After Hiring 5 New Cast Members, ‘SNL’ Must Continue to Slash Roster

Lorne, what are you doing?

After all the criticism in recent years along the lines of Saturday Night Live's Cast Is Just Too Big, SNL producer Lorne Michaels appeared to get the message with last week’s comedian purge. Over the course of five days, Heidi Gardener, Emil Wakim, Devon Walker and Michael Longfellow were all given their walking papers, reducing the show’s roster to a more manageable size.

But that good work was immediately undone yesterday when SNL announced it was adding five new comics — Ben Marshall, Kam Patterson, Veronika Slowikowska, Tommy Brennan and Jeremy Culhane. Five new cast members? As Saturday Night Network reported, that was the biggest new class at SNL since 2013. And in this economy.

Redditors have been trying to figure out why promising comedians like Wakim and Chloe Troast are shown the door after only one season, with some concluding that the problem isn’t their talent but the overstuffed makeup of the show itself. If you count the members of the recently disbanded Please Don’t Destroy — and they get as much airtime as the featured players — there were 20 comedians vying for airtime last year. Take out the host monologue, two musical numbers and Weekend Update, and there’s little time left for new comic faces to break through. 

Michaels promised that he would reinvent SNL for its 51st season, so the road ahead is clear: More cast members need to go. A lot more. Colin Jost and Michael Che have been hinting at their departure long enough — see you later, guys. Bowen Yang seems on the fence, so make the decision easy and let him go. Nine seasons is enough for Mikey Day. Jane Wickline’s deadpan style doesn’t seem cut out for sketches. And what exactly does Kenan Thompson have left to prove at this point? 

I’m not saying these comedians aren’t funny. It’s just time. “The thing about SNL is that people leave and everybody says, ‘How is it going to go on without them?’” says Amy Poehler in oral history Live From New York. “And the show goes on. … It’s a testament to the idea that change can be good, and new, fresh, young, interesting people are always around the corner.”

But those fresh faces can only make an impact if there’s room on the show. In Poehler’s day, the cast topped out at 15, not 20. In the show’s 25th season, there were 12 comedians. At the beginning? Only seven — and even then, cast members from Garrett Morris to John Belushi griped that they weren’t given enough to do. 

Like Poehler says, Lorne, change is good. Keeping everyone around for the 50th party was sweet, but now it’s time to let go of sentimentality and take the show down to the studs. Remember back in Season 11 when you told Jon Lovitz to get in your car and then you burned down the studio, symbolically eliminating an entire cast that just wasn’t working? 

Maybe it’s time to get out the matches once again.