Saturday Night Live has served as the launching point for many careers in the five decades that it’s graced American TV screens (and now the UK). If it hadn’t been for the long-running sketch comedy series, we might never have been exposed to Chevy Chase, Bill Murray, Eddie Murphy, Adam Sandler, and countless others. But not all future comedy stars are created equal, which is why some only had brief associations with the show before finding success elsewhere. Here are a few who had such short SNL runs that you probably didn’t even know they were cast members.
4. GILBERT GOTTFRIED
Gilbert Gottfried had the misfortune of landing SNL after Lorne Michaels and the original cast had already left the show. He lasted just 12 episodes and had issues with the writers the entire time. In one sketch, to prove how much they hated Gottfried, they cast him as a corpse lying in a casket—without any lines, of course.
3. BEN STILLER
Lorne Michaels hired Ben Stiller as a featured player in 1989 after seeing a short film he had submitted that parodied The Color of Money. Stiller was more interested in directing at that time and knew he wasn’t a good live performer. He quit after only four episodes, but returned to host the show a couple of years later and has made many appearances in the years since.
2. LAURIE METCALF
Roseanne star Laurie Metcalf spent what she called “a whirlwind five days” in New York in preparation for her debut on SNL in 1981. As a test, she appeared in a pre-taped Weekend Update segment that was ultimately cut. Metcalf later said that it was a relief not to become a regular cast member because of how stressful she found live TV.
1. CATHERINE O’HARA
While on break from SCTV in the early 1980s, Catherine O’Hara was asked to join the cast of SNL and promptly said yes. When she got word that SCTV had gotten picked up for another season, she ultimately decided to quit SNL without ever appearing in a single episode. In the end, she felt that everything worked out as it should have because her best friend from high school, Robin Duke, took the spot that she would’ve had on the show.
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