Tuesday, December 27, 2011

Live from New York

Over the weekend I devoured the book Live From New York: An Uncensored History of Saturday Night Live, as Told By Its Stars, Writers and Guests. If you are a fan of SNL - I highly, highly recommend the book. I knew this before but the book cemented the notion that Lorne Michaels is a genius and the show never would have survived or prospered without him. Those that say otherwise are just jealous. Some nuggets gleaned from the book include the fact that Billy Crystal was supposed to be part of the original cast, Janeane Garofalo was a miserable self-entitled succubus on the show (all her excuses for her failure on the show were rendered moot by Tina Fey's success in almost the same circumstances - oh and Chevy Chase was a jerk.

For what it's worth - here are my Top 10 SNL Cast Members:

1. Eddie Murphy - I will not argue this
2. Dan Aykroyd - I give him the nod over Belushi just for longevity
3. John Belushi
4. Gilda Radner - people are forgetting how awesome she was
5. Phil Hartman
6. Bill Murray
7. Mike Myers
8. Chris Farley
9. Will Ferrell
10. (tie) Jimmy Fallon, Adam Sandler and Tina Fey

You could actually change the order of pretty much everybody after Eddie Murphy and I wouldn't complain too much.