It’s officially the Fall television season. This means we’re getting closer to Saturday Night Live’s return. Season 48 of the popular sketch comedy series premieres on October 1 and now SNL has announced four new cast members who will be joining this season.
Marcello Hernandez, Molly Kearney, Michael Longfellow, and Devon Walker are joining the comedic ensemble as featured players. While these are all relatively unknown comedians, Hernandez has opened for popular performers like Tim Dillon, Jim Breuer, Mark Viera, and the late great Gilbert Gottfried. Walker has also recently made it onto a few up-and-coming comedians lists.
It has been kind of a weird time for SNL recently. The show is coming off a particularly strong season that had a number of memorable sketches and fun hosts, but it was also many cast members' final season. Beloved long-time cast members Kate McKinnon, Aidy Bryant, Kyle Mooney, and Pete Davidson left along with other underrated vets Alex Moffat and Melissa Villaseñor. It’s always normal to have a few cast members leave every season. However, this summer saw more departures than usual. This has made it feel like the series is transitioning into a new era, especially given all the new faces. Usually, SNL only gets two or three new cast members a season, so it will be interesting to see what these four new players bring to the table. It won’t be easy following up behind brilliant talents like McKinnon and Davidson, but these new cast members already have a lot of experience under their belts.
Kearney, Longfellow, Walker, and Hernandez join existing cast members Michael Che, Mikey Day, Chloe Fineman, Heidi Gardner, Colin Jost, Ego Nwodim, Chris Redd, Cecily Strong, Kenan Thompson, and Bowen Yang. They also join returning featured players Andrew Dismukes, Punkie Johnson, James Austin Johnson, and Sarah Sherman. SNL has been hit-and-miss with its new cast members over the years, but recently they have been the best part of the show. The biggest example of this has been the Please Don’t Destroy crew featuring Ben Marshall, John Higgins, and Martin Herlihy. Their behind-the-scenes style videos have been some of the most brilliantly random comedy sketches on TV.
While we wait to see how these four new cast members fare, you can watch one of Please Don’t Destroy’s best skits from last season down below. You can also watch “New Cast Member or Arcade Fire?”, a sketch from a few seasons back where SNL made fun of their new cast members at the time. Season 48 of SNL premieres on October 1.