Saturday Night Live Season 3 Reviews - Cast Rankings

The Cast Of SNL Season 3

From Best To Worst

Bill Murray

MVP

Hugh Hefner, Jill Clayburgh, Madeline Kahn, Buck Henry (2)

Best Moment

Bill provided the most laughs for me this season. Drinking a tall glass of Lake Eerie water, the waiter who doesn’t speak English in The Olympia Café, hosting a talk show in his shower, his chemistry with Gilda as one of the nerds, hosting Family Feud as Richard Dawson, and Nick, the lounge singer. There were a lot of moments I could pick as my favorite but it was his performance in Josh Ramsey, V.D. Counselor that stuck with me the most. His reaction to the burning sensation and his matter-of-fact delivery of “Boy, my penis sure hurts when I urinate” was one of the highlights of the season for me.

Worst Moment

While I never disliked a Bill Murray performance, he was in some crappy sketches. It’s just the law of averages, for every Wino Santa there is a Party Night. Bill and Laraine argue before going to a party. You can almost tell that Bill wishes he was in a funnier sketch with this one.

Would I Save Him From A Fire?

Absolutely. It’s hard to believe that he’s still considered the new guy at this point when he seems so seasoned.

Dan Aykroyd

MVP

Steve Martin (1), Charles Grodin, Ray Charles, Steve Martin (3), Robert Klein

Best Moment

Most of the best recurring characters of Season 3 came from Dan Aykroyd. The Coneheads, Irwin Mainway, E. Buzz Miller, The Brothers both Festunk and Blues. He was also always dependable as a commercial pitchman for things like PocketPal and Mohawk Master. My favorite Dan sketch this season were his two Tomorrow sketches where his Tom Snyder interviewed both Ray Charles and a battered husband who wants to remain anonymous.

Worst Moment

The few political sketches we got this season didn’t hold up 40 years later so Dan’s Jimmy Carter and Richard Nixon impressions never made me laugh. There were also the few dud sketches like Penalty Box and Sartskey & Hutch. The worst for Dan this season had to have been his stint as Weekend Update anchor. He seemed routinely bored during this segment and at sometimes looked like he was running out the clock.

Would I Save Him From A Fire?

Yes. If you kicked Dan off of Weekend Update he probably would have been my MVP of the season. I hated Weekend Update so much this season that it brought probably the strongest member of the cast down a peg.

Laraine Newman

MVP

Christopher Lee, Michael Sarrazin

Best Moment

If there is one cast member that surprised me the most this season it was Laraine Newman. I never considered her a valuable asset to the cast and just saw her as the girl who wasn’t Gilda or Jane. She had some really great moments this season and ended up being my MVP for two episodes, more than the other two women combined, albeit they were two of the worst episodes of the season. I liked her way more than I disliked her. She provided a good co-host to E. Buzz Miller, scored a couple of times on Weekend Update, and even though I disliked the sketches I thought she handled herself well in the two arguing couples sketches of Party Night and Pet Peeves. My favorite Laraine moment came from the Hugh Hefner episode early in the season where she played Katharine Hepburn in Sex In Cinema. It was the first time I took notice and realized that she actually had some really good comedic chops.

Worst Moment

There were the aforementioned Party Night and Pet Peeves, which were unfunny but Laraine’s performance was good. There were also the weaker of her Update segments or singing an aria to Mr. Mike. I didn’t like any of these but can’t point to her performances in them as the thing that didn’t work. The only time I felt bad for her was the cold open of the Hugh Hefner episode where she played a Playmate in a nude body suit in Playboy’s Party Jokes. She just pranced around and acted like she didn’t get the jokes she was telling and I couldn’t help but think that she was better than this.

Would I Save Her From A Fire?

Oddly, yes. I did not expect Laraine to rank so high when I started this season but she grew into somebody I kept wanting to see more from.

Gilda Radner

MVP

None

Best Moment

I’ve always considered Gilda to be one of the greats of SNL but this season was not a great display of her talents. She had a handful of classic bits, like Lisa Loopner, Dancing In The Dark, The Looking For Mr. Goodbar Sleepytime Play Set and the cold open where she read questions from the audience. She was a ball of energy when she was on stage which is fully on display with Judy Miller who we saw twice this season.

Worst Moment

It’s not that Gilda disappointed me this season, it’s just that she fell into the same hole that Kristen Wiig and Kate McKinnon would later stumble upon where all of her stuff got repeated too much. We got so many Roseanne Roseannadanna Update commentaries that I grew to find the character incredibly annoying. The same can be said for Emily Litella and, especially Baba Wawa. We saw her only twice this season but both times were the exact same bit we’ve already seen over and over again.  The worst of the two appearances came in the Christopher Lee episode where she attempted to correct her speech impediment with the help of Lee’s Henry Higgins. It was a terribly predictable sketch where you could see the punchline coming a mile away.

Would I Save Her From A Fire?

Yes. While there started to be a same-ness to her characters this season, she’s still a star and a delight to watch.

