The first episode of Saturday Night Live aired on October 11, 1975, and the venerable sketch show has gone on to launch almost as many catchphrases (“Sweatah weathah”) as comedy careers.
It may be a thoroughly New York production, but SNL owes plenty to the Golden State. There’s at least a hint of truth beneath the freeway-obsessed Angelenos whose interpersonal lives are chronicled in recurring episodes of The Californians, for one thing. For another, the University of California alums who’ve joined SNL’s cast and writers room over the years have each left indelible marks on the show, and on the legacy of American humor.
For the 50th anniversary of SNL’s debut, we’re highlighting our favorite performances by UC alumni.
Mikey Day
Mikey Day graduated from UCLA with a degree in theater in 2002. He started working in the writer’s room at SNL in 2013, and has been a cast member since 2016. That was the year he pitched a screwball skit casting Tom Hanks as David S. Pumpkins, the host of a haunted elevator ride, just in time for Halloween. It’s hard to tell underneath the makeup and foot-tall wig, but that’s Day on the left, as one of Hanks’s backup-dancing skeletons. (Day also appears in Short Film, one of our favorite skits written by UC Irvine alum and former co-head writer Chris Kelly.)
Will Forte
Will Forte grew up in the Bay Area before moving south for undergrad, earning a history degree from UCLA in 1993. After graduation, he went to work at a brokerage firm, but told Diablo magazine that the job made him “miserable.” He soon found his way to comedy — and you can’t help but wonder if his unhappy stint in finance had something to do with his performance as a spelling bee contestant who cannot, for the life of him, spell the word “business.”
Taran Killam
Taran Killam’s comedy debut came at age 11, with a ten-second role in the 1994 movie The Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult. He graduated from the Los Angeles High School for the Arts and studied theater at UCLA for a year before leaving to pursue his acting career. Killam played plenty of memorable characters during his six-year run at SNL, but we’re partial to a short sketch in which he and Tina Fey are gate agents announcing the increasingly absurd lineup of passengers invited to board a flight before the hapless souls of boarding group 2.
Jon Lovitz
Jon Lovitz earned a bachelor’s degree in theater from UC Irvine in 1979 before moving back home to Los Angeles to join the Groundlings, the West Coast comedy troupe that’s sent more than a dozen alums to SNL. Lovitz’s turn came in 1985, when he began his five-year run as a cast member in New York. His memorable recurring characters include Tommy Flanagan, the pathological liar, and the Master Thespian, an actor whose flair for dramatic pronouncements outshines his actual ability to deliver the right line.
Nasim Pedrad
As a theater kid growing up in Irvine, Nasim Pedrad looked up to SNL great Tina Fey. After earning a bachelor’s degree from UCLA, Pedrad caught Fey’s attention with her one-woman show, Me, Myself and Iran, which showcased her Iranian-American heritage. Fey encouraged Pedrad to audition for SNL, and Pedrad earned a spot on the cast from 2009-2014. Pedrad and Fey teamed up for Bedelia, a recurring bit about a high schooler in a loud dress who idolizes her mom.
Maya Rudolph
Before her seven-year run as an SNL cast member, Maya Rudolph earned her bachelor’s degree in photography from UC Santa Cruz. The daughter of singer Minnie Riperton and composer Richard Rudolph, Maya wove music into many of her best skits, including her impression of a woman who won her local “Anthem Idol” contest and earned a chance to perform the National Anthem at the 2006 World Series.
Andy Samberg
Andy Samberg attended UC Santa Cruz for two years, where he worked as a ticket-taker at the Del Mar Theater while studying film. He eventually graduated from NYU before joining the SNL cast for a seven-year run in 2005. Like his fellow UC Santa Cruz alum Maya Rudolph, Samberg’s SNL skits often involved catchy musical numbers. “Lazy Sunday,” his 2005 duet with Chris Parnell, narrates the lead-up to a matinee showing of the live-action remake of the Chronicles of Narnia.
Harry Shearer
Harry Shearer’s decades-long comedy career got started while he was studying political science at UCLA in the 1960s, where he edited the campus humor magazine, Satyr. In 1979, he joined SNL as a writer and cast member. Shearer quit the show after a season, and went on to co-create the heavy metal satire film This Is Spinal Tap, in which he played the hapless act’s bass guitarist, Derek Smalls. He and his Spinal Tap co-stars Christopher Guest and Michael McKean returned to SNL in 1984 for a sketch in which their characters are interviewed by a music journalist.
Are you a fan of Saturday Night Live? If so, don’t forget to tune in as SNL’s 51st season kicks off, live from New York, this Saturday night.
