best male african-american saturday night live cast member

Some of the worst ever cast members have been black. I waited for Finesse Mitchell to do one thing funny, it never happened, RIP. Never liked Tim Meadows (Ladie's Man --> painful) and even Chris Rock annoyed me on the show whereas I like his standup.

I love Kenan Thompson

i saw a finesse stand-up dvd at blockbuster yesterday but didn't get it. i'm voting tracy.

after being a pretty rabid all that/kenan and kel fan in my childhood, it was pretty shocking to me the first time i ever saw kenan on snl.

i never saw kenan and kel!

Going from SNL for kids to SNL for grownups shockah. xp

he's been forgotten but Garrett Morris had his moments

"I LIEK A WOMAN W/A BIG BUTT"

"BEISBOL HAB BEEN BERY BERY GUD TO ME"

sorta sterotypical I guess but no worse than Eddie Murphy's shtick

Garrett Morris in "Bad Clams" was one of my favorite things ever

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QpnZ7yMY6fE

Going from SNL for kids to SNL for grownups shockah. xp

-- The Reverend, Sunday, December 30, 2007 4:53 PM (23 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

you're implying that all that was actually funny?

Eddie because borscht belt gumby is unfuckwithable. i actually liked Chris Rock on there, though I remember thinking Nat X was being wasted on that audience. glad he moved on quick.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QpnZ7yMY6fE

they sound kinda like silkworm

When writing something about Jerry Minor's crappy sitcom on ABC recently, I made a reference to "the Finesse Mitchell Memorial Underused Black SNL Cast Members Hall Of Fame." I'd say Dean Edwards is the one who got the least chance to make any impression at all (in fact, the only clear memory of him I have of him is his introduction in the opening credits).

It's often said that Chris Rock didn't get enough screentime and only became a star because of his post-SNL standup career, but he was one of my favorite cast members at the time so I didn't think of him as underused at all, although I could be wrong.

Kenan Thompson is hilarious sometimes but post-Finesse he's been forced into the Frank Caliendo Syndrome of constantly impersonating celebrities that he weights at least 100 pounds more than.

I'll probably vote for Tracy. Maybe Eddie.

i've never heard of dean edwards unfortunately. finesse mitchell I don't remember making me laugh but i got nothing against him. he looks a lot like derek fisher, perhaps something could have been made of that. we'll never know now.

you're implying that all that was actually funny?

-- J0rdan S., Sunday, December 30, 2007 3:18 PM (41 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

Oh, as if you didn't eat that shit up when you were 8.

Garrett Morris' SNL skit where he auditions for the prison play by singing "I wanna get me a shotgun and kill all the whiteys I see!" is absolutely classic.

oh wow, I had completely forgotten about that!

but are you sure he was auditioning for a play? I thought he was like, up in front of the parole board or something

no, it was a play being put on by prison authorities

"Porky & Bess" also classic

dammit, I really wish NBC weren't so incredibly uptight about the whole Youtube thing, because I feel like the absence of old SNL sketches is the only thing keeping that site from being a comprehensive record of all popular culture since the mid 70s.

no, it was a play being put on by prison authorities

Yep.

eddie, for 'ebony & ivory' and for 'hot tub'. i love tracy morgan in 30 Rock, tho have not seen any of his SNL stuff.

Garrett Morris' SNL skit where he auditions for the prison play by singing "I wanna get me a shotgun and kill all the whiteys I see!" is absolutely classic.

This was awesome - wasn't peter cook the director?

Oh, as if you didn't eat that shit up when you were 8.

-- The Reverend, Sunday, December 30, 2007 6:01 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Link

that's the point!!! i didn't think being a genius at making 8-year-olds laugh would translate into making 38-year-olds laugh.

Eddie for basically every second he was on camera. Then Tracy.

Finesse did a funny 50 Cent in a Punk'd sketch

I always liked Tim Meadows, I'm going to write a page of affirmations in the hope of him getting a job on 30 Rock

Eddie carried the show for those lean years, Chris Rock became far more important afterward('96-onward, incl. the Chris Rock Show & how it lead to Pootie Tang).

Garret was criminally underused. Damon got fired too quickly. Tim Meadows was awesome in "Dewey Cox"

I have no recollection of Minor or Edwards.

