SNL Hall of Fame

We're ecstatic to celebrate and nominate the phenomenal Amy Poehler for the SNL Hall of Fame! Together with our fantastic guest, Victoria Fronso, we embark on the journey of Amy's illustrious career, from her kazoo-playing ice cream parlor days to her current status as an award-winning actor, producer, writer, director, and comedian. Get ready to be inspired by her amazing accomplishments, including her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, her Golden Globe win, and her friendships with Tina Fey, Seth Meyers, and Keena Faye.

Discover the incredible impact Amy Poehler has had on the world of sketch and improv comedy. Reminisce on our favorite moments from the Upright Citizens Brigade Sketch Show and how Amy's trailblazing personality inspired us to chase our comedy dreams. Listen in as we analyze her unforgettable characters and sketches, her chemistry with Maya Rudolph, and her collaboration with guests like Justin Timberlake and Katy Perry, which all contributed to her remarkable SNL legacy.

Don't miss out as we discuss Amy's groundbreaking depiction of Hillary Clinton, her hilarious lines like "You know what I'm going to do? I'm going to go home. I'm going to go home, put my phone on vibrate and call myself." and how she's become an icon and role model for many. Celebrate the one and only Amy Poehler with us and make sure she gets voted into the SNL Hall of Fame!

--------- EPISODE CHAPTERS ---------

(0:00:08) - Amy Poehler

(0:16:38) - Amy Poehler's Comedy Career

(0:26:19) - Amy Poehler's SNL Impact

(0:35:48) - SNL Characters With Amy Poehler

(0:42:46) - SNL Sketches and Character Influences

(0:53:37) - Amy Poehler's Impact on SNL

(1:01:00) - Celebrating Amy Poehler's SNL Legacy

(1:12:11) - Bronx Beat

Transcript

0:00:08 - Speaker 1

It's the SNL Hall of Fame podcast with your host, jamie Dube, chief Librarian Thomas Senna, and featuring Matt Bardille At now. Curator of the Hall, jamie Dube.

0:00:41 - Speaker 2

All right, thank you so much, doug Denats. It is great to be here in the SNL Hall of Fame podcast zone. Please come on inside, but before you do, wipe that spring mock off your feet. The SNL Hall of Fame podcast is a weekly affair. Each episode, we take a deep dive into the career of a former cast member, host, musical guest or writer and add them to the ballot for your consideration. Once the nominees have all been announced, we turn to you, the listener, to vote for the most deserving and help determine who will be enshrined for perpetuity in the hall. Folks, it's time. It's absolutely time. The time has come.

May 23rd is tomorrow and voting opens up. Have you registered to vote? Go to SNLHofcom, click vote and click register to vote there. Your ballot will be in your hands within 24 hours. Once the 23rd begins and all bets are off, we're going to elect another class in the SNL Hall of Fame. So this is really exciting. And what makes things even more exciting is today's nominee, because if you had your ballot set, it might be thrown asunder when you hear who we are nominating today, and that is Amy Poehler. We are closing out this season by nominating Amy Poehler. This is going to be great. I can't wait to hear what our guest has to say, and really I can't wait to hear what Matt has to say. So let's go and talk to our friend Matt. Hey, matt.

0:02:22 - Speaker 3

Hey, jimmy, how are you doing? I'm great. How about you, matt? I am terrific. I'm really looking forward to today's topic of discussion, amy Poehler. Yeah, she's great. Right, she is wonderful 5'2". Born September 16, 1971. So we're starting to get into the cast members that are around my age and making me feel old, since they're already retired from SNL.

She has 94 acting credits, 30 producer credits, 19 writing credits, 15 soundtrack credits and six director credits. Yeah, she was born in Newton, massachusetts, to two school teachers. Her dad pushed her from day one to try new things. Prior to going to college, she worked in an old-timey themed ice cream parlor called Chadwix, where she was made to wear a costume and play the kazoo while singing Happy Birthday to customers. And that's actually what helped her realize that she wanted to be a performer, because making people laugh made her feel like a queen. Yeah, so she started improv with my mother's flea bag. While working on her bachelor's in media at Boston College, she took classes at Second City, where she studied with improv. God, del Close. There's so many people I know who are like one degree separated from Del Close. It's bonkers and it's like man. It must have been wild studying with him.

