What? You don't think they each brought more to the show than Dana Carvey, who didn't crack the top ten?

I really wish I hadn't seen that list. It may have ruined Valentines Day.

Will Farrell not in the top 10 is by far the worst ranking on that lolist

Will Farrell is easily my #1. Bill Murry post-SNL wins all. But on the show, Farrell was the elite of the elite.

I'm gonna read it again and do a running commentary.

What's the criteria here? RDJ was a fart in the wind on SNL, but he's a massive massive star. He's dead last. If he's dead last how is Jenny Slate 75th? She did nothing buy say the F word on SNL, but has a little noteriety in the indie and web world now. So they can't be factoring in post SNL work there, can they?

Including the Muppets - they are so proud of themselves for that.

Norm so low is hilarious. just an instant credibility loss.

Jim Breuer wasn't the best, but Goatboy and Pesci alone are top 100 worthy easy.

Was Sarah Silverman in 10 sketches total? As a writer im pretty sure she had 1 sketch make it to air in the 10 to 1 spot. Did she do much more on SNL than RDJ to earn 40 spots?

Good lord did Bobby Moynahan get screwed. He's the worst of the current crop? He's on par with everyone on the show, imo. He's one of the most used dudes in the cast and has been for the last 5 years... but John Milhiser and Noah Wells are better? They of 1 season and 8 combined sketches?

Cheri Oteri and Chris Kattan were really annoying actors... but 94th and 95th? That's insane. Hate all you want, you can't discredit some of their character work. It's funny they're lumped as "The Zimmermans," who i don't even recall.

Ah yes, the new kids... including some old kids who didn't last a year. Colin Jost and Michael Che are higher on this list than Bobby Moynahan. Aidy Bryant who gets about as much screen time as anyone gets lumped in with Tim Robinson (who i liked) WTF is the thought process on this list?!

Abby Elliot is funnier than her dad? Quick! remember one thing Abby Elliot did. I think she did a Zoey Deshanel and Kardashian impression maybe?

Jenny Slate at 75... again, can't stress enough how funny this is.

Brooks Wheelan at 73? How was he not lumped in with the new kids?
Their reasoning - Raised 10 bonus notches for his Twitter joke when he got the ax: "Fired from New York, it's Saturday night!" - this isn't even worded well, and it's not funny. Also, ten notches, so they had him at 83 without that gold tweet? For what, his appearance on WU and that sketch where he played an exterminator that just said "Oh my god?!" His best sketch was being the butt of a joke, playing himself on a game show with celebrities.

Again, Michaela Watkins and Casey Wilson are on tv now, but they did NOTHING on the show and got canned after a year or 2.

Kevin Nealon is higher than 59. Hans and Frans suck, but the dude was a good WU anchor

There's no way Paul Shaffer was ever funny, let alone top 60 funny.

Jay Pharoah sucks and im sick of people thinking otherwise. I know he does good impressions, but he's never become the person to me, and he's failed miserably doing anything else.

Nasim Pedrad was there for 5 years and had 0 memorable characters yet she's higher than Tracy Morgan (Astronaut Jones and Brian Fellow) and Will Forte (about 50 great sketches?) Yeah, she's cute...

Darryl Hammond and Tim Meadows, the consummate SNL professionals. Here's your pity spots in the top 50.

There's no way Elaine Benes was a top 50 SNL castmember. No one ever talks about her time there.

Vanessa Bayer is so overrated. Just so so damn overrared. She's never even been the 3rd best female on her cast.

Don Pardo and Lorne Michaels should have definitely been on this list. Pat yourself on the shoulder Rolling Stone, you clowns.

How was Seth Myers better than Norm? I liked him, but how was he even better than Fallon? He was a failed featured player and basically copied Jimmy's style.

I'm actually glad Sudekis is top 30 b/c i feel like he was always overshadowed.

Chris Rock at 21 is high comedy. He might be the worst of the super famous alum

Maya Rudolph is extremely overrated, might be the most overrated. Think back to her run on SNL... no one was really talking about Maya Rudolph. In fact, who talked about Maya Rudolph period before Bridesmaids? When she hosted and played all her famous characters (Donatella, Whitney Houston) they tried so hard to get the audience involved and all i could think was "these are not memorable characters."

Farley is top 10 not 15

People hate Kristen Wigg but she's perfect at 14

Hader is top 5 not 13. He is a legendary SNL castmember. Best of the post Ferrel bunch. Speaking of...

Will Ferrell at 12?! are you insane? The lowest Will Ferrell should conceivably be is 4th and im only saying that b/c i wouldn't be mad at Hartman/Carvey and one of Belushi (bs) or Murphy from the old timers.

Carvey 11, this is infuriating

Chevy in 2 seasons > Will Ferrell. He did Gerald Ford as Chevy Chase. Will Ferrell toured as GWB

I'll want to say Gilda Radner seemed insanely unfunny, but ill just let the old timers have that one b/c i feel bad. But nothing i saw from that group has aged all that well. respect your elders and blah blah

Amy Poehler is great... but her SNL days were decent. She's definitely not top 10.

Phil Hartman at 7 is worse than Norm in the 130s

Everyone loves Tina Fey... Tina Fey is not the 3rd best castmember of all friggin time. I would not be mad if she was 10th, but 3rd? stop. she did WU and Sarah Palin. That's like saying a DH is the best baseball player of all time. I know she was head writer, but ask most people and they'll tell you they hated her era... b/c that's what people say about every era of SNL

John Belushi isn't funny. I don't care how funny he was when your 68 year old father was in college, that comedy hasn't aged well. I don't care if he originated the show, if his movies were revolutionary, etc. His comedy never hit me. Marx Brothers are timelessly funny, John Belushi isn't. Picking him for #1 is such a friggin "look at me, i know what im talking about" move. So predictable and ridiculous.

