The best ‘SNL’ player ever? We’re putting it to a vote.
ries newsletter for reminders on when each round of voting starts at globe.com/snlshowdown.) We’ve chosen 64 contenders — out of the 160 or so cast members since the show’s 1975 premiere — and placed them in an NCAA-style “March Madness” bracket. It will be a clown-off, and the layout of faces will likely trigger mahvelous, wild and crazy memories of catch phrases past. Isn’t that special? After six rounds of voting, and tawking amongst yourselves, we’ll declare a winner on May 16.
As the truism has it, your votes will probably be guided by your age and which particular “SNL” cast was on the air when you were an impressionable teen. I’ve heard baby boomers complain that all of the newer casts since the first — all of them! — are inferior and don’t hold a candle to their Beloved Belushi and their Most Awesome Aykroyd. And I’ve seen younger people roll their eyes at that kind of thinking because of course Will Ferrell — or Kristen Wiig or Kate McKinnon — is the finest of them all. Partly, the tendency toward your high school faves is nostalgia for your own “good old days” and what imprinted on you then, and partly it’s because comics often speak directly to their own generation’s issues and tastes.
Naturally, then, the comments on our “SNL” bracket stories will likely include dismissals of super-talented cast members and cries that the show is not what it used to be, that it lost its countercultural cred long ago. Bashing “SNL” and its cast is a regular feature of the “SNL” phenomenon at this point, and the show would truly be in trouble if that attention, negative as it is, ended. “SNL” is, by definition, a game of chance. The reality is that “SNL” has been uneven from the start — don’t forget to stock up on Red Bull if you rewatch season one — and it’s best approached as a gamble. Sometimes you win a good laugh, and sometimes you lose a few minutes of your life to boredom and cringe. It’s all part of the pleasure of watching a live TV show at a time when, aside from sports, awards shows, and news, live TV is dead.
Diminish “SNL” and its cast at your own peril; it’s hard to overstate the role that they have played in pop culture since the 1975 premiere. The show has created many stars, and they have dominated TV and the movies for years, including the likes of Bill Murray, Eddie Murphy, Chris Rock, and Mike Myers. Some of the most celebrated TV shows of recent decades are from “SNL” stars, including Tina Fey’s “30 Rock,” Jason Sudeikis’s “Ted Lasso,” Julia Louis-Dreyfus’s “Veep,” Bill Hader’s “Barry,” Amy Poehler’s “Parks and Recreation,” and Fred Armisen’s “Portlandia.” In late night, Jimmy Fallon, Seth Meyers, and one-time “SNL” writer Conan O’Brien have been staples. Oh, and the show also spawned at least one senator, Al Franken, who was good enough, and smart enough, but doggone it, people didn’t like that photo.
So who will it be? I suspect you already know which players you’ll be getting behind; I’m still working mine out. I like surprises.