Dana Carvey: Seasons 12-18

Carvey

Before SNL

Dana Carvey was born in Missoula, Montana on June 2, 1955. Raised in a middle class family in San Carlos, California, Carvey quickly fell in love with comedy; often times creating impressions of his favorite T.V. show characters. After graduating from high school, Carvey attended San Francisco State University where he majored in Communication Arts. During his time at San Francisco State, Carvey began performing stand-up comedy with impressions and character acting making up the majority of his act.

In 1981, Carvey decided to move to Los Angeles to pursue a career as a television actor. Carvey eventually earned a role opposite Mickey Rooney and Nathan Lane on the 1982 sitcom One of the Boys. The show was cancelled after eight months and Carvey decided to try his hand at action with the 1984 TV adaptation of the popular film Blue Thunder. Following its release, Carvey found that he no longer had an desire to continue his Hollywood career and decided to go back to performing stand-up. It was at one of Carvey’s stand-up shows that he was discovered by producer Lorne Michaels who then offered him a job as a repertory cast member on Saturday Night Live.

 

Studio 8H

Carvey’s SNL career began at a very turbulent time for the show. Lorne had just fired 11 of the 14 cast members from the previous season (season 11) and was in the midst of completely overhauling the SNL staff due to NBC’s disappointment with the show’s poor ratings. Much to Lorne’s delight, Carvey immediately stepped in and began winning over audiences with his fantastic impressions and character acting. Carvey’s most famous impression was of U.S. President George H.W. Bush.

George H.W. Bush Video

One of Carvey’s most beloved characters and my personal favorite was Church Lady. (Fun Fact: Carvey created Church Lady during his college stand-up career)

Church Chat Video

However, Carvey’s most famous character was none other than Garth Algar, the lovable metal head opposite Mike Myers’s Wayne Campbell.

Wayne’s World Video

Carvey decided to leave SNL in 1993 after seven seasons with the show. He would later go on to host the show four times.

 

Outside Work

Carvey’s first huge success outside of SNL actually came while was still a cast member. In 1992, Carvey and Mike Myers transformed their hit SNL sketch into a movie entitled Wayne’s World. 

Carvey and Myers would go on to release a sequel entitled Wayne’s World 2 in 1993 before the two split and began working on their own various projects. One of Carvey’s most notable projects was his 1996 sketch comedy show on ABC called The Dana Carvey Show. Even though it only lasted eight episodes, the show was responsible for jumpstarting the careers of Steve Carell and Steven Colbert, as well as popularizing Robert Smigel’s cartoon The Ambiguously Gay Duo, which led to the beloved SNL sketch TV Funhouse.

Aside from Wayne’s World and The Dana Carvey Show, Carvey has generally faltered in his non-SNL pursuits. After his operation for a blocked artery in 1997, Carvey began to limit his acting appearances to focus more on his family. Some notable Dana Carvey films include: Trapped in Paradise in 1994, The Road to Wellville also in 1994, Little Nicky in 2000, and The Master of Disguise in 2002.

 

Opinion

Dana Carvey and the rest of the cast of season 12 essentially saved SNL from being cancelled (NBC executives were planning on doing it at the end of season 11). Often times underrated or labeled as Mike Myers’s sidekick, people seem to forget that Carvey was on SNL for two and a half seasons before Myers was hired. The case can even be made that Carvey was one of the best impressionists in SNL history (Fun Fact: During his SNL career Carvey performed 72 different celebrity impressions).  I can only hope that Carvey decides to come back and host again sometime.

Schwing

Eddie Murphy: Seasons 6-9

Eddie-Murphy

Before SNL

Eddie Murphy was born on April 3, 1961 in Brooklyn, New York. Growing up in the Bushwick projects and later in the town of Roosevelt, Long Island, Murphy acquired an early affinity for television, impressions, and comedian, Richard Pryor. Murphy began developing his stand-up routine while in high school where he was by all accounts the popular class clown. After graduating from high school, Murphy enrolled at Nassau Community College and began performing at various clubs around the New York City area.

With an act characterized as raunchy and profane, Murphy eventually worked his way up to larger comedy clubs, such as the Comic Strip. In 1980, Murphy heard rumors that Saturday Night Live was in need of black cast member and immediately decided to audition. After auditioning for the part six times, NBC hired him as a minor member of the show’s repertory cast.

