Scot Bertram

Every now and then in Saturday Night Live history, you have these seasons in which an older, established cast is on their way out, and a newer cast is on their way in. They cross paths for maybe a year or two, and looking back, it is hard to believe all these people were on the same cast at the same time.

This certainly happened in Season 16, when the established cast of Phil Hartman, Dana Carvey, Jan Hooks, Victoria Jackson, Jon Lovitz, Mike Myers and Nora Dunn began welcoming new faces like Chris Farley, Chris Rock, Rob Schneider, David Spade, and Adam Sandler.

But it happens on an even wider scale in Season 31, when the established cast of Amy Poehler, Seth Meyers, Tina Fey, Maya Rudolph, Rachel Dratch, Horatio Sanz and others begin working in some names that would become legends in SNL lore. Will Forte, Fred Armisen, and Kenan Thompson had joined the cast a couple of years before, but Season 31 sees the introduction of Andy Samberg, Bill Hader, and Kristen Wiig (with writer Jason Sudeikis having joined the cast in the last three episodes of Season 30.)

One would think these two casts passing like ships in the night would make for an all-time great season. But while we can look back in retrospect and realize the talent was there, it took a little while for the new cast members to get their footing. Further, some of the older cast members were either already working on other projects or, like Fey and Rudolph, missed chunks of the season to have babies.

That said, the season is an improvement over the prior three post-Will Ferrell years. The sketches get sillier and more creative, and Samberg’s Digital Shorts inject the show with much-needed adrenaline (see: Samberg’s “Lazy Sunday” in Episode Nine, which changed the course of the show forever.)

The show also stepped up its musical guests, with SNL favorites like Pearl Jam, Prince, Paul Simon, and Neil Young showing up to perform. And the show brought on first-time hosts like Steve Carell, Jason Lee, Peter Sarsgaard and former cast member Julia Louis-Dreyfus, which brought up the quality of the season.

We discuss all these things, plus a lot more in this episode of Wasn’t That Special. Please subscribe and join us for a trip through every year of SNL. And consider joining at the Executive Producer level, where you get a whole load of extra commentary and clips that will help you become an SNL expert.