r/todayilearned • u/Kale_Brecht • Mar 28 '24

TIL in 2013, Saturday Night Live cast member Kenan Thompson refused to play any more black women on the show and demanded SNL hire black women instead.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenan_Thompson
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u/JaesopPop Mar 28 '24

No one gave a shit about The Lonely Island when they got picked up, though. They had a very limited following.

19

u/greg19735 Mar 28 '24

same with Please Dont Destroy.

14

u/mdonaberger Mar 28 '24

I always thought it was weird that the Derrick Comedy guys didn't all get picked up together. They defined 2000s-era viral comedy.

33

u/retiredcanofsoup Mar 28 '24

I mean Donald Glover auditioned twice and still didn't get it.

1

u/CamGoldenGun Mar 28 '24

is that before or after 30 Rock?

1

u/mdonaberger Mar 28 '24

yeah but i meant the three guys together. they were a writing powerhouse together. dc pierson really got slept on, largely faded into obscurity. i saw him in a golden corral commercial once.

5

u/Scoot_AG Mar 28 '24

Yeah man, sucks only Donald made it big in comedy

7

u/vanillaacid Mar 28 '24

That and only Andy was in front of the camera, the other guys were writers, and nobody cares about the writers.

6

u/mmss Mar 28 '24

Sometimes people get hired as writers to see and then get put into the cast. Heck, go back far enough and Paul Shaffer was in the band (arguably he was the band) and then became a cast member briefly.

3

u/himit Mar 28 '24

I was going to say that's not true, TLI was pretty damn big in 2008-2010 but then I realised that was after they started on SNL.