29 Cast Members and Writers’ ‘Welcome to SNL’ Moment
“When I realized they were seriously trying me out as Biden on my first episode.”
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Saturday Night Live has to be the most “Look, Ma, I made it!” place to work in comedy. But considering what a self-deprecating bunch comedians (and especially comedy writers) can be, it’s no surprise that when they’re finally hired on SNL, it doesn’t immediately sink in as real. That moment of realization can strike at any time: For some alums, it happened on live TV; for others, backstage. Three cast members all pegged their “Holy shit” moment to working on the same exact sketch in 2009. For many, getting hired by Lorne Michaels wasn’t the moment, but hearing their name spoken aloud by announcer Don Pardo was. We asked dozens of writers and cast members who worked on the show across decades the following question: “What was your ‘Welcome to SNL’ moment — the first time you thought, Holy shit, this is my job?!” Here are 29 of those moments.
Read our complete SNL50 caucus here.
It sounds fake, but you never lose this feeling. For comedy fans like us, walking into the lobby of 30 Rock, the halls of the 17th floor, Studio 8H, is magical and panic-inducing, even many years later. —Akiva Schaffer
After my audition, the cast and crew went to the Paramount Hotel. Chris Rock said, “I think it’s going to be you.” I was cautiously hopeful, and then I got a call at five in the morning — because everything they do there is nocturnal from start to finish — and they told me I got the job. I called my father and mother, and my father was golfing in upstate New York, and I made the pro get him off the course so I could tell him. I waited on the phone for quite a while, and when he came on, I said, “Dad, I got the job!” And he yelled, “Dynamite! Hey, guys, my daughter’s gonna be on Saturday Night Live!” Then he said, “Love you, honey. I gotta go finish my golf game!” —Siobhan Fallon
When Al Franken chased me down a staircase and yelled, “Come back! You’re hired!” —Nora Dunn
The day Tom Davis and I arrived at 30 Rock, we went to an elevator bank to head up to the 17th floor. Mike O’Donoghue was waiting for the elevator. We said hi and told him we were a comedy team from Minnesota. Mike immediately asked, “How much are they paying you?” We were a little taken aback, but for some reason we told him. “We’re splitting $300 a week.” Mike scoffed and said, “I spend that much to shine my cat’s shoes.” —Al Franken
The moment I walked down the hallway on 17 and passed headshots of basically ever single person I looked up to in comedy ever staring back at me. It was terrifying and electrifying. And then every other day on the job. I also had a moment where I broke my wrist skateboarding in the hallway on 17 and trying to ollie onto a couch. I somehow felt connected to the mayhem of the original cast in that moment. The couch was so old it easily could have been one that Belushi slept on. Also: sleeping on all the shitty couches on 17 and showering in Lorne’s office. I felt like the original cast probably did that a lot, and it made me feel like I really worked there. —Jorma Taccone
Getting my photo taken for the opening credits. I’m there in the studio getting my picture taken, and the musical guest for my very first show was David Bowie. So the musical guests rehearse on Thursday afternoons, which just happened to be when my photo was being taken, and so right over there on the stage is David Bowie singing “Rebel Rebel” with his band. Mind-blowing moment — beyond the dream come true. Sure, the dream is to be getting your picture taken for the SNL credits, but who’s gonna think to throw David Bowie into their dream moment?! —Rachel Dratch
Meeting with Louie [Zakarian] in the makeup department to get a plastered cast made of my head. —Nasim Pedrad
When Don Pardo said my name. —Amy Poehler
First week, Wednesday night, my sketch gets picked, and I’m making the rounds of set design, wardrobe, hair, and makeup, and they’re all asking what I have in mind. I had nothing in my mind except terror. —Tim Herlihy
When I realized they were seriously trying me out as Biden on my first episode. —James Austin Johnson
On my very first show, I got a sketch on and ended up singing backup to Madonna. About three weeks prior, I was sleeping on a couch-bed in a Chicago living room. —Robert Smigel
Watching the stagehands drag three donkeys down the hallway towards 8H. —Lew Morton
During my first show, I was going to play Drake’s aunt in the monologue. A costume and wig was made for it, and we ran it during dress rehearsal. Lorne decided that if this was the first time the audience was going to see me on the show, I needed to look like myself, not dressed in an old-lady costume. So between dress and air, essentially 20 minutes, they pulled a dress from Cecily’s closet, sewed it to my body, redid my hair and makeup, and threw me onstage. It was thrilling to see how fast everyone can adjust to changes before and during the show, and that was my first taste of it. —Sasheer Zamata
I met Kristen Wiig years before I got the job, and told her that SNL was my dream. She tapped my forehead and said, “I’m giving you good vibes.” My first Saturday at the show, I told her that story, and she was very touched. A little later, Kenan was warming up the audience with a song right before the taping, and I’m standing in the back of 8H, already in disbelief, when I felt a tap on the back of my head. I looked up, and it was Kristen, who was already walking off. —Jon Rudnitsky