But yeah, so while studying with Del, she befriended and began performing alongside Tina Fey at Improv Olympics, and she then went on to co-found Upright Citizens Brigade and helped create the ASCAT format with Matt Besser, ian Roberts and Matt Walsh In 1996, gr...

jD and the gang are back it! This week Thomas, Matt and our special guest Kirstin Rajala pick our nominees we'll be discussing this upcoming season.

Transcript:

[0:42] All right. Thank you so much, Doug Donat. It is great to be here with you all as we kick off season five inside the SNL Hall of Fame.

How are you doing? My name is JD and I am joined every week by my friends Thomas and Matt.

Matt handles the trivia corner.

Thomas handles the conversations conversations, and me, well, I just blather.

I just blather at the top and bottom of every episode. So you're stuck with me.

The SNL Hall of Fame is a weekly affair where each episode we take a deep dive into the career of a former cast member, host, musical guest, or writer, and we add them to the ballot foryour consideration.

Once the nominees have been announced, we turn to you, the listener, to vote for the most deserving and help determine who will be enshrined for for perpetuity inside the hall.

That's right, it's an easy game. That's what we play here each and every week.

[1:38] We kick things off every season with a draft, and we're going to do that again this season.

The draft will be handled this year by Thomas, Matt, and our special guest, Kirsten Rajala.

So buckle up and get ready, because this is going to be great.

They are going to go through and choose who will be nominated in season five.

And then you will listen to those episodes and then you will vote on who gets in the hall of fame, just like we did in season four, three, two, one, et cetera.

Well, there's no et cetera because one is where we started. So there's that.

Let's go right now to Thomas and have him kick this thing off.

I'll talk to you at the back end.

Track 3:

[2:54] Alright, welcome to the SNL Hall of Fame podcast.

We are in Season 5, officially the first episode of Season 5.

We're so excited because we're going to let everybody in on essentially how the sausage is made here at the SNL Hall of Fame in terms of choosing the nominees and choosing the lineup.

So this is a wonderful episode. We did a Season 4 draft that worked really well.

Well, it was myself, Matt Ardill, John Schneider.

This time around, we invited another guest, a five-timer, possibly a six-timer.

I really lost track of how many times Kirsten's joined us. Kirsten, do you know? Have you kept track?

I know this is super important to you. This has got to be the six because our last conversation, I was making a big stink and getting really excited about being a five-timer. So this is six.

Awesome. So we have, as the draftees today, to draft our Season 5 lineup, we have myself, we have Kirsten Rayula, and we have Matt Ardill.

So, Matthew, how are you? Good, good. In Chicago, I'm going to try to get you a Second City performance while I'm here.

[4:07] Oh, wonderful, wonderful. You'll have to let me know how that goes.

I'm going to be in Chicago soon, too. So you'll have to share notes with me.

So so how it works today again we are drafting the nominees for season five we do have some draft rules to go over so there will be three of us drafting first pick we're giving it to ourguest kirsten we'll have the first pick in the draft matt ardill will have the second pick in the draft and i will have the third pick in the draft it's not snake so we're just going to to go one twothree then one two three no snake drafting here on this episode we each get five picks and there are parameters to this so each person must draft one musical guest or a writer, one nomineefrom season one of the SNL hall of fame so we can re-litigate somebody's candidacy and also you know the other three then can be like the cast member host musical guest or writer or Idon't know if it's just at your win at that point. So those are the draft rules.

Matt, did you have like a strategy coming into this draft? Like what's your thought process heading into this? I just went with my heart.

That's what I came down to. That's really sweet. Who do I really want to be in there?

[5:27] Yes, yeah, definitely. Kirsten, how do you feel being like a first-time draftee?

A lot of pressure on you to decide the fate of the SNL Hall of Fame podcast for an entire season. It is, but there's still such good people that no matter what, I think folks will be happy.

And I love being able to make a case for why people should be included. So it's exciting.

But I did a snake with...

[5:53] Another crew and it got it got tense so i'm glad this is not a snake draft because i won't be as anxious about it yeah but it still might get heated i don't know mad ardeal kind of getsriled up with this stuff so you have to watch out for it passionate yes definitely so i guess we We will commence with the draft.

