What Could Have Been / