5 Stand-Up Comedians Who Thrived on ‘Saturday Night Live’
Why would Saturday Night Live ever hire a stand-up comedian? The show specializes in sketch comedy, a discipline that relies on strong characters and five-minute plots more than it does on snappy punchlines and an ability to shoot down a heckler. The show’s original cast was made up almost entirely of improvisational sketch comedians, after all. And fantastic stand-up comics from Gilbert Gottfried to Sarah Silverman to Damon Wayans quickly learned that their skill sets just didn’t translate.
And yet, SNL’s history is stacked with stand-ups who, like multi-time host Steve Martin, figured out a way to transfer their stage skills to late-night sketch. Here are five of the best to have succeeded at both SNL and stand-up…
Eddie Murphy
Not only the best stand-up to become a cast member, but maybe the best cast member period. It helped that Murphy’s stand-up act eschewed typical set-up/punchlines in favor of hilarious characters, from Elvis to Mr. T to his show-throwing mother. “Eddie Murphy is the only reason SNL survived the five-year wilderness without Lorne Michaels,” wrote Rolling Stone in ranking Murphy as one of the show’s all-time greats. “Nobody had seen anything like him.”
Adam Sandler
Sandler’s brother goaded Adam into trying stand-up at only 17, but it was clear that idiot manchild characters were also in his wheelhouse. On early MTV game show Remote Control, Sandler would strut on as Stud Boy or Trivia Delinquent, easily recognizable ancestors of the characters he’d later perform on SNL. But it was his stand-up act that made Dennis Miller pick up the phone and call Lorne Michaels with a recommendation to give the kid a try.
Chris Rock
Like Miller finding Sandler, it was Murphy who caught young Rock doing stand-up at New York’s Catch A Rising Star and decided the young guy had something. Murphy cast Rock in Beverly Hills Cop 2, a break that helped him land an audition at SNL. Rock became one of the “Bad Boys of SNL,” alongside Sandler, David Spade and Chris Farley, although the stand-up stage remains the arena in which he truly rules.
Norm Macdonald
Macdonald’s early career was spent playing comedy clubs in Canada, leading to sets on American shows like Star Search, The Pat Sajak Show and Late Night With David Letterman. Macdonald turned out to be a surprisingly able impressionist on Saturday Night Live, delivering spot-on characters ranging from Letterman to Bob Dole to Burt “Turd Ferguson” Reynolds. But his SNL brilliance was employing his stand-up deadpan to deliver the fake news, taunting NBC executives with jokes about O.J. Simpson’s obvious guilt.
Pete Davidson
Davidson, like Murphy, was impossibly young when his stand-up act earned him a spot on SNL. As Weekend Update’s “Resident Young Person,” Davidson scored on his first-ever appearance, often showing up on the segment to comment on current events as himself. While characters were never Davidson’s strong suit, he managed to win with idiots like Chad and the kid who didn’t seem the least bit traumatized after being seduced by his high school teacher.