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List of Saturday Night Live cast members

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 23, 2026
Entity authorityQ2941458 ↗
Source-derived summary

As of September 2026, the late-night live variety series Saturday Night Live (SNL) has featured 174 cast members. The ensemble was originally referred to as the Not Ready for Prime Time Players.

List

As of 2026, 174 comedians have served as cast members on the show. Sid Caesar is the only person to be named an honorary cast member. Caesar was presented with a plaque during the goodnights of his hosting stint in 1983.

Table

Timeline

Lighter colors denote "featured players" versus repertory cast members.

Tenures

Longest tenures

The following comedians have served as cast members on the show for more than 9 seasons:

Shortest tenures

Two people have been publicly announced as having been hired to the cast, but never performed as cast members:

Catherine O'Hara, hired in 1981, quit before appearing on air. She subsequently hosted the show twice.

Shane Gillis was announced as a cast member in 2019, but the offer was withdrawn due to controversies surrounding previous use of racial stereotypes. Gillis went on to host episode 12 of season 49 and episode 13 of season 50.

Editorial summary

“List of Saturday Night Live cast members” enters the record as wikimedia list article. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what List, Saturday and Night can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA dependable orientation record for establishing vocabulary, names and a first evidence trail. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—2026, 1983, 1981, 2019—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. Its strongest next move is a source search built around List, Saturday and Night.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“List of Saturday Night Live cast members” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, List, Saturday and Night provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 23, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2941458. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2026, 1983, 1981 and 2019.

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The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “List of Saturday Night Live cast members” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.