Make An Argument
The NBC/SNL Connection
By Eric Hughes
January 11, 2012
BoxOfficeProphets.com

She's not nearly as nice as Oprah.
You can thank the wonderful Maya Rudolph for this week’s column. Or, come to think of it, you can thank the fine people behind the executive decision to bring her on as a principal cast member of Up All Night for this week’s column.

You see, Maya Rudolph has long been one of my favorite ladies of Saturday Night Live. Ana Gasteyer and Cheri Oteri and Molly Shannon are in that club in the sky, too. So when it was announced that Maya would be a series regular on an NBC laffer, I smiled. She, like the others I ticked off, deserves material until I say she doesn’t.

Consequently, or perhaps strangely, I haven’t paid much attention to Up All Night yet - I blame the mixed opinion it’s gotten - but that’s hardly my point here. My position, instead, is this: Maya Rudolph is back on TV. And it so happens to be through the same network that helped make her a name.

I’m with Jack Donaghy on this one: It’s wonderful synergy! It promotes the idea that SNL is a grooming area for bright, young comedians to get national exposure. And then to bank on that publicity - after their underlings put in a few years at the late-night staple, of course - NBC can go on and shoot them off to another program. Perhaps their own series, even.

Tell me what isn’t making sense with this.

As I came down from the Maya high, I realized Molly Shannon got her own show, too, just a few broadcast seasons back. A handful of years after her early ‘00s exit from SNL, Molly got paired up with Selma Blair, and the NBC folks called their cutesy little creation Kath & Kim. Well, the series was based on a popular, same-named Australian comedy, but the Aussies - and even us Americans - didn’t take kindly to the translation. It got cancelled in under a season.

So Molly Shannon got a series to play with seven years after her SNL exit, and then Maya Rudolph did the same in four. I then thought: Well, Tina Fey basically left SNL so she could go off and create 30 Rock. And there wasn’t much of a gap - under a year, in fact - between the time Amy Poehler hung up her SNL boots, had lunch with Mike Schur and started memorizing Parks and Recreation scripts.

NBC seems to do this synergy thing quite well, yes? Well sure, if SNL only populated itself with females.

In recent years, I’d argue the network has done a poor job in throwing some deserved work at its male players. Look: Conan O’Brien vacated his late night talk show nearly two years ago, so Jimmy Fallon - five years removed from SNL - stepped up. That’s one. And then there be Tracy Morgan, who landed steady work for five seasons (and counting) as the crass and obnoxious Tracy Jordan because Tina Fey is his friend and probably wrote a character just for him on 30 Rock.

And that’s it! I’m racking my brain but that’s it! Since 1995, Jim Breuer, Will Ferrell, Darrell Hammond, David Koechner, Chris Kattan, Chris Parnell, Colin Quinn, Horatio Sanz, Dean Edwards, Will Forte, Jerry Minor, Finesse Mitchell, Jeff Richards and Rob Riggle (arguably) have come and gone from SNL and then never appeared on NBC again.

Oh, you say, but that isn’t true! Why, Will Ferrell guest starred on The Office last season as Michael Scott’s temporary replacement, and then Will Forte’s done spots on 30 Rock and Parks and Recreation. And then Andy Samberg has done Parks, and Chris Parnell 30 Rock as the hilariously hopeless Dr. Spaceman.

Guest starring is all well and good, but ask any actor and they’ll tell you it isn’t the same as the steady paycheck series regular gives you. (Nor is it as good on the ego). NBC, then, simply hasn’t been as productive with its SNL men, and that really is a shame.

Now, if the males were all lame ducks, then the magic ends here and you can go on and read something else. But Chris Kattan was a series regular on ABC’s The Middle, Will Forte was a voice on Sit Down, Shut Up and is a voice on The Cleveland Show, Horatio Sanz was a cast mate on In the Motherhood and is a cast mate on Big Lake, Chris Parnell is on Suburgatory, Archer and Big Lake, and Fred Armisen - still on SNL - has drummed up good publicity for his IFC series, Portlandia. All series outside the NBC umbrella.

And the crazy thing about Portlandia is it's executively produced by Lorne Michaels. Yes, the same Lorne Michaels who has executively produced nearly every Saturday Night Live season since its inception!

I don’t get it either.

History, then, tells me out of Fred Armisen, Seth Meyers, Kenan Thompson, Bill Hader, Andy Samberg, Jason Sudeikis, Paul Brittain, Taran Killam and Jay Pharoah - all current SNL players - we may, we may, see Bill Hader guest star on Community as a crazed gym coach. But that’s just history talking; I don’t know for sure.

Seth Myers probably couldn’t shoulder his own comedy series, but could do what Jimmy Fallon’s doing on Late Night. And Fred Armisen, Bill Hader, Andy Samberg and Jason Sudeikis have been on SNL - collectively - longer than I’ve been alive, and I could see any of ‘em on their own show. And yet I’d probably sooner see them on a rival network than I would on NBC.

Just ask Casey Wilson, who did a far shorter stint on SNL for a year and a half, was let go and/or mutually left and then landed series regular on ABC’s Happy Endings.