Donald Trump.

“No matter who wins,” Che added. “This is going to be a rebuilding season for America.”
This line of comedy was more akin to the jokes Colin Quinn might have delivered on “Weekend Update” in 2000 when Al Gore and George Bush were seen pre-9/11 as equally unappealing, uninspiring choices:
“Frontrunners Al Gore and George W. Bush now have nothing standing between them and their party’s nominations. And after all, what better candidates to run this year than a couple of zeros?”

This is not 2000, and the contrast between Clinton and Trump could not be more stark. However, by playing into this line of comedy, Che and Jost are effectively encouraging their audience to do the most dangerous thing they could do this year: Sit this one out. Why even bother voting, they seem to suggest, when the candidates are a couple of zeroes?

For Colin Jost — who attended a private high school in on Manhattan’s upper east-side and later Harvard University — this is the approach of someone who has no real stake in the outcome of the election. This is peak male, white privilege. A Trump presidency wouldn’t affect Colin Jost, because he’s a wealthy white dude from New York, something that Michael Che likes to remind him of at least once an episode.

Che, on the other hand, shares a misogynistic streak with the GOP nominee. Here’s a guy who lectures women on what to do if they are raped, a guy who rationalizes asking if a woman is “on her period, ” a guy who stubbornly, defiantly insists that it’s OK to harass women on the street because it’s a compliment. Che’s public comments about women are not that different from Trump’s about Alicia Machado, and even when Che has some salient points to make about black people protesting the National Anthem, he compares the issue to a nagging girlfriend who steps in front of the TV while you’re trying to watch the game.

Conversely, compare what Jost and Che are doing to what their predecessor, Seth Meyers, is is doing every weeknight on Late Night, reminding us that the choice between Clinton and Trump is not an equal one. Or what Samantha Bee and John Oliver do every week, or even how Stephen Colbert has become more forceful in drawing a distinction between Clinton and Trump.

In Che and Jost, SNL could not have found two guys more out of step with the rest of the political comedy world. They couldn’t have found two guys more out of step with their own cast, which is promoting hilarious anti-feminist feminist anthems, while Jost is smugly writing long-form jokes about slapping people and Che is joking that Women’s History Month is a good time for ladies to bake a cake.

Historically, even when Saturday Night Live is not operating at its best, we could rely on “Weekend Update” to salvage a bad show by delivering the kind of topical, progressive political humor for which Meyers, Poehler, and Fey were known. Poehler and Fey liked to remind us that “bitches get stuff done.” Conversely, Che and Jost are like clueless, tone-deaf throwbacks to the fratty boy’s club era of SNL. Kate McKinnon, Alec Baldwin, et. al, may yet deliver some potent political comedy during the remainder of this election season — as they did this weekend in covering the first Presidential debate — but there was a time when “Weekend Update” was leading the charge. Right now, it’s holding the rest of the show behind.

Jay Pharoah Reveals Why he was Fired from SNL & Remembers Charlie Murphy

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You gotta be a team player and drop the attitude or yes, you will be jobless. That is common sense.