2025 Changes Are Part of a Pattern

As of the publish time of this story, four members of Saturday Night Live’s season 50 cast aren’t returning for season 51, which is set to begin Oct. 4. The departures of Heidi Gardner, Michael Longfellow, Emil Wakim and Devon Walker make for the largest cast turnover since 2022, when eight performers left.

It’s also far from unprecedented in SNL’s history — in fact, the show has rarely gone more than a few years without a significant overhaul of its cast. Over the half-century Saturday Night Live has been airing on NBC, cast shakeups have roiled the show numerous times, with some performers leaving of their own accord and others let go for a myriad of reasons ranging from budget cuts to a desire by SNL mastermind Lorne Michaels for fresh faces and perspectives.

“The cryptic hiring protocols extend to staying hired,” writes Susan Morrison in her biography of Michaels, Lorne: The Man Who Invented Saturday Night Live. “Cast and writers are supposed to be notified by July about whether they are being asked back. (Michaels has a rule about not making big decisions in June, when he is sick of everyone, and exhausted.) That date often slips by, with people not knowing their fates until Labor Day, a month before the season premiere.”

Those changes have often led to “Can SNL survive?” headlines, particularly when long-tenured or beloved castmembers left. The answer has been “yes” every time so far (see “on the air for half a century,” above). Here are some of the bigger changes in the show’s history, most of which happened during summer hiatuses.

1980

The first major change in SNL was arguably the most significant one: After the 1979-80 season, all of the remaining original Not Ready for Prime Time Players — Jane Curtin, Garrett Morris, Laraine Newman and Gilda Radner — left along with Bill Murray, who joined the show midway through the second season. Oh, and so did series creator and executive producer Lorne Michaels, who wanted to pursue other opportunities.

In the wake of Michaels’ and the former cast’s departure, the 1980-81 season was generally a mess, with the new ensemble unfavorably compared to the previous one and executive producer Jean Doumanian fired in March 1981. Dick Ebersol, then NBC’s vp late night programming, took over after that and would run SNL for four more seasons. While Joe Piscopo and a 19-year-old Eddie Murphy (who had his first lines three episodes into the season) broke out, Gilbert Gottfried, Ann Risley and Charles Rocket were let go along with Doumanian; Denny Dillon, Gail Matthius, Murphy and Piscopo were joined by Robin Duke, Tim Kazurinsky and Tony Rosato in the main cast for one episode before a writers strike prematurely (and maybe mercifully) ended the season in April 1981.

1984 Through 1986

Ebersol’s final year running SNL and Michaels’ return drove three consecutive seasons of big cast overhauls. Murphy, Piscopo, Duke, Kazurinsky and Brad Hall left or were let go after the 1983-84 season. The show’s 10th anniversary season in 1984-85 was handed mostly to a group of comedy veterans: Billy Crystal, Christopher Guest, Rich Hall, Harry Shearer (who left midway through the season), Martin Short and Pamela Stephenson joined returning players Jim Belushi, Mary Gross, Gary Kroeger and Julia Louis-Dreyfus.

Michaels returned to the show for season 11 in 1985-86 with a completely new cast. Crystal, Guest et al were out, replaced by a mostly younger ensemble of Joan Cusack, Robert Downey Jr., Nora Dunn, Anthony Michael Hall, Jon Lovitz, Dennis Miller, Randy Quaid, Terry Sweeney and Danitra Vance. Damon Wayans was a featured player for most of the season.

Despite the presence of several future stars, the season was considered a disaster — so much so that after another big shakeup the following summer, Madonna (who hosted the ’85-’86 season premiere) returned for a cold open sketch that said the previous season was all “a horrible, horrible dream.” Dunn, Lovitz, Miller and featured player A. Whitney Brown returned for season 12, joined by Dana Carvey, Phil Hartman, Jan Hooks, Victoria Jackson and featured player Kevin Nealon, beginning a relatively stable era on SNL.

1995

After a few years of incremental changes, as the Carvey-Hooks-Hartman-Mike Myers core gave way to the likes of Chris Farley, Adam Sandler, David Spade and Julia Sweeney, another wholesale change came with season 21 in 1995-96. Norm Macdonald, Mark McKinney, Tim Meadows, Molly Shannon and Spade were the only returnees from season 20, and nine actors — including Sandler, Farley and Nealon — left or were fired. Jim Breuer, Will Ferrell, Darrell Hammond, David Koechner, Cheri Oteri and Nancy Walls joined the main cast, while Chris Kattan and Colin Quinn were featured players. An influx of new writers (including Adam McKay, Paula Pell, Steve Higgins and Quinn) also came aboard. After a fitful start, this group — joined by Ana Gasteyer and Tracy Morgan the following season — would form the core of the cast for the next several years.

2006

Although most of the late ‘90s cast eventually moved on, the early 2000s were mostly a “Yes, and” time at SNL, to borrow the improv term. The departures of Ferrell, Shannon, Morgan and Jimmy Fallon were offset by additions like Tina Fey (who also was head writer for several seasons), Amy Poehler, Will Forte, Kenan Thompson, Kristen Wiig and Maya Rudolph.

 In 2006, though, Fey and Rachel Dratch left to work on Fey’s NBC comedy 30 Rock (Dratch was initially cast as Jenna Maroney, a role that eventually went to Jane Krakowski), and budget cuts led to Chris Parnell, Horatio Sanz and Finesse Mitchell being let go. The 11-person cast for season 32 in 2006-07 was the smallest in nine years.

2013 and 2014

In contrast to 2006, the biggest changes in season 39 made the cast larger. SNL added eight performers over the course of the season, ballooning the ensemble to 17 people. Seth Meyers left midway through the season to take over Late Night; the season’s newcomers were Beck Bennett, Colin Jost (a writer for several years before going in front of the camera), John Milhiser, Kyle Mooney, Mike O’Brien, Nöel Wells, Brooks Wheelan and Sasheer Zamata.

Not all of the changes took: Milhiser, Wells and Wheelen left after one season, and O’Brien, who had previously been a writer on the show, returned to the writers room. Nasim Pedrad also departed after season 39, and Pete Davidson, Michael Che and Leslie Jones joined the cast for season 40.

2022

After several relatively stable years and working through the worst stages of the COVID-19 pandemic (including several “SNL at Home” episodes in the spring of 2020), the last big cast shakeup before this year happened with season 48 in 2022-23. Aidy Bryant, Davidson, Kate McKinnon and Mooney all left at the end of season 47 in May 2022, and over the summer Alex Moffat, Chris Redd, Melissa Villaseñor and featured player Aristotle Athari also departed. Cecily Strong also left partway through the season. (It’s worth noting that season 47 had the largest ensemble in the show’s history, with 21 people.)

Walker, Longfellow, Molly Kearny and Marcello Hernández joined the show as featured players for season 48. Hernandez is the only member of that cohort still with the show.