‘SNL’s Cue Card Guy Has An Incredible Instagram Account

Saturday Night Live superfans might already know this, but SNL’s cue-card guy, Wally Feresten, is on Instagram. He’s been doing cue cards at SNL since 1990, and now also manages the cue cards for Late Night with Seth Meyers. Basically, if there are cue-card needs at NBC, Feresten is there. His first episode ever was hosted by Kyle McLachlan with musical guest Sinead O’Connor (not that episode, it would come later). But beyond his essential role in getting jokes on air, he also manages a fantastic Instagram account. 

Not only does he share shots from behind the scenes at 30 Rock, he also collaborates with Meyers’ guests to do Charli XCX reels and sharing custom cue cards you can actually order from him. (Find them over at cuecardsbywally.com!) It’s a very wholesome side to the often-cutthroat world of late-night television. 

Feresten’s account feels like real inside baseball — not just for Saturday Night Live, but for the entire network. Here’s someone who is helping put together these shows day in and day out, sharing interviews about his experiences on the job, cute pictures of his wife and shots of him drinking some rum backstage with Michael Che. 

It seems obvious to follow your favorite cast members from SNL, but Feresten has more than three decades working at the show. He held the very first cue card Meyers ever read at SNL, and that’s probably the case for a whole slew of other famous alumni as well. 

Plus, in the last year, Feresten has gone from behind-the-scenes essential to a front-of-camera entertainer. He delivered a great bit on being a Marxist (one can only hope it’s true) on Late Night, and has appeared a few other times. 

In a time when the internet is filled with so much garbage — A.I. slop, Rob Schneider tweets, Michael Rapaport videos — following a social media account for a man who still has legible handwriting feels like a real treat. And if you follow along, you’ll hear him talk about how it took hours and hours of practice to actually have legible handwriting. 

A man who took time to be better at something? A rare find online indeed.