Saturday Night Live Season 23 Reviews - Cast Rankings

The cast of season 23 from best to worst

I always feel the need to point this out but I ask the question of whether or not I would save them from a fire, obviously I don't want to wish anyone any harm and would hope all of them escaped a fire.  But if Billy Martin was gonna burn down Studio 8H and I saw him lighting the match, who would I make sure to safely tuck in my limo until the flames died down?

Will Ferrell

 
MVP: Rudy Giuliani, Nathan Lane, Sarah Michelle Gellar, John Goodman, Roma Downey, Garth Brooks, Julianne Moore, Matthew Broderick, David Duchovny

I've already mentioned this before but I was so upset when the show fired Norm MacDonald.  If it weren't for Will Ferrell, I would probably stop watching.  I'm not gonna tune in every week to see what Darrell Hammond comes up with but Will Ferrell is just a friggin' funny guy.  He also works in pretty much any situation.  You need something for the cold open?  Have Will play the Unabomber.  You need some help in the monologue?  Have Will be filming a porno backstage and Roma Downey comes to stop it.  Need a commercial pitchman?  Here's the Xerox Assjet 790.  The only misses on his resume this season were The Spartan Cheerleaders and The Roxbury Guys who had already run out of steam.
Best Moment
One of my least favorite things on SNL is when sketches fall apart and everyone starts laughing.  That rule does not apply to Donkey Riding Political Talk Show.  This sketch was a train wreck waiting to happen as Will, Ana, Darrell and Tim sit on top of donkeys and talk about the state of the news media while arrows fly, prospectors run by and stagecoaches are robbed.  Almost immediately, Tim falls off his donkey and things get worse from there but Will keeps the craziness together with his commitment even when saying lines like, "Mr. Apples is a cantankerous old cuss".
Worst Moment
A lot of Will's ideas are weird but most are good weird, some are just weird, like Jim Halsey's Truck Driving Museum.  I keep going back and forth on this one.  On one hand, Steve Buscemi is awkwardly standing next to Will as he talks about a truck but he's also getting all the laughs.  If it weren't for Steve, the piece would tank.  So, it's funny but nothing Will is doing is eliciting laughs.

Would I save him from a fire?
Absolutely no question.  The biggest star the show had at the point.

Norm MacDonald

MVP: Sylvester Stallone, Matthew Perry, Jon Lovitz

Before he was fired from Update, Norm not only brought joy to me for 7 minutes per episode with his weekly segment but also did some quality sketch work with bits like Accident from the Sylvester Stallone episode or Late Night from the Jon Lovitz episode.  Sketch appearances were rare but always good.  Then he got fired and made a few appearances where he either didn't give a shit or comically didn't give a shit.  In hindsight, it's probably a good thing he left.  His comedy is almost the exact opposite from the show around him so Weekend Update never quite felt like part of the show.  And the fact that he got fired makes it cooler than if he left the show on his own terms or just left at the end of the season.  He got the chance to be the underdog rebel rather than just fade out.  Now he's an icon.
Best Moment
He was behind some of my favorite sketches of the first half of the season like Accident, Barry Scheck's Home, Late Show and Jeopardy but my favorite individual moment comes from the Sarah Michelle Gellar Monologue where he comes out, gets a huge amount of applause and then turns to them to say "I gotta do this skit now".  Just a funny moment that also adds as a pretty great "FU" to the guys that fired him by showing that he just doesn't give a fuck.
Worst Moment
One of his last appearances came in the Garth Brooks episode, playing a game show host in Who's More Grizzled?, a sketch he obviously wrote.  He did get a meta moment out when Garth told him he didn't much care for him and Norm fired back, "A lot of people don't", but it was one of the few times where I could imagine a sketch working better with someone else in that part.

Would I save him from a fire?
If I could...

Molly Shannon

MVP: Brendan Fraser, Scott Wolf

Lorne Michaels seems to like his archetypes, hiring people that fit the mold of someone that came previously.  There's no doubt in my mind that he saw Molly as his Gilda.  She was the crazy lady who wasn't afraid of throwing herself in to the wall of the set for a laugh.  There were moments this season where I really didn't like Molly, like Good Morning With Liza or Xena Warrior Princess but I always respected how she was doing what she was doing, even if I didn't like that she was doing it.  For instance, I sighed every time Mary Katharine Gallagher slid into a sketch.  I knew all the beats by heart at this point and nothing the Catholic school girl did could surprise me.  Sure enough though, every time a Mary Katharine Gallagher sketch would end, I would think to myself, "Damn, she's good".
Best Moment
She had a lot of good moments this season.  Mary Katharine Gallagher was still a fan favorite, The Delicious Dish always got some laughs and she scored a topical political impression with her Monica Lewinsky but my favorite individual moment came from the Roma Downey Monologue when the host came upon her drunk and messed up on drugs.  After she sees the light of God she attempts to fly away, apparently those drugs were really strong.
Worst Moment
Not only did I not like Helen Madden from Pretty Living but I had to see her 3 times.  She's a licensed joyologist who says "I love it.  I love it.  I love it".  This is a character Molly seems to like doing but not only is it repetitive but it always feels sloppy somehow.  She will kick her legs in the air or ramble too long that will throw off the rhythm and it just seems unrehearsed.