So, Kirsten, you are first...

We're back and it's season 6! As is typical we've assembled a group to draft the nominees we will discuss this coming season. Join jD, Matt, and Thomas as they get together to build season 6!

Transcript:

[0:00] Thank you, Doug Donance. It's JD here, and I am thrilled to be back in the SNL Hall of Fame. Let me see if my key works, but before I do that, I'll wipe my feet. The SNL Hall of Fame is a weekly affair where each episode we take a deep dive into the career of a former cast member, host, musical guest, or writer, and add them to the ballot for your consideration. Consideration once the nominees have been announced we turn to you the listener to vote for the most deserving and help determined who will be enshrined for perpetuity in the hall and that's how we play the game it's just that simple but you know what behind the scenes folks it's not that simple because we have to curate a list of who we are going to discuss every season and we found the most fun way to achieve that is with a draft and we're going to do that again this year before we explain the rules i want to introduce the other two drafteteers they are your friends and mine matt ardill and thomas santa how are you doing fellas hello jd good Good to see you. Hey, J.D., great thanks.

[1:28] That's a little inside baseball there, Thomas.

[1:33] So, Thomas, do you want to go through the intricate rules of the draft? You are the master of the draft, after all. All right, sure thing. So, this is the third season, I think, that we've done a draft and had a draft episode. So, there's parameters. So the three of us, we each get five picks. So 15 total, we each get five picks. We each have to pick two cast members. We each have to pick one host.

[2:05] We each have to pick a musical guest or a writer, and then we have the wild card. We can do whatever the heck we want with this, as long as it's a cast member, host, musical guest, or writer. But we have the wild card there. So that adds up to five picks each, 15 total, and I have in my hand a coaster that I'm going to flip. I'm going to give either JD or Matt the first pick. Uh so i want matt to call heads or tails matt uh tails tails it is so matt ardeal gets the first pick uh jd you get the second pick and i'll i'll round things out and get the last pick that's how the draft is working today folks um okay well i think for my first draft pick i am going to go with Garrett Morris aside from being an original cast member he's a Juilliard trained performer he can sing, dance, act the entire Nine Yards he just has incredible chops.

[3:16] Amazing sketches or bits like the White Guild Relief Fund impressions of Chubby Checker that he did with Carrie Fisher first appearance of a Marvel character as ant-man um that's right and uh you know i i watched this one interview where he was talking about death row follies and it's like it was really interesting he was talking about how he was with harry belafonte's band and they were just chatting and he's like so the entire process was lauren just had an idea for a sketch and sent them off to write he didn't give him any direction It's like you're on death row, you're performing. And he's he went back to this memory. He's talking about how the core of improv is drawing from your experiences. He went back to this memory of talking to Harry Belafonte, band member who had watched an old like 1950s TV show. And if you remember the sketch, his bit is I'm going to get me a shotgun and kill all the whitest I see. And he's like well that actually originated from this old 1950s this is your life type of show where this woman had written over 300 songs and they brought her up from the audience and sat her down to interview her and.

[4:32] Kind of of how the song went but she was a white woman from the south and uh so you can imagine how that was so he took it and flipped it and used that for comedy and it's just like you know it just brings so brought so much to the table and i feel like out of the original cast he's one of those people who just is is not given as much respect or acknowledgement as he's due and And I think it's his time to shine. JD, so this is Garrett's one of the last remaining original cast members that we have yet to discuss. This is exciting. What do you think, Jamie?

[5:13] Yeah, I'm excited that we're kicking it off with an old school, an original seven. Is it seven? Right, it was seven. Do we count George Coe and Michael O'Donohue? Oh, no, I'm not. The core. I'm talking about the core. It's almost the same as the NHL where they have the original six, but there was errors before that had eight teams, you know, but whatever I digress, I think it's a great pick. I think it's an exciting pick for a show like ours. I know that he will be a tent pool, a tent pole rather in terms of episodes, you've probably noticed in the past that we, we stack, front stack and back stack with more high-profile perfo...

Meet Joe and Shari as they assemble around the SNL Hall of Fame watercooler to discuss a variety of things relating the SNL and its Hall of Fame.

