We're back and it's season 6! As is typical we've assembled a group to draft the nominees we will discuss this coming season. Join jD, Matt, and Thomas as they get together to build season 6!

Transcript:

[0:00 ] Thank you, Doug Donance. It's JD here, and I am thrilled to be back in the SNL Hall of Fame. Let me see if my key works, but before I do that, I'll wipe my feet. The SNL Hall of Fame is a weekly affair where each episode we take a deep dive into the career of a former cast member, host, musical guest, or writer, and add them to the ballot for your consideration. Consideration once the nominees have been announced we turn to you the listener to vote for the most deserving and help determined who will be enshrined for perpetuity in the hall and that's how we play the game it's just that simple but you know what behind the scenes folks it's not that simple because we have to curate a list of who we are going to discuss every season and we found the most fun way to achieve that is with a draft and we're going to do that again this year before we explain the rules i want to introduce the other two drafteteers they are your friends and mine matt ardill and thomas santa how are you doing fellas hello jd good Good to see you. Hey, J.D., great thanks.

[1:28 ] That's a little inside baseball there, Thomas.

[1:33 ] So, Thomas, do you want to go through the intricate rules of the draft? You are the master of the draft, after all. All right, sure thing. So, this is the third season, I think, that we've done a draft and had a draft episode. So, there's parameters. So the three of us, we each get five picks. So 15 total, we each get five picks. We each have to pick two cast members. We each have to pick one host.

[2:05 ] We each have to pick a musical guest or a writer, and then we have the wild card. We can do whatever the heck we want with this, as long as it's a cast member, host, musical guest, or writer. But we have the wild card there. So that adds up to five picks each, 15 total, and I have in my hand a coaster that I'm going to flip. I'm going to give either JD or Matt the first pick. Uh so i want matt to call heads or tails matt uh tails tails it is so matt ardeal gets the first pick uh jd you get the second pick and i'll i'll round things out and get the last pick that's how the draft is working today folks um okay well i think for my first draft pick i am going to go with Garrett Morris aside from being an original cast member he's a Juilliard trained performer he can sing, dance, act the entire Nine Yards he just has incredible chops.

[3:16 ] Amazing sketches or bits like the White Guild Relief Fund impressions of Chubby Checker that he did with Carrie Fisher first appearance of a Marvel character as ant-man um that's right and uh you know i i watched this one interview where he was talking about death row follies and it's like it was really interesting he was talking about how he was with harry belafonte's band and they were just chatting and he's like so the entire process was lauren just had an idea for a sketch and sent them off to write he didn't give him any direction It's like you're on death row, you're performing. And he's he went back to this memory. He's talking about how the core of improv is drawing from your experiences. He went back to this memory of talking to Harry Belafonte, band member who had watched an old like 1950s TV show. And if you remember the sketch, his bit is I'm going to get me a shotgun and kill all the whitest I see. And he's like well that actually originated from this old 1950s this is your life type of show where this woman had written over 300 songs and they brought her up from the audience and sat her down to interview her and.

[4:32 ] Kind of of how the song went but she was a white woman from the south and uh so you can imagine how that was so he took it and flipped it and used that for comedy and it's just like you know it just brings so brought so much to the table and i feel like out of the original cast he's one of those people who just is is not given as much respect or acknowledgement as he's due and And I think it's his time to shine. JD, so this is Garrett's one of the last remaining original cast members that we have yet to discuss. This is exciting. What do you think, Jamie?

[5:13 ] Yeah, I'm excited that we're kicking it off with an old school, an original seven. Is it seven? Right, it was seven. Do we count George Coe and Michael O'Donohue? Oh, no, I'm not. The core. I'm talking about the core. It's almost the same as the NHL where they have the original six, but there was errors before that had eight teams, you know, but whatever I digress, I think it's a great pick. I think it's an exciting pick for a show like ours. I know that he will be a tent pool, a tent pole rather in terms of episodes, you've probably noticed in the past that we, we stack, front stack and back stack with more high-profile performers or nominees, and Garrett Morris will certainly be one of those. That being said... I don't see him as a first ballot Hall of Famer. Lorraine Newman didn't make it in on the first ballot. And I can't imagine him doing better than Lorraine Newman.