Would I save her from a fire?
Yes.  My only complaint is that she goes to the same well too often but there's only been a few ladies better than her at this point.

Tim Meadows

MVP: Chris Farley, Greg Kinnear

It took Tim 8 seasons of making jokes that he's not on the show that much to finally get a recurring character.  This season he finally scored a hit with Leon Phelps and Tim would ride it for all it was worth, bringing it back 6 times this season.  As much as I hate recurring characters, The Ladies Man always got a laugh out of me.  He didn't anchor many sketches but was a very solid supporting player.
Best Moment
Tim was a great guy to have on your bench and he proved that the best in Name That Dog from the Greg Kinnear episode.  A very stupid sketch that should have been very stupid was made just absurd enough by Tim who decided to excitedly scream all of his lines.  He seemed to know exactly how stupid the sketch was and how to make it fun.
Worst Moment
Nothing made me more sad than watching Tim do a strip tease in two incarnations of The Robin Byrd Show trying anything to make it funny resulting in bending over and slapping his ass.

Would I save him from a fire?
Weirdly, yes.  Normally I would say after 8 years you can easily walk away but Tim is just hitting his stride.

Ana Gasteyer

MVP: Claire Danes, Helen Hunt

If Molly was the Gilda, Ana was the Jane.  She was the dry one who seemed to take comedy seriously.  She had the ability to be crazy and over the top but her humor was more based on getting into the character more than flailing her arms around.  I guess I'm saying she was a better actress than a comedian.
Best Moment
Her dry delivery was put to excellent use when it came to her Martha Stewart impression.  She nailed the "better than you and I know it" attitude of the character and her almost deadpan style made the absurdity of her lines even funnier.
Worst Moment
I thought Cinder Calhoun was just fine the first time I saw her.  The 2nd, 3rd and 4th time grew tiresome very quickly.  I actually liked some of her songs but not in a funny way, I just thought they were good songs.

Would I save her from a fire?
I guess.  I did like her on the show but I'm sure there is some just as funny waiting on deck.

Cheri Oteri

MVP: None

Cheri may not have had the most memorable characters but she had a lot of them.  The Cheerleaders, Judge Judy, Rita DelVecchio, Barbara Walters, Collette Reardon and Morning Latte were all kind of similar but had a nice energy.  After breaking out with a lot of characters in her first 2 seasons, I feel like we saw what Cheri could do pretty quickly.  It's not that I disliked her but as soon as I figured out that I was watching a Cheri Oteri sketch I knew exactly what to expect and I was never surprised.
Best Moment
While I wasn't a fan of either sketch where she played Maria, I could not help but laugh hysterically in Lou's Lovely Daughters when her accordion playing unibrowed daughter stared down the camera.
Worst Moment
Did we need to see The Robin Byrd Show three times?  I didn't like it the first time and it just kept getting more unbearable.  At least Cousin Fran only showed up once.

Would I save her from a fire?
I would leave this one up to her.  If she wanted to stay, I would be happy to have her.  If she wanted to leave, I would get over her pretty quickly.

Darrell Hammond

MVP: None

As the season went on I would keep forgetting Darrell was on the show.  Sometimes he would show up late in the show and I would think, "Oh yeah, is this the first time we've seen Darrell this episode?".  Then I would remember that Bill Clinton was in the cold open.  For some reason I don't associate his most memorable impressions with him.  It's almost as if Bill Clinton, Ted Koppel and Sean Connery were featured players for a couple years and Darrell Hammond would occasionally show up in a sketch.
Best Moment
Darrell Hammond saying anything as Ted Koppel makes me laugh so I loved the Nightline sketch where he ended up going on a date with Saddam Hussein.
Worst Moment
The Monday Night Football sketch where he played Frank Gifford talking about the game while also complaining about his marital situation seemed to go on forever and Darrell seemed more focused on the impression than the delivery of his jokes.

Would I save him from a fire?
You know, if it weren't for Bill Clinton, probably not.  If he left the only thing I can say I would miss out on would be the interplay between Sean Connery and Alex Trebek.  The political cold opens are never that memorable for me anyway so if they got someone else to play Clinton next year it wouldn't affect me much at all.

