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.
Significant characters who appeared chiefly on Weekend Update are listed here in chronological order of their first appearance.
Father Guido Sarducci is a fictional character created by American comedian Don Novello. Sarducci is a chain-smoking priest with tinted glasses, who works in the United States as gossip columnist and rock critic for the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano.
Emily Litella is a fictional character created and performed by comedian Gilda Radner in a series of appearances on Saturday Night Live. Based on a person in her early life, Emily Litella was a popular character in Radner's comedy repertoire.
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 Barry Gibb Talk Show is a recurring sketch on Saturday Night Live about a talk show starring Bee Gees lead singer Barry Gibb and his brother, Robin Gibb. The sketch was created by writers Ken Scarborough and Steve Higgins based on an idea from Fallon.
Alan Zweibel is an American writer, producer, director, comedian and actor whom TheNew York Times says has “earned a place in the pantheon of American pop culture." An original Saturday Night Live writer, Zweibel has won five Emmy Awards and two Writers Guild of America Awards for his work in television, which includes It's Garry Shandling's Show and Curb Your Enthusiasm.
Gilda Live is a 1980 American comedy musical film starring Gilda Radner, directed by Mike Nichols and produced by Lorne Michaels. Radner and Michaels and all of the writers involved with the production were alumni from the television program Saturday Night Live.
The fourth season of Saturday Night Live, an American sketch comedy series, originally aired in the United States on NBC between October 7, 1978, and May 26, 1979.
"Somebody to Love" is the sixth episode of the second season of 30 Rock, and the twenty-seventh episode overall. It was written by Kay Cannon and the series' creator, Tina Fey, and was directed by Beth McCarthy. The episode first aired on November 15, 2007 on the NBC network in the United States. Guest stars in this episode include Fred Armisen, Kevin Brown, Grizz Chapman, Edie Falco, John Lutz, Maulik Pancholy, and Kristen Wiig.
Saturday Night Live in the 2000s: Time and Again is a two-hour documentary television special that showcases the years of Saturday Night Live from 2000 to 2009. It features interviews with the cast and crew from those years, and aired on NBC on April 15, 2010. It was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Nonfiction Special.
Rosie Shuster is a Canadian-born comedy writer and actress. She was a writer for Saturday Night Live during the 1970s and 1980s.
The following is a list of recurring Saturday Night Live characters and sketches introduced between October 1, 2005, and May 20, 2006, the thirty-first season of SNL.
The following is a list of recurring Saturday Night Live characters and sketches introduced between September 30, 2006, and May 19, 2007, the thirty-second season of SNL.
The following is a list of recurring Saturday Night Live characters and sketches introduced between September 29, 2007, and May 17, 2008, the thirty-third season of SNL.
The following is a list of recurring Saturday Night Live characters and sketches introduced between September 13, 2008, and May 16, 2009, the thirty-fourth season of the show.
The following is a list of recurring Saturday Night Live characters and sketches introduced between September 26, 2009, and May 15, 2010, the thirty-fifth season of SNL.
The following is a list of recurring Saturday Night Live characters and sketches introduced between September 24, 2011, and May 20, 2012, the thirty-seventh season of SNL.
The thirty-eighth season of Saturday Night Live, an American sketch comedy series, originally aired in the United States on NBC between September 15, 2012, and May 18, 2013.
"Saturday Night Live 40th Anniversary Special" is a three-and-a-half-hour prime-time special that aired on February 15, 2015, on NBC, celebrating Saturday Night Live's 40th year on the air, having premiered on October 11, 1975, under the original title NBC's Saturday Night. The special was produced by Broadway Video and directed by then-series director Don Roy King. This special generated 23.1 million viewers, becoming NBC's most-watched prime-time, non-sports, entertainment telecast since the Friends series finale in 2004. It is the third such anniversary special to be broadcast, with celebratory episodes also held during the 15th and 25th seasons.