The following are the most frequent recurring characters and celebrity impressions on Saturday Night Live listed by cast member.
Dana Thomas Carvey is an American comedian, actor, screenwriter, and producer.
Weekend Update is a Saturday Night Live sketch and satirical news program that comments on and parodies current events. It is the show's longest-running recurring sketch, having been on since the show's first broadcast, and is typically presented in the middle of the show immediately after the first musical performance. Historically, one or two of the players are cast in the role of news anchor, presenting gag news items based on current events and acting as hosts for occasional editorials, commentaries, or other performances by other cast members or guests. In modern times, dedicated anchors are chosen among writing staff, often lead writers, in lieu of cast or featured players. Chevy Chase has said that Weekend Update – which he started as anchor in 1975 – paved the way for comedic news shows like The Daily Show and The Colbert Report.
Robert Smigel is an American actor, comedian, writer, director, producer, and puppeteer, known for his Saturday Night Live "TV Funhouse" cartoon shorts and as the puppeteer and voice behind Triumph the Insult Comic Dog. He also co-wrote the first two Hotel Transylvania films, You Don't Mess with the Zohan, and Leo, all starring Adam Sandler.
Pat O'Neill Riley is an androgynous fictional character created and performed by Julia Sweeney for the American sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live (SNL) from 1990 to 1994. The character was later featured in the film It's Pat. The central humorous aspect of sketches featuring Pat is the inability of others to determine the character's sex.
"Bill Swerski's Superfans" was a recurring sketch about Chicago sports fans on the American sketch comedy program Saturday Night Live. It was a prominent feature from 1991 to 1992, and its characters have made various other appearances since its inception. The sketch is notable as a media portrayal of the Inland North dialect of American English that predominates in Chicago, most famously through the distinctive pronunciation of the phrase "Da Bears".
Saturday Night Live (SNL) is an American sketch comedy series that was co-created by Dick Ebersol and Lorne Michaels, with Michaels also serving as the producer. The series premiered on the American broadcast television network NBC on October 11, 1975.
The following is a list of recurring Saturday Night Live sketches, organized alphabetically by title. The referenced date is the date when the sketch first appeared.
Almost Live! was a local sketch comedy television show in Seattle, Washington, USA, produced and broadcast by NBC affiliate KING-TV from 1984 to 1999. A re-packaged version of the show also aired on Comedy Central from 1992 to 1993, and episodes aired on WGRZ-TV and other Gannett-owned stations in the late 1990s. The show was broadcast in Seattle on Saturday nights at 11:30, pushing Saturday Night Live back to midnight, while other Gannett stations aired it after Saturday Night Live.
Weekend Update has been a platform for Saturday Night Live characters to grow and gain popularity ever since Gilda Radner used it to create Emily Litella and Roseanne Roseannadanna. Many cast members have used Update as the primary vehicle for a certain character. Don Novello was featured almost exclusively on the news segment as his breakout character, Father Guido Sarducci, and Tim Kazurinsky, in the face of Eddie Murphy's overshadowing popularity, created characters almost exclusively for Update. Before becoming an anchor on Update, Colin Quinn used the segment as his main sounding board as well.
Saturday Night Live has long mocked the television medium with many fake commercials and parodies of TV shows themselves. Another of the show's frequently used styles of recurring sketches has been the talk show format. However, anything from cop shows to children's shows has been fair game for the ever-changing cast.
The Sports Fan Radio Network was a national sports talk radio network that existed from 1993 through 2001, when it abruptly folded.
The sketch comedy television show Saturday Night Live aired several critically acclaimed sketches parodying then Alaskan Governor and vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin in the lead-up to the 2008 United States presidential election. The sketches featured former cast member Tina Fey, who returned as a guest star to portray Palin. Fey won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series for her impersonation of Palin.
The following is a list of recurring Saturday Night Live characters and sketches introduced between September 29, 1990, and May 18, 1991, the sixteenth season of SNL.
The following is a list of recurring Saturday Night Live characters and sketches introduced between September 30, 1995, and May 18, 1996, the twenty-first season of SNL.
The following is a list of recurring Saturday Night Live characters and sketches introduced between September 28, 1996, and May 17, 1997, the twenty-second season of SNL.
The following is a list of recurring Saturday Night Live characters and sketches introduced between September 25, 1999, and May 20, 2000, the twenty-fifth season of SNL.
The following is a list of recurring Saturday Night Live characters and sketches introduced during the fortieth season of SNL, which began on September 27, 2014.
The following is a list of recurring Saturday Night Live characters and sketches introduced during the forty-second season of SNL, which began on October 1, 2016.