Transcript:

Track 2

[0:22]All right. Welcome to the SNL Hall of Fame Water Cooler Podcast. I'm Joe Gannon and I'm sitting at the water cooler with...

Track 3

[0:30]Me, Shari Fasco. I'm very excited to be here. I've got my cup and I'm filling it up.

Track 2

[0:38]All right. And then there I go. All right. Let's get into it. All right. So on On this podcast, we're going to be talking about the SNL Hall of Fame and who we believe should and shouldn't be in it. But first, let's kind of just introduce ourselves. I'm Joe Gannon. I've been an SNL fan since, I guess, 1991. 91 and what I enjoyed about it was as I was watching it like as it was going on since 91 I got to watch the reruns like on Comedy Central E and whatnot so it's kind of cool seeing a show develop and then learn its history at the same time and I just found it absolutely fascinating about how important it is to our society about because the show makes fun of our society and politics, and everything. And the last thing is, I grew up in the central time zone, so the TV show was on at 10.30 to midnight. So to me, it was like a show that waited until the last hour and a half of the week to make fun of the previous week. And you, Sherry, introduce yourself.

Track 3

[2:00]Hi, I'm Shari, rhymes with Starry, as I tell everybody, and I am a Michigan native, and I have been into Saturday Night Live probably since I was about nine, since it started in 75. I was really, really young in 75, so I don't remember it that young, but I definitely, definitely remember watching it at like eight, nine, ten. I was really into Mr. Bill. I vaguely remember having a Mr. Bill t-shirt. I just always loved the show and it's always been like a rock for me. It's been something that I've always come back to when things are good and when things are not so good. My husband is also into it. He's been watching a lot of sketches with me lately, getting ready for this podcast. And it's just, it's really just, it's comfort food. Just like what Joe's saying, it's comfort food. It's something that's always been there. and now it's going into its 50th year. I'm 54. It's kind of incredible. It's kind of crazy to think that it's been around. So I'm really excited to be here with Joe. I think both of us are super excited to be talking about these incredible people. I think we're ready to get into it. Are we ready, Joe?

Track 2

[3:15]I believe so.

Track 3

[3:16]We're going to talk about the season six draft. We're each going to do the two people we would like to see get in. And then the two that we don't think really have much of a chance of getting in possibly. I will let you go ahead and go first, Joe, and then I'll go after you.

Track 2

[3:33]Okay. So the first person I think should get in is Lorraine Newman. I believe that the only reason why she hasn't gotten in sooner is there's just a series of people that are a little bit more obvious. Uh you know that just i feel like should be uh you know people that just feel like they should be in uh like will ferrell but um as far as the original cast like obviously everyone from the original five years should be in um as far as where lorraine is in that uh group she's not She's not really a household name. She wasn't a Ghostbuster. She wasn't a Blues Brother. She didn't have a sitcom afterward. Everyone knows Aykroyd, Murray, Jane Curtin, Chevy Chase, John Belushi. And I feel like Lorraine Newman, who is extremely talented, just doesn't have that star power name. So when people are voting and they see her name... It just doesn't connect, or they don't immediately remember all of the great sketches that she was a part of. Or, if they do, they remember someone else that was in that sketch.

Track 2

[5:01]So that's why I chose Lorraine Newman. All right, and who's your pick?

Track 3

[5:06]My pick, I just stuck to strictly the season six draft. So I went with one, two of the draftees for this coming season that I would like to seek it in that I'm not really hopeful about. But my first is Sherry O'Terry. For all of the reasons you just said about Lorraine, I think Sherry is very, very, very, very, very underappreciated. She is absolutely hilarious. hilarious she stands up against the likes of will freaking farrell and holds her own yes even though she's this diminutive little she can't be more than five two but against will farrell who's like i don't know six four she still holds her own her comedic chops are that strong that she can hold her own and i feel that way in the zimmermans with chris katan i i watched her playing against Sylve...

This is what we've been building up to! Now is the time to announce the newest inductees into the SNL Hall of Fame. Bill Kenney and Kirstin Rajala join Thomas Sena to reveal the inductees and breakdown the ballot as a whole. Who got in? Are there any snubs? Join us in discussion and celebration as we chat about the Class of Season 5.