Saturday Night Live Season 12 Reviews - Cast Rankings

I was looking at this cast photo that I found online and I kept wondering who was missing.  Surely there must have been more cast members than this.  Nope, 9 people is all the show needed to function properly and two of them barely appeared in sketches.  Compare that to today where roughly 15 people plus the host and occasionally the musical guest or a random celebrity cameo or alumni fight to get airtime in the roughly 10 produced sketches.  This is where I rank the cast from my favorite to my least favorite.  Starting with my season 11 recap I also started asking the question as to whether or not I would save them from a fire.  Obviously I would try to save any human being from a burning building but if I was setting ablaze to Studio 8H like Billy Martin did at the end of the Anthony Michael Hall season, who would I leap in to rescue and who would I get to saving if I had enough time.

Phil Hartman

MVPs: Malcolm Jamal Warner, Steve Guttenberg, Joe Montana, Valerie Bertenelli, Bill Murray

Any top 5 list of best SNL cast members needs to include Phil Hartman.  He never phoned in a performance, never winked at the camera and always got laughs even in thankless roles.  That's the thing that impresses me the most.  Hartman was one of the best straight men who ever lived.  You put him in a sketch as the waiter or the boss, you give him one line and he'll be the funniest part of the scene without stealing focus.  He was also a very giving actor.  He made everyone look good around him.
Best Moment: While I wasn't a fan of the sketch politically, Hartman gave an Emmy worthy performance as Ronald Reagan in Mastermind.  He switched between befuddled Reagan and brilliant Reagan at a lightning fast speed.
Worst Moment: Even in bad sketches I always appreciated Hartman's commitment and approach to a character.  The only time I found him lacking was in On Broadway where he played an actor taking on the role of The King Of Siam after Yul Brynner.  No real fault goes to Hartman, the sketch just seemed like a lazy improv sketch where you give someone a quirk and interview them.

Would I have saved him from the fire?: Oh yeah.  No questions asked.  If you were manufacturing an SNL cast member in a lab it should come out looking like Phil Hartman.

Dana Carvey

MVPs: Sigourney Weaver, Steve Martin, William Shatner, Bronson Pinchot, Garry Shandling

Nobody had more energy than Dana Carvey.  If Carvey was in a bad sketch he would do something to try to save it.  Even when I disagreed with the premise (Ching Change) I still kind of respected the effort.

Best Moment: If anyone broke out this year it would be Carvey.  He had numerous celebrity impressions that scored and he had The Church Lady which became a phenomenon.  There were many moments I had to pick from but I settled on his work in Star Trek V: The Restaurant Enterprise where he did double duty as both Khan, trying to get the restaurant cited for health code violations, and in an unseen voice over as Scotty down in the engine room.
Worst Moment: 4 words: Chicken Make Lousy Housepet.  I can not begin to understand how we got 4 incarnations of Ching Change, the Chinese man with a love for chickens and musical theater in Pet Chicken Shop.

Would I have saved him from the fire?: You'd be crazy not to.  He was the breakout performer of the cast this year.  I just recently watched the Hulu documentary "Too Funny To Fail: The Life & Death Of The Dana Carvey Show" and forgot just how big of a star he was when he left the show.  There was no doubt that Carvey was going to be the next big thing.  He could have had Jay Leno or Adam Sandler's career but instead rolled the dice on an absurd sketch show.

Jan Hooks

MVPs: Sam Kinison, Paul Shaffer, Charlton Heston, John Larroquette, Dennis Hopper

Jan Hooks may have been my first celebrity crush.  As a kid I remember loving her.  Not just because she was beautiful but because of how talented she was.  Her energy for life just floated to the surface and you saw that in every character she played.  Much like Hartman, she was terrific when she got all the laughs in a sketch but could also get laughs playing the straight woman.

Best Moment: Jan didn't break out immediately.  She started out as a dependable woman before becoming one of the best female cast members of all time.  Her only recurring character that took off this season was one of The Sweeney Sisters.  For her best moment I chose her chemistry with Bill Murray in One Night Stand.  Bill is getting all the laugh lines as a clueless slacker that refuses to leave after a drunken night but it's Jan that is the real star of the show reacting to his buffoonery and playing off him exquisitely.
Worst Moment: A character that didn't fire for me was the ditsy valley girl she played with Valerie Bertenelli in Let's Go To The Movies.  She was fun in the sketch but the two of them just talked over each other for 5 minutes and played with their hair.

Would I have saved her from the fire?: Absolutely.  She was the only woman on the show who has consistently bringing it in sketches.  You could build a sketch show around her if you wanted to.

Jon Lovitz

MVPs: Rosanna Arquette, Robin Williams, John Lithgow

Last year's breakout performer blended into the ensemble a tad this year.  He still had several memorable moments and continued his popular characters from last season.  Tommy Flanagan and Master Thespian made a few appearances but for the most part Lovitz stayed kinda quiet this year.  He still remained a valuable asset to the cast.  

Best Moment: For my money, the funniest Lovitz was all season was as the devil in The People's Court where Rosanna Arquette tries to sue him for a bad deal.  His deadpan, matter of fact delivery while he's dressed up in a cheap Halloween costume gets me every time.
Worst Moment: I know Lovitz liked to sing but I wish he discovered a better avenue for it than forcing it into a sketch.  We got two incarnations of The Jungle Room where Lovitz played a gangster who owned a nightclub.  The sketch seemed to only exist so Lovitz could sing a song and I couldn't have been more bored.  He also did the same thing with Nora Dunn in The Teeny Cafe sketch from the Garry Shandling episode.

Would I have saved him from the fire?: He was the initial person spared from the fire.  I would definitely keep him around for another season.  The dude is naturally funny.