The first week I was there, I contributed one single joke to one single sketch. Tracy Morgan and Samuel L. Jackson were on the Titanic and wondering when they would be allowed to board the lifeboats. Will Ferrell was running around calling out evacuees: “All first-class passengers to the lifeboats! All second- and third-class passengers to the lifeboats. All pets!” And so on. My joke was “All empty lifeboats should now be placed into other lifeboats.” I went to the floor to watch it on-air, and Will said the line and people laughed. I felt like, Okay, if I get fired tomorrow, I can say I actually wrote for Saturday Night Live. Then after the show, in the credits, my name was spelled wrong. So the complete SNL ego roller coaster in my very first week. —Michael Schur
My first show, I performed my stand-up comedy at the “Weekend Update” desk — a movie review of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Everyone told me I killed immediately after. After the show, I went outside to my driver, and people behind the guard gates were screaming my name and taking pictures. I thought, Holy shit, I’m on SNL. —Finesse Mitchell
During my first episode, I was put in a sketch as an extra. I was a jogger dressed in a tracksuit who ran past Will Forte and stole his sandwich. I couldn’t believe I was writing for SNL, but then to be in the live show, the first one out of the gate, was mind-blowing. And no, I did not get to eat the sandwich. —John Lutz
My second episode was the Tim Robbins–Sinéad O’Connor episode. We were watching in the studio when she tore up the pope’s picture, and by the following morning, it was a giant story. —David Mandel
Coming up with the “Single Ladies” video Beyoncé sketch on a Monday in Kenan’s dressing room and then seeing it on Entertainment Weekly the next Monday. —Bobby Moynihan
I was hired after they were in production, so I landed and went straight to the table read from taking a red-eye — having received the news three hours prior. It was a whirlwind. The next morning, rehearsals started, and I was handed a makeup brush, and in the Beyoncé send-up of “Single Ladies,” I had to powder her face and then sit on Justin Timberlake’s lap. I thought I was in a fever dream. —Michaela Watkins
I had three Bruce Springsteen posters on the wall of my apartment in Hollywood. I flew to New York to be a two-week guest writer on SNL. My second week’s host was Tom Hanks, and they did the sketch I had written to apply to SNL called “The Guy Who Played Mr. Belvedere’s Fan Club.” The musical guest that week was Bruce Springsteen, and he was on the studio floor getting ready to play his first set right after my sketch was done, and I saw him laughing. Afterwards, Springsteen walked up to me and said, “Tom Hanks told me you wrote that Belvedere sketch. Good job!” And I was thinking, Best job I ever had. —Fred Wolf
I joined the show right around when 9/11 happened, so being there when Giuliani appeared alongside Paul Simon and the FDNY in the cold opening was pretty incredible. —Jeff Richards
Benedict Cumberbund hosted the show the week the Cubs won the World Series. And I’m from Chicago, so the week was already huge. I think it was early November, 2016, so it was maybe my fourth show. Four of the Cubs did a bit with Bill Murray on “Update,” and Dana Carvey did Church Lady. It was all very surreal. Then, during the “good night”s, as Benny Cumberland read off all their names and I looked around the studio, I thought of my little 10-year-old self and what he’d say, and I just started weeping. I was in the middle of a dream. I tried to stifle it, but it was pretty obvious. I hugged Cecily Strong, a fellow Chicagoan, who I knew back in our early improv days, and she noticed I was having that moment. She rubbed my shoulders and went, “Awwww, this pretty big for you, ay, bud?” —Alex Moffat
Considering I had been waiting on tables for five years leading up to SNL and no agent in Chicago would even consider representing me because of my country accent, depositing my first paycheck was a big one. It wouldn’t be a lot by today’s standards, but it was a lot to me back then. —Melanie Hutsell
On show days, you’d eat dinner upstairs in the NBC cafeteria. One Saturday early on, Eric Slovin, my friend and writing partner, and I found ourselves sitting with Don Pardo, the SNL announcer who’d been working in 30 Rock since the 1940s. —Leo Allen
For some reason, the moment where it really sank in for me was the first week when a bunch of writers and cast were at Del Frisco’s together, and as we were splitting the check, I was like, Holy shit, I’m doing co-worker things with people who work at Saturday Night Live. Just the mundanity of things made me starstruck. I would look at a pencil and be like, This pencil works at Saturday Night Live. I’d walk down the hallway and think, This floor is a famous floor. I was not cool. —Anna Drezen
I started as a guest guest writer, and I’m not prone to have “holy shit” moments, so it really was more of a slow gradient. —Julio Torres
On a Monday evening, I’m walking into 30 Rock, and I see Chris Farley pass me in the revolving door; he exits onto the plaza, I enter the building. I went to the Monday meeting, and bam! Michael Jordan was sitting in the host chair. You have entered the SNL vortex. —Ellen Cleghorne
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