[6:18 ] Because I think, based on a time and place, he was critically misused. Yes. You know? He was the epitome of, you know, the South Park gag, the token, right? It almost smacks you in the face because you don't see him ever. And then when you do see him, it's like there's flashes of brilliance, like you were mentioning that. So I anticipate him going in, but not as a first ballot Hall of Famer. Yeah, there's not as much meat on the bone as far as his resume as a lot of cast members, but not necessarily his fault. Which i'll be interested to see if what if the voters may take that into account or anything but definitely you know a beloved original cast member i think this is uh this is an interesting um choice that makes sense for for an episode for us yeah i i think so i'm going to start with somebody who just really epitomizes my experience with snl in the last 12 years i would say I started watching this performer and I didn't like him that much unless he was with this other guy.

[7:40 ] And then I started to like them as a duo.

[7:44 ] And then I really saw that this next nominee was outshining not only his comedic partner, but several other male cast members. And I'm talking about Beck Bennett, who just recently became eligible for the Hall of Fame. So that may hurt his chances of getting in right away. But i think he's versatile i think he's the kind of guy and i know we overuse this statement but you ask him to do anything and he'll do it you know like he doesn't know an impression you know what he'll put it together in a week it's like that old school mentality yeah i don't know how to do a putin impression oh i know what i'll do i'll take off my shirt you know and and sound vaguely russian you know but it was one of my favorite reoccurring characters and i think one of the last sketches he did i might be wrong but it's a solo sketch with him as vin diesel yep that was his and that was the last sketch of of the of the night right yep yeah the onya taylor joy episode yeah that's right i just got such a kick out i got such a kick out of it so it was like Like, I sound so old when I say that, but I am. So there you go. By the time you're hearing this, I'm 50. I'm 50.

[9:11 ] So that's my pick. Matt, what do you think? I agree. I think that's an awesome pick. I've always felt he's one of those performers that really grew on me. The longer he was on screen, the more I saw him. And yeah, I think I think that's a terrific choice. Also, he's he's in DuckTales. So, you know, I can't fault him there, you know, like.

[9:37 ] Talented man of many many talents so if you ever want to hear a fantastic episode of it's a great podcast it's a stand-up comedian that hosts it there i'm narrowing it down substantially aren't i uh and it's got um he used to be in the hbo show called crashing oh pete homes pete homes yes Yes, he has a podcast, and he interviews Beck Bennett on an episode. Sorry, folks, for that previous ramble. That was very riveting podcasting, I know. But at any rate, he is featured on this episode of the podcast, and it's a long-form interview. It's like a three-hour interview, but they get into it. And he was a multimillionaire when he signed to go work at Saturday Night Live on the basis of those insurance company commercials he was doing with the kids. Oh, wow. I don't know if you ever saw that campaign, but it was a national campaign in the US and he booked it. And it became a reoccurring thing. And by the time it reoccurred for the fifth time, they signed him for six figures to do it. Oh, jeez.

[10:49 ] And pete holmes pulls that out of him like afterwards he's so mortified because pete holmes like is like he's like would you get like 50k he's like no he's like 200k he's like oh i don't really want to talk about it like 750k it's like okay it was a million dollars.

[11:10 ] I digress on the insurance commercials yeah yeah it was it was uh their telephone phone commercials telephone commercials yeah he had a group of kids and he was almost like the moderator and ask kids questions or whatever and so when he got hired to snl i was like oh that's the guy from the commercials so i had already known his face and i'm like i didn't know he did comedy and he's on snl now that's gonna be interesting he turned into like a steady hand he turned into like like basically almost the rock of the show like he and keenan we're almost like the steady hand rocks of of the of that era of snl i'm excited about talking about back, Yeah, it's going to be a great episode, I suspect. Who do you have f