John Belushi

MVP

Chevy Chase, Michael Palin, Mary Kay Place, Steve Martin (2), Buck Henry (1), Miskel Spillman, Art Garfunkel

Best Moment

With more episode MVPs than anyone else in the cast, you would think John would rank higher.  While he wasn't my favorite he was clearly the biggest star on the show and used the most.  He also clearly had a reputation for being a fast living, drug using, party boy who would die young.  It may be sacrilegious of me to say but I’ve never been a big fan of John Belushi.  He seemed to be a fine actor and he had a good physicality, which was on great display in sketches like Little Chocolate Donuts and Great Moments In Rock And Roll when he played Roy Orbison, but I never found him to be the comedic genius that others did, although he was not without talent. My personal favorite Belushi moment this season was brief but came in the Richard Dreyfuss episode where he played Richard Dreyfuss in a clip from The Goodbye Girl on Weekend Update. We didn’t see impressions from John that much and this was a pleasant surprise that he had this in his repertoire.

Worst Moment

I got pretty tired of Samurai Futaba this season and The Olympia Café. I also started to zone out whenever he would rant on Weekend Update of to a host in their monologue. My least favorite were the two times we saw The Farbers. John and Gilda play an old Jewish couple that weren’t all that funny or interesting. The Farbers Chanukah was the worst of the two where they explain the story of The Maccabees to a gentile couple.

Would I Save Him From A Fire?

You know, if he wasn’t in this season I probably wouldn’t miss him that much. He had some good stuff but on the whole, he struck out more than he hit and there were times where he just seemed bored. He was probably itching to move on to other things anyway.

Garrett Morris

MVP

O.J. Simpson

Best Moment

I felt bad for Garrett this season. He was a good actor who could nail a joke in a sketch but he was used very sparingly. Every now and then he would show up in a sketch and I would think, “Oh yeah, Garrett Morris is on this show”. When he got moments to shine though, he could really deliver. One of the best moments of the season was his Tina Turner performance in Rock Concert from the Robert Klein episode. He absolutely rocked this. He also got some good laughs with his recurring Leon Spinx impression.

Worst Moment

I never really disliked Garrett in a sketch, but he was in a lot of bad sketches. His Weekend Update appearances ranged from forgettable to bad and usually seemed hastily written. He played Richard Pryor in one of my least favorite sketches of the year as well as Anwar Sadat in a political sketch I didn’t get. The worst was King where he played Martin Luther King talking to Bobby and John Kennedy. The sketch was unfunny and I felt bad that Garrett had to play such a great man in a sketch with no jokes or point.

Would I Save Him From A Fire?

It would take a couple episodes for you to realize he was gone. He definitely fit a place in the show that was necessary but you could probably find someone funnier. I'm not throwing shade at Garrett, he was a dependable sketch performer, I just felt bad that he wasn’t utilized well.

Jane Curtin

MVP

Richard Dreyfuss

Best Moment

Jane was a better actress than a comedian and when she was given something good she could deliver, like in Love Story where she and John played an elderly couple describing their affairs to each other. She played mostly straight characters but had the potential to be funny like when she played a fox in a Festrunk Brothers sketch or, my favorite, Tom Snyder’s mother in The David Susskind Show. This sketch made me upset that they didn’t give her more comedic roles.

Worst Moment

It’s gotta be Weekend Update. The reason I can say I dislike Jane Curtin is because every episode I would watch her tell bad jokes with no sense of comic timing. She played the segment completely straight, which gave us some fun moments when she would get angry with Emily Litella or Roseanne Roseannadanna, but for the most part it made the longest segment in the show the least funny.

Would I Save Her From A Fire?

She wouldn’t be high on my list. You could get a scarecrow to anchor Weekend Update with as much excitement. Honestly, if it weren’t for Update, she would probably rank higher here. She’s so dull and uninteresting there that it’s easy to overlook the fact that she could be funny.

Al Franken

MVP

None

Best Moment

Al is probably more considered a writer/guest performer for this season but The SNL Archives credits him as a featured player so I’ll include him here and point to The Franken And Davis Show where he told jokes despite having a deadly brain tumor as my favorite bit.

Worst Moment

Al showed up a couple of times on Weekend Update and in a few sketches outside of The Franken And Davis Show. One such sketch was Danger Probe from the Michael Palin episode where he played a bigoted bartender that helped John beat up some Victorian fops.

Would I Save Him From A Fire?

As long as he sticks to The Franken And Davis Show. I wasn’t a big fan of his outside sketch appearances.

Tom Davis

MVP

None

Best Moment

Tom was only used as an extra in sketches unless he was with his partner Al in The Franken And Davis Show. My favorite of Tom’s bits was when he choked at Jackie O’s Thanksgiving dinner.

Worst Moment

I liked all of The Franken And Davis Show bits but I gotta put something in this category so I’ll pick the one where he admitted his homosexual relationship with Al. It was the weakest of their segments and relied on a bit of gay panic for the joke to work.

Would I Save Him From A Fire?

I mean, he’s barely a cast member, so sure. These Franken And Davis Shows have been mostly fun pieces.