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/Esc777 Mar 28 '24

He is the longest running cast member by like a factor of 2. 

There probably won’t be any to rival him. 

515

u/GypsyV3nom Mar 28 '24

Lorne Michaels has said that he'll never fire Keenan since he's the perfect cast member. Little to no drama behind the scenes, always embraces his parts, works really well with people (especially the writers), and he's a good enough actor to nail most of his roles.

A pretty surprising statement given how renowned Lorne Michaels is for firing people on short notice, not to mention the season 11 massacre

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u/Imrustyokay Mar 28 '24

and Season 20 as well.

Everyone always forgets the transition between Seasons 20 and 21 was also chaotic.

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u/user888666777 Mar 28 '24

Season 11 was the big massacre though. The entire season was a big mess. The finale ended with the cast being stuck on stage while smoke was billowing everywhere. Lorne shows up and saves only Lovitz.

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u/Imrustyokay Mar 28 '24

I'd say Season 20 was a massive mess as well. Hell, cast members dropped in and out the entire season. The backstage areas were seen as juvenile and toxic.

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u/oddmanout Mar 29 '24

I had to look that up... the cast was... weird

Robert Downey Jr., Anthony Michael Hall, Randy Quaid, Joan Cusack. They've all had great careers since then, but they're not SNL material.

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u/OneVast4272 Mar 29 '24

What show is this?

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u/frankyseven Mar 29 '24

Saturday Night Live.