I think Kenan is ridiculously great on this, and somewhat underused.

But, umm, yeah, I'd say this show has a long-running problem with using (male) black cast members: there are times when it feels like they get used strictly for racial humor / "black jokes." Which seems like it's due to identity issues on the show's part. For one thing, the show's original identity-making heyday was during this brief period when you could do black/white racial humor in a broad sense that's unthinkable today, this weird period where people could half-believe in broad racial stereotypes and still think themselves edgy and progressive about it.* (And for another, a lot of the show's style later on seemed to revolve around taking a cheesy whitebread scenario and messing with it, and they seem bad at realizing that black men can be a part of cheesy whitebread scenarios like "ordinary dinner party" or whatever.)

* = I don't know how to describe this right, but it's basically Pryor's career, isn't it? Moving through that period of race humor and then having some earnest moment where he calls bullshit on it and tries to push onward.

Eddie for basically every second he was on camera. Then Tracy.

This is basically the truth, though Brian Fellow's Safari Planet may actually be the best recurring skit in all of SNL history.

nabisco I think that's more true of eddie murphy than pryor, he blasted the stereotypes into shreds, once you saw him imitate a white guy imitating a black guy on that edgy/progressive liberal pose no longer worked.

speaking of prison routines the eddie murphy riff I always remember was the prisoner poetry reading.

kill my landlord
kill my landlord
(pauses and glares into camera)
C-I-L MY LANDLORD

For one thing, the show's original identity-making heyday was during this brief period when you could do black/white racial humor in a broad sense that's unthinkable today, this weird period where people could half-believe in broad racial stereotypes and still think themselves edgy and progressive about it.

i wish i thought this period was over but http://www.image.realityreel.com/2007/04/13/mencia.jpg

The best thing Eddie Murphy ever did was the short film "White Like Eddie" that he showed when he came back as a host in 1984. Killed.

I remember Jerry Minor being funny on some Update sketches, and was disappointed that he didn't return. Rock had his moments (Nat X, Luther Campbell), but was way underused. Ditto Damon Wayans who could have saved the horrific '85-'86 season (as could have Danitra Vance -- anyone remember "That Black Girl"?) had he gotten more screen time.

Yeah I guess there have only been, what, 4 female african-american (counting Maya Rudolph, who's half Jewish) SNL cast members, including Yvonne Hudson and Ellen Cleghorne. If they were part of this poll I might've voted for MR.

Yeah I would put Maya ahead of Tracy. She's brilliant, but she's seemed bored for years now.

Can't wait for that hilarious Obama imitation from Darrell Hammond.

i love maya rudolph but i have never actually laughed at her once ever

eddie gets this

i love maya rudolph but i have never actually laughed at her once ever

o_O seriously?

yeah im pretty sure

maybe once at her and fred armisen as the weird scandinavian couple

shes always kind of arch and not really willing to make herself look goofy for the sake of a joke

Can't wait for that hilarious Obama imitation from Darrell Hammond.

-- Pleasant Plains, Monday, December 31, 2007 11:54 AM (50 seconds ago) Bookmark Link

haha we should really do a thread about SNL blackface impressions (best: DH's Jesse Jackson, worst: Jimmy Fallon's Chris Rock).

also if anything Maya Rudolph is TOO willing to make herself look goofy (esp. my favorite musical bits, like her doing the Star Spangled Banner, or the Seals & Croft bit in the Grease skit).

i dunno maybe im just thinking compared to amy uglyface poehler

Can't wait for that hilarious Obama imitation from Darrell Hammond.

-- Pleasant Plains, Monday, December 31, 2007 11:54 AM (11 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

http://www.stereohyped.com/obamarama-57-20070831/

that's kind of nice, i'd like to see Kenan drop some weight anyway and avoid the usual tragic SNL fatguy Belushi/Farley trajectory.

plus I guess the writer's strike is buying him some time to lose the weight on a more reasonable schedule.

amy uglyface poehler

haha SNL HOTT = real world ugly

even Kristen Wiig outside the context of the show looks like a horse

Maya Rudolph could probably work up a better impression of Obama than Kenan.

