Reminder - Lorne wasn't with the show that year, so you don't even have to highlight that exception (though I guess you could look to the disappointing season 20 for some established hires).

How often does SNL add new arrivals as full cast members these days? I think all the current cast regulars (except maybe Keenan - who can remember) started as Featured Players.

Oops. Sorry, Michael. Not that it was my prediction that lead to him leaving the show of course, but you can't help but feel a little guilty when you make a post like that and it comes true...

I've heard people suggesting Wickline for WU, and I can see it, as long as they pair her with someone a little more animated. She could pull off the droll Jane Curtin schtick, as long as they give her a Bill Murray to work with.

Nope, did not know that. I thought that happened after Lorne's return. Thanks for clearing that up. Did he come back to fire the entire cast except Lovitz, or was the fired cast his group too? I do remember him coming out on stage for the mass firing and saving Lovitz, not sure if that coincided with his return to the show or not.

Nope Lorne hired that entire Season 11 cast, The Weird Year, in his first year back, and then fired everyone besides Lovitz, Nora Dunn and Dennis Miller the next season. There's a good documentary episode on it on Peacock.

Ah, got it. That was when I was in college, and my SNL viewing was sporadic at best (I remember an RA or someone posting a photo of a vandalized common room to try to find the culprit, the top of the poster said "Well isn't that special?", and I didn't even get the reference, that's how little I was watching SNL).

Ugh, no thanks! She is NO Jane Curtin, not even close.

Awwwww. I'll miss Heidi.

X - Formerly Twitter

Same. Look forward to whatever she does next.

Heidi?

Wow, damn.

Aw, that one stings. Walker, Wakim, and Longfellow could be replaced by any competent comedic actors (sorry fellas, but at least on how you were used in the show, it's true). Heidi Gardner was often the focus of the sketch, for good reason; she became whatever character she wanted, and stayed grounded and committed to the sketch. Well, unless Mikey Day is dressed like a cartoon character...

Well, Heidi going is win for Jeff, and he needs one this week, what with Travis Kelce getting so much love.

Huh?

I think it sucks she has left and she was the main hottie of the show until Chloe FIineman joined the cast.

Longfellow leaving sucks too since I thought he would be the perfect WU anchor if Jost or Che left.

I wonder if Lorne wants a smaller cast or he will the departures with new people?

Dana Carvey said he had small casts back in the day and it was easier to get on TV and maybe the overall quality of the show was better that way.

It sucks for comedians today since usually when you left SNL you had a big movie career but now they don't make comedies anymore and they don't make a lot of sitcoms that feature comedians as the stars like the old days.

Heidi Gardner is from KC and a diehard Chiefs fan.

Even though this website design is straight out of the 90s (complete with frames!), it's still being updated, and has the status of every cast member ever:
https://frank.serpas.net/SNL/timeline.html

As you can see, no one's been hired directly as a repertory player since the 1995 cast overhaul. Seth Myers was the closest, in 2001, being a featured player for only half a season before being promoted.

Yeah, and during football season she would almost wear a Chiefs shirt of some kind during the farewell segment.

Gardner is a big one just because I don't see who in the current class really replaces her. Fineman is good but usually plays a completely different type of character, same with Nwodim and Sherman.

I guess it's a great opportunity for all of them, though, since that's a LOT of sketch airtime that just got vacated.

Heidi brought KC shout-outs on SNL and I'll miss her but I've been following her on socials for a while. She supported many local charities like The Big Slick. Lots of locals bummed.

What is her next move?

Will she write or create her own series or end up like Vanessa Bayer and appear as a guest star on dramas and sitcoms if there are any sitcoms?

Nikki Galser reacting on social media to Emil Wakin's leaving the show:
I don't think Nikki knows who he is

Keep cashing checks from Homes.com and have a baby

Chloe Fineman will return



https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/...222913973.html

I was talking to my 65-year old aunt yesterday and she told me that she saw an article in Variety that the entire cast of SNL quit. I was floored... and then when I Googled it, the headline read, "‘SNL’: Every Cast Member Leaving Ahead of Season 51"... and I shook my head and asked her if she actually read it.

She said no.

"It's an article about the four people that have left the show so far... not that everyone quit."

Poorly written headline.

Reminds me of the old SNL skit where a crew running a nuclear power plant is trying to figure out what their boss, who left for the weekend, meant when he told them "Remember, you can't put too much water in the nuclear reactor."