 

Studio 8H

For the first few shows of Murphy’s first season at SNL (season 6), he was only utilized sparingly as an extra when needed. During the season’s sixth show on January 10, 1981, SNL producers realized that they were four minutes short on material. Fearing backlash from NBC if they were to run short, the producers put Murphy and told him to perform a segment from his stand-up routine until the show was over.

Murphy’s improv earned the show such positive reviews that the producers decided to give him a more prominent role on the show. Five weeks later, Murphy debuted his first recurring character sketch called Mr. Robinson’s Neighborhood, a spoof of the popular children’s show Mr. Rodger’s Neighborhood.

Mr. Robinson’s Neighborhood Video

Murphy began to earn household fame with his recurring sketch in which he would impersonate the adult version of Buckwheat from the Our Gang series (more commonly known as the Little Rascals).

Buckwheat Sings Video

Fans of the show began to associate Murphy with Buckwheat so much that Murphy requested that the character be killed off. On May 12, 1983, SNL performed the sketch “Buckwheat Dead: America Mourns” in which Buckwheat was shot in the same scenario as the failed assassination attempt of President Ronald Reagan. With Buckwheat dead and his film and stand-up career already on the rise (48 Hrs. in 1982, Trading Places in 1983, and Eddie Murphy: Comedian in 1983), Murphy decided to leave SNL during the show’s ninth season in 1984.

 

Outside Work

Murphy’s first major post-SNL success came with the release of his 1984 movie, Beverly Hills Cop (Fun Fact: Murphy is under contract to star in Beverly Hills Cop 4 in 2016).

Murphy also found large success in 1987 with the filming and release of his stand-up special, Eddie Murphy Raw. Aside from addressing some of the backlash he had received for his profanity (mostly from Bill Cosby), many of the show’s jokes concerned Murphy’s favorite topics of women, sex, or celebrities that wanted to fight him.

Murphy also appeared in several other notable films, such as Coming to America in 1988, The Nutty Professor in 1996, Mulan in 1998, Bowfinger in 1999, Shrek in 2001, Shrek 2 in 2004, Dreamgirls in 2006, and Tower Heist in 2011.

 

Opinion

Many people often forget that Eddie Murphy began his career as that young, profane kid on SNL. After being transformed into someone who is now seen as kid friendly by movies, such as Doctor Doolittle and Daddy Daycare, it’s genuinely hard for people to accept Murphy as the talented disciple of Richard Pryor on display in his stand-up. Murphy was the first person to really bring that air of controversy to SNL, always pushing the envelope and seeing what he could actually get away with. In essence, Murphy gave SNL that edge that took it from a show that the entire family could watch together to a show that parents were reluctant to let their kids watch. Eddie Murphy is the man who truly made Saturday Night Live, late night.

Eddie gif

Bill Murray: Seasons 2-5

Bill Murray

Before SNL

Bill Murray was born on September 21, 1950 in Wilmette, Illinois. One of nine children, Murray characterized his childhood self as something of a troublemaker. During high school, he worked as a caddy at a gold course in order to pay for his tuition to attend Loyola Academy. Murray then attended Regis College in Denver to major in pre-med, however, he was forced to drop out in after being arrested for attempting to smuggle four and a half kilos of marijuana through Chicago’s O’Hare Airport. After being convicted and sentenced to probation, Murray decided to join his brother, Brian Doyle-Murray, as a member of Chicago’s improvisational comedy group, The Second City.

In 1973, Murray was recruited by John Belushi to be a member of the cast for the New York City based radio show, National Lampoon Hour. While performing in an Off Broadway version of the show in 1984, Murray was noticed by ABC sportscaster, Howard Cosell and subsequently offered a job as a featured cast member on ABC’s Saturday Night Live with Howard Cosell. Due to the show being cancelled after one season, NBC’s Lorne Michaels decided to offer Murray a spot on the season 2 cast of SNL as a replacement for the departed Chevy Chase, to which Murray happily accepted.

 

Studio 8H

Murray’s first season on SNL was mostly characterized by the amount of backlash he received from fans for being the man who was replacing Chevy. This combination of resentment that Murray felt from fans and the general distaste for Chevy among the remaining original cast led to one of the lesser known moments in SNL history: the backstage brawl between Bill Murray and Chevy Chase (click here to read more). One of Murray’s best SNL sketches was actually in direct response to fans’ comparisons between himself and Chevy.

Bill Murray’s Apology Video

Over the course of Murray’s four seasons at SNL he developed a reputation for his trademark style of insincere and sometime sleazy character acting. One notorious example of this was when he hosted a spoof of the game show Family Feud.