The thing with Wiig is that 90% of her characters/mannerisms mostly involve this weird ability she has to retract her chin and turn herself into a chinless goon.

I'd like to see all of Eddie Murphy's Death of Buckwheat sketches put back to back including the follow ups they did over the next few episodes where they are showing Buckwheat on surveillance camera doing cocaine with hookers and go and interview people from the hometown of the shooter "oh yeah, he said he was wanting to earn extra money so he could go shoot Buckwheat". Joe Piscopo does a pretty good Ted Koppel imitation in the main Buckwheat being shot part.

I bet if you add in the sketches of Murphy as Buckwheat before he was shot, that it would almost be an hour long. Parts of those sketches have been put back out, but I have not seen some of them since they originally aired.

The footage of Buckwheat being shot repeated over and over still amuses me. Even the guy running into the foreground, sticking out his tongue. One of the best examples of repeating something so many times it's funny that other shows haven't handled well.

Eddie v. Garrett is just impossible.

I'd go with Eddie. He did more than scream out his lines while acting like his neck was broken.

The Buckwheat assassination episode was my very first exposure to SNL, and even staying up that late at the age of 9 or whatever it was made me realize that there were whole other worlds of tv and comedy that I knew absolutely nothing about. I didn't start staying up late and watching regularly until about '86 or so, though, when Hartman and Lovitz and all that crew came on board.

SNL hasn't been funny in over a decade

finally, a voice of inanity

no more inane than the paint huffers that think sketches that run way too long, nondescript cast members, and poor writing is entertaining.

Actually I'll go one further and say for the last decade or so, the show has caused me to wince.

Next poll should be Best Male Whatever Ethnicity Fred Armisen Is Cast Member.

fun bit: the Arsenio cameo in the assassination vid

Some amount of popularity is "Finesse Mitchell" having in the U.S.?

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Kenan was robbed

kenan started out bad though, the last two years are just now canceling that shit out. thread results pretty otm. would still love a brief on jerry minor and dean edwards?

debra wilson and aries spears pwn all these people. except for eddie. eddie is god.

i kinda feel bad for tim meadows

i got mad cleghorne luv though

http://www.ny-entertainment.com/new/headshots/cleghorneEllen.jpg

i feel bad that tim meadows was not born a funny man.

Tim Meadows has always worked better as a utilitarian player. His star characters are uniformly awful.

ten years will find tim meadows performing as the ladies man at 8 dinner shows a week at a lesser vegas casino, y/n?

Who is the private voter of "Finesse Mitchell!" Someone is feeeling like a dildo.

debra wilson and aries spears pwn all these people. except for eddie. eddie is god.

so so so so so wrong

I didn't really like Aries Spears until I saw this.

Jerry Minor: cruelly named

I have never given much thought to the existence of Tim Meadows but, in his defense, he was brilliant in a recent episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm.

Because he's Low-Key Workhorse Meadows, Mr. "I spent like 40 years on SNL being reliably funny but never getting noticed enough to either catch your attention or annoy you"

even Kristen Wiig outside the context of the show looks like a horse

-- wanko ergo sum, Monday, December 31, 2007 11:12 AM

rong

1. tim meadows is great
2. i like tracy morgan and all but there's no way he should have been so close to eddie murphy

hey, every poll is subject to the whims of the voting time frame, and he's got a lot of "30 Rock" goodwill right now.

i'm seeing First Sunday tonight, my review will probably hinge on whether or not it could've been a Tracy Jordan movie

the ads suggest he's not in his car, so ...

The female poll, btw, should be won by Danitra Vance, tho they didn't have a clue what to do with her.

I hope if 30 Rock does get canceled, Lorne Michaels franchises a string of Tracy Jordan movies. I'll be first in line for Honky Grandma Be Trippin'.

About This Video
Kenan Thomspon interviews Andy Samberg at PAPER... (more)
Added: October 08, 2007
Kenan Thomspon interviews Andy Samberg at PAPER's Un-Hollywood Film Series party. They discuss, among other things, LeBron James, Kanye West and how Andy is going to snort some Skyy Vodka off Kenan's dong. (less)
Added: October 08, 2007

Maya Rudolph really rubs me the wrong way for some reason.

Johnny Gill will rub you the right way