I'm mad

Without digging deep into what you wrote, I will say that I think I agree with pretty much all of it. Especially Belushi.

My impressions looking at the top 20:

People who are way too high
Fey
Poehler
Dratch
Rudolph

Norm so low is laughable obv. It's just an abortion of a list all the way around.

Yeah, I don't think I agree with one of them. But the more I look at it the more I get annoyed.

And also, the more I realize just how much of this show that I've seen. It was like the Seinfeld finale. I knew I watched a lot of it, but I knew every single character they brought back.

Do people hate Kristen Wiig? I don't, she's one of my all time favorite cast members.

Also, why is Hartman at 7 bad, too low or too high? That one seems pretty accurate to me.

Farrell should def be top 5.

I mean, ****, you can make a legitimate argument for Hartman being #1.

Phil Hartman is probably the GOAT SNL castmember, and you'd probably get that answer from everyone who worked on the show. the guy was a rock. Will Ferrell would probably get a lot of that praise as well.

That article was pure clickbait bull**** with a heavy dose of RS-style too-cool-for-the-roomness. Throwing some big names into the bottom 5 just to get people to notice and keep reading is so formulaic.

Anybody catch the replay of S1E1 they had on last night? Most of my viewing of early SNL had been the condensed eps on VH1 or whatever, so it was definitely weird seeing an early episode the way it aired (although I passed out kinda early). Really short cold-open with Chevy Chase just kinda wandering onto the set at the end to say "Live from New York..." No individual intros for the cast, with Pardo ****ing up and calling them the "Not for ready prime time players." Carlin randomly coming on between sketches to do quick stand-up bits. Two musical guests, with Billy Preston doing a song like 15 mins into the show.

I didn't feel like it held up as well as I expected, but it was still a lot of fun to watch. Enjoyed the first musical performance. Really liked the courtroom sketch, but it would've been better if Gilda Radner didn't ham it up so much on the punchline.

Gilda Radner looked like she hammed it up everytime she spoke... may she rest in peace

SNL should have all the actors come out tonight wearing a nametag with their Rolling Stone rank on them, and make a bit around it. Have Bobby Moynahan come out and get mocked for being 98th or whatever by a bunch of greats who then realize they're rankings are also laughable.

I love Vanessa Bayer. The "not even third best" statement is obviously wrong. She's third right now at worst behind Mckinnon and Strong, and that's not a slight at Bayer, those two are stars.

She was second in her early years to Kristen Wiig, who is obv one of the GOATs. Maybe you have her third in those years behind Nasim Pedrad? But like you said in the rant, aside from being cute, she wasn't special.

(Lil blaster was great though).

Maybe i'm forgetting castmembers because idk who else you have in there over her.

Miley and Jacob characters alone put Bayer above Pedrad, she's just good.

I enjoyed the rest of your rant very much though.

Lil Blaster was completely outshined by Sudekis and Ass Dan. RIP.

I hate Vanessa Bayer's face. I mean, even I'll admit that's unfair, i just can't stand her "im gonna open my mouth really wide to show my weird gummy smile" characters, which is almost everything she does. I don't find her aesthetically pleasing to look at - again, i know, unfair. Jacob is the worst recurring character they have, imo. he's basically the only thing on the show that I instantly Fast Forward at this point. She's great in the pornstar sketch, I'll give her that. I don't even care to remember her other stuff. Miley was a solid impression.

and ok, to be fair, she came onto the scene when the show had no women at all, and was almost instantly jumped by Kate McKinnon.

I don't even love Aidy Bryant, but I'd rather see her than Vanessa Bayer.

While I'm being a total chauvinistic prick, i might as well comment that Bayer is playing the best friend character to Amy Schumer in the new movie "Train Wreck." That might be the most boring, least attractive female duo to ever lead a major romantic comedy.

ok /hate of Vanessa Bayer

Nice breakdown of the list Conz.

I love Chris Rock, and I even really liked the Nat X character. He has one of my favorite lines of all time (I've seen better actin' in tough actin' Tinactin), but putting him at #21 based solely on his SNL work? That is beyond absurd, and just further discredits this disaster of a list. I cannot think of any possible justification for him being anywhere near that high.

Pretty sure Ass Dan is Bobby Moynihan. RIP (1981-2010).

Never Forget.

Fwiw, I misread what I quoted above as "Sudekis as Ass Dan". Now that I'm reading it properly my comment makes no sense.

I stopped reading at "Robert Downey Jr. is a comic genius".

man they aren't messing around with this anniversary show, they invited everyone from Steve Gutenberg to the Backstreet Boys... seems like they may have literally invited every castmember, host, and musical guest ever. could that be?

Watching the pre show. Everyone seems so honored and thankful to be there. But Eddie Murphy came off like we were all so lucky he's there.

fan favorite sketch of the 90s features a powerhouse performance from #13something Norm McDonald

That doesn't surprise me in the least. I think we, the audience, are lucky he's there. Not so much the special itself though. I never thought he'd show, even after finding out that he scheduled to appear.

god i hope Norm comments on Rolling Stone

There are going to be a couple of really awesome mash up sketches spanning several generations, aren't there?