Family Feud Video

In 1980, Murray decided to leave SNL to focus on furthering his acting career and pursuing opportunities as a screenwriter and director.

 

Outside Work

After leaving SNL, Murray starred in several cult classic films, such as Caddyshack in 1980 and Ghostbusters in 1984, as well as the film adaptation of the musical, Little Shop of Horrors in 1986. Murray’s first major, independent success came in 1993 with the release of Groundhog Day.

Murray also received wide critical acclaim for his 2003 film, Lost in Translation, which was the first film that saw Murray break away from his usual comedic persona in favor of a more sophisticated, subtle type of performance (plus he got to work with Scarlett Johansson, so there’s that).

Some of Murray’s other notable films include: Stripes in 1981, Scrooged in 1988, Kingpin in 1996, Space Jam in 1996, Rushmore in 1998, The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou in 2004, Broken Flowers in 2005, Zombieland in 2009, Hyde Park on Hudson in 2012, and The Grand Budapest Hotel in 2014.

 

Opinion

Even though his work on SNL wasn’t as good as some of the other early cast members, Bill Murray was definitely one of the best actors to ever come out of Studio 8H. I personally enjoy Murray’s film acting far more than the likes of Chevy Chase (take that Chevy). It seems like Murray’s talent has only continued to improve with his age, which is obviously evident by the fact that at sixty-four years old he’s still more than relevant. However, if you do disagree with me and think that Bill Murray is just an average actor, I would just like you to know that you’re wrong. I mean, the man was in Space Jam for God’s sake.

Bill Murray gif

 

Dan Aykroyd: Seasons 1-4

dan_aykroyd

Before SNL

Dan Aykroyd was born in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada on July 1, 1952. (Fun Fact: He was born with the medical condition known as Syndactyly, which means webbed toes.) During his childhood, Aykroyd attended Catholic school with the hopes of one day becoming a priest. However, Aykroyd began to reconsider his chosen career path when he earned a spot on the cast of Lorne Michael’s CBC television show, The Hart and Lorne Terrific Hour.

After deciding not to join the priesthood, Aykroyd enrolled at Carleton University where he studied criminology and sociology. Aykroyd never completed his studies at Carleton, instead opting to pursue his comedy career on a full time basis. In 1973, Aykroyd became a cast member of both the Toronto based affiliate and the main Chicago branch of the famous comedy group, The Second City. And then in 1975, Aykroyd’s former boss, Lorne Michaels, called him and offered him a spot as a cast member on his new show called Saturday Night Live. Thankfully for all of us, Aykroyd gladly accepted it.

 

Studio 8H

Due to his fantastic skill with sketch comedy, Aykroyd quickly became one of the more prominent cast members in the first few episodes of SNL. During the show’s second season, guest host Eric Idle (one of the members of Monty Python) characterized Aykroyd as a flawless character actor and writer. One of Aykroyd’s most famous characters was Georg Festrunk, one half of the infamous Czechoslovakian duo more commonly known as Two Wild and Crazy Guys.

Two Wild and Crazy Guys Video

Aykroyd was also known for his ability to perform spot on impressions of celebrities and for his stint as a co-host of Weekend Update with cast member Jane Curtin.

Point Counterpoint Video

Although he was beloved by many SNL fans and won a Primetime Emmy in 1977 for his writing on the show, Aykroyd decided to leave the show in 1979 to pursue a film career.

 

Outside Work

After leaving SNL, Aykroyd worked with longtime friend, John Belushi on a number of movies, most notably The Blues Brothers in 1980, before Belushi’s death in 1982. In 1993 Aykroyd starred in the comedy Trading Places with SNL cast member, Eddie Murphy.

In 1984, Aykroyd teamed up with fellow, former SNL cast member, Bill Murray and Second City alum, Harold Ramis to star in the cult classic, Ghostbusters.

Aykroyd also starred in several other notable films, such as Driving Miss Daisy in 1989, Coneheads in 1993, Tommy Boy in 1995, Antz in 1998, and Behind the Candelabra in 2013.

 

Opinion

Dan Aykroyd was a master at coming up with borderline absurd character concepts that are essentially the bread and butter of sketch comedy. Just the fact that Eric Idle said that he thought Aykroyd had what it took to be a python is an incredible credit to the talent that he possessed (if you don’t know who Monty Python is then shame on you). His use of character acting is what helped to influence the crazy and memorable characters created by other SNL cast members, such as Mike Myers, Dana Carvey, and Will Ferrell.

Aykroyd gif