Chris Kattan

MVP: None

I think we saw all that Chris Kattan could offer fairly quickly and he just kept giving us more of it.
Best Moment
The only time I really remember him making me laugh was his Al Pacino impression at Larry King's Wedding Reception.
Worst Moment
Mango, Mango, Mango, Mango.  Did we need 4 Mangos?  There are recurring sketches and then there are repeating sketches.  Mango was the exact same sketch, every, single, time.

Would I save him from a fire?
Probably not.  So far in my recaps I've only watched a season and 5 episodes featuring Chris Kattan and I wish him well but I've seen enough.

Tracy Morgan

MVP: Samuel L. Jackson

I never thought I would think Tracy Morgan was hilarious.  I just assumed that he would last one or two seasons on the show and then move in with Beth Cahill and Siobhan Fallon in my brain as obscure SNL trivia.  He had not only a slow start but a clumsy start.  He would frequently fumble over words and appear lost in sketches.  Cut to 10 years later when someone realized that Tracy will say whatever you tell him to without a filter and he's a comic genius.  He was used sparingly on his 2nd season, even making a joke about it during a Weekend Update appearance.  We didn't see a lot of him and he wasn't that memorable either.
Best Moment
I really liked his chemistry with Samuel L. Jackson in the Titanic sketch where he and Jackson play two black guys aboard the sinking ship who are routinely told they will be saved after white people and their belongings.
Worst Moment
There were only a few I had to pick from because he only had a select number of sketches that showcased him.  I'll go with Dominican Lou as my least favorite Tracy moment this season.  It was a slow and sloppy Weekend Update piece.

Would I save him from a fire?
No.  Hindsight is 20/20 so of course knowing what I know now I would keep him around but just based on his first two seasons, I do not understand how he stuck around.

Jim Breuer

MVP: None

I was never a fan of Jim Breuer on SNL and this season, his last, gave us more of the same.  He trotted out Goat Boy and Joe Pesci again, introduced us to his heavy metal singer on Weekend Update and provided a lot of weed humor with Issues and his stoned Olympic skier.  Joe Pesci was the only character I ever saw him commit to, everyone else he would play with an attitude of hardly caring.
Best Moment
While he was not the best part of Stuff We Made with Steve Buscemi, he didn't do anything to derail the sketch.
Worst Moment
Here's a conundrum.  We're gonna do a sketch where Monica Lewinsky's lawyer interrupts a TV show.  Which TV show should we use?  Emeril Live!  Ok, now who should play Emeril?  Jim Breuer.  Can Jim do an impression that sounds or looks anything like Emeril?  Absolutely not, in fact, it's going to be embarrassing to put on live television.  Why don't we have someone else play the part, or change the show into something Jim can do since the joke is just that the lawyer is interrupting a TV show?  That last question was never asked and Jim Breuer played Emeril Lagasse in the John Goodman episode.

Would I save him from a fire?
Nope

Colin Quinn

MVP: None

Watching Colin on the first half of the season made me wonder, do I not like this guy because he's unfunny or am I harboring some resentment because I know he's going to replace Norm?  I had to think and long and hard, think back to how I felt in 1997.  I remember not knowing why Colin was on the show but I didn't hate him.  I didn't hate anything about SNL, it was my favorite show and it was great, even when it's terrible.  I didn't like him though and every time he appeared on Update I just thought he was taking away time from someone I would have enjoyed.  His longevity on the show always perplexed me.  They had David Koechner and they said, you know that guy who can only play characters with Brooklyn accents and only talks about how he's from Brooklyn or Ireland?  Better keep him around.
Best Moment
Honestly, there was nothing he did this season that I can honestly say I like but if I had to pick the best of the blah it would be his Matthew Perry impression in Friends where he plays Chandler Bing like an effeminate fop.  It wasn't hilarious but it also wasn't uncomfortable to watch.
Worst Moment
I could have lumped all his time on Update together but if we're talking about an individual moment that I can single out as the worst it would be his appearance as Elvis Costello in Set Our Nanny Free.  Colin stares down the camera awkwardly waiting for his cue then proceeds to not only not sound like Elvis Costello but also not sound like he's anywhere close to carrying a tune.

Would I save him from a fire?
Nope

Up Next
I am open to suggestions.  Here's a few that I want to do eventually, I'm just not sure which one I want to do next.  Season 24 but I don't think I can do 20 straight episodes of Colin Quinn Weekend Update just yet.  We lose Breuer and gain Jimmy Fallon, Chris Parnell and Horatio Sanz.  Season 26 is the first with Fallon and Fey anchoring Update and a season I only casually watched at the time because I took a break from the show as I headed off to college.  Season 29 is the first for Kenan Thompson and I am so curious what hit and miss for him in his first year.  Season 34 is Darrell Hammond's last season and I am curious to see how sparingly he was used.  I remember constantly being surprised that he was still there.  Then there's Season 6, just because.  I also want to do Season 14 to catch Ben Stiller's short time on the show.