Kevin Nealon

MVP: Mark Harmon

I'm not sure why Nealon was a featured player.  He had about as much airtime as anyone else.  I've never fully understood the structure to the cast, who is main cast and who is featuring, other than new people have to pay their dues before getting promoted.  Seeing as how everyone was new this season it doesn't make a lot of sense.  No matter, he gets promoted next season.  He stood out quite a bit this season.  While not as strong a sketch player as Hartman, Lovitz or Carvey, he was a very funny guy.

Best Moment: Nealon's best moments came when he was able to talk right to camera.  He had a few Update pieces and a couple of sketches revolving around him just talking to the audience.  My favorite was Automobile Club Of America where he taught us how to read a road map.  I'm sure this was a bit right out of his act but he made it fresh and funny enough that I didn't mind at all.
Worst Moment: Nobody came off well in Laramie Vice, a lame Miami Vice parody that was set in Wyoming.  Extra points off for having Nealon play a native American for no discernible reason.

Would I have saved him from the fire?: Yes.  There's no reason not to.  He wasn't the most versatile of performers but he excelled in playing the every man and the guy who is a little off.  Seeing as how many straight to camera pieces he got for himself makes me think he was prolific in the writer's room.

Victoria Jackson

MVP: Willie Nelson

Oh, Victoria Jackson.  Nobody knew in 1986 that she would become a crazy right wing conservative.  So let's just focus on what she did this season.  Not too much.  She was "the cute girl" of the cast.  You can really tell that Lorne was trying to recreate the same dynamics as the original cast.  Victoria was the Laraine Newman of the group.  She was fine but nobody really remembers Laraine Newman.

Best Moment: She never really stood out in sketches.  She either played the ditsy girl or the clueless girl.  Somebody is doing something crazy and Victoria is the one who questions the reality.  Every cast needs one.  Her best moments came from her pieces on Weekend Update where she would either show videos of her baby, stand on her head or, on one occasion, lay on the desk and use the segment as personal therapy.
Worst Moment: I didn't like anything about Salmon Spawning from the Mark Harmon episode.  She put on a fish head and flirted with Harmon's fish for 5 minutes.

Would I have saved her from the fire?: I guess.  She was low on the totem pole but she was reliable as the clueless girl in sketches and when asked to be funny she delivered.  I'm guessing she was not the best writer for herself, never really getting any characters that hit but focusing her energy more on her Update pieces.

Dennis Miller

MVP: None

Dennis manned the Update desk this season and did so admirably.  There's not much else I can say.  He did a good job.  He had a swagger about him that made him funny.  If jokes didn't land he saved them with delivery for the most part.  I mentioned in one of the episode recaps that he was going to fast and I think that was true as a whole.  I needed him to slow down a little bit to let the punchlines sink in.  The segment also lost something because I'm watching a topical joke segment 30 years after it was relevant.
Best Moment: No particular moment stands out for me so let's just lump all of Weekend Update together.  And why not?  He practically reinvented the segment.  I doubt it would still be around if it weren't for him.

Worst Moment: Miller didn't appear in many sketches and when he did he wasn't that good.  Nowhere was that more evident than Miss Connie's Fable Nook: The Adventures Of Koko, Mishu & Lebee.

Would I have saved him from the fire?: I suppose.  His act was fresh last season but I found myself checking my watch a lot during Update this year.  He was still consistent but I'm just watching this segment waiting for Norm MacDonald.

Nora Dunn

MVP: None

Nora Dunn was an adequate member of the SNL cast member.  She never did anything that I particularly liked but she also never stood out in that annoying Melanie Hutsell way.  She was fine, nothing great and not particularly funny.

Best Moment: I compare Dunn to Jane Curtin or Ann Risley.  She was an actress, not a comedienne.  She could hold her own on the stage but she's not really funny.  Her performances could be really good though, like her chemistry with Jan Hooks in The Sweeney Sisters.
Worst Moment: Of all her characters, including Pat Stevens, the one I disliked the most was Babette.  She was very one note and repetitive but one of the worst sketches of the year was in the Bronson Pinchot episode where his character from Beverly Hills Cop acted as her assistant.

Would I have saved her from the fire?: Probably not.  She didn't really add much to anything and I would have loved to see what Jan could do with another funny lady.  Nora was the only woman Jan got to play with.  The show was light on ladies until the Molly Shannon era.

A. Whitney Brown

MVP: None

A. Whitney Brown was kind of a cast member in name only.  He really only served to do his 'The big Picture' segments on Weekend Update, which we basically just topical political monologues.  These were fine but we got a little too many of them.  I like the Update correspondents to be a break from the norm.  Like, Dennis is telling a bunch of Reagan jokes and then Whitney comes out to talk about Reagan for 5 minutes.  I would prefer a character.

Best Moment: There isn't one The Big Picture segment that stands out as the best but it's really the only thing I can think to put here because...

Worst Moment: I started keeping a tally of the most thankless A. Whitney Brown roles.  He played a dumb guy in a rocking chair in a cold open but at least he got to say the sign on, he played a hoodlum who is quickly picked up by Superman in a sketch, he played a mute Iranian, an airplane passenger who gets tobacco spit all over him and two dead bodies.  If I had to pick the lowest moment it would probably be the second time he played a dead body in Collecting Evidence from the John Larroquette episode.

Would I have saved him from the fire?: There's really no need to.  I don't know what, if any, sketches he had a hand in writing but as far as being in front of the camera this was not the greatest avenue for him.  He would go on to greater success on The Daily Show which was probably a better fit.

Up Next
Unsure.  I don't have any seasons readily available so I have to decide based on what I can find.  My goal is to do season 16 because it was Chris Farley's first but I doubt I will be able to get my hands on an unedited version of the Steven Segal episode.  I'll do something and they'll be up soon.