Gary Kroeger Says Lorne Michaels Ignores ‘SNL’ Cast From Early ‘80s

When Devon Walker left Saturday Night Live this week, he described his three years as a mixed bag. “Sometimes, it was really cool,” he wrote on Instagram. “Sometimes it was toxic as hell.”   

Gary Kroeger, another cast member with a complicated three seasons on SNL, knows just how Walker feels. Unlike Walker, he’s willing to point a finger at the man he believes is responsible for the noxious fumes. 

“I have few regrets, but I’d be lying if I said I’m okay with the fact that producer/creator Lorne Michaels treats the Dick Ebersol years (when I was with the show) as if they didn’t exist,” Kroeger wrote on his Substack. “I believe that cold shoulder is rooted in the same toxicity Walker refers to. It is an imbalance of perception that starts at the top.”

Kroeger is referring to SNL’s sixth through tenth seasons, the only years in the show’s history not produced by Michaels. Ebersol hired Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Brad Hall and Kroeger from Chicago’s Practical Theatre Company. When Michaels returned for the show’s 11th year, Kroeger and his Chicago pals weren’t asked back.

Whether or not Michaels was around, Kroeger argued, those five seasons are still part of Saturday Night Live’s legacy. Yet “very rarely does anything from that era show up in a reunion retrospective.” Michaels’ only nod to that period is including stars who became too huge to ignore — Eddie Murphy, Louis-Dreyfus and Martin Short, to name three. 

The comics from his years on the show get better treatment from other cast members, Kroeger explained. Fred Armisen sought him out at the 40th reunion, telling him about his childhood dreams of being on SNL. “You were my cast,” Armisen told him. 

Kroeger recognizes that his tenure wasn’t immune to the kind of poison that Walker tasted. “When I was there in ‘82 to ‘85, women struggled unfairly to get material in the show,” he wrote. “The show by nature is competitive, and egos are equal parts fragile and inflated. Every week can feel like your career was just made or just sank to a depth no rescue vehicle can reach. That can create a toxic-ripe environment.”

And yet, he believes, Ebersol did save the show after the grim year in which Jean Doumanian took things sideways. While Ebersol doesn’t have Michaels’ reputation for cool, he did elevate Joe Piscopo and Murphy, then brought in Short, Billy Crystal and Christopher Guest for a very entertaining Season 10. That should count for something.

Kroeger gave Michaels his props as a kingmaker, too. “But kingdoms breed toxicity,” he explained, “because they revolve around the affections and attention from their unique royalty.”

Is it too much to ask of the king to acknowledge all of the comics who contributed to his show? Kroeger would love Michaels to “put his personal legacy aside to include everyone who has done time in Studio 8H from 1975 on, as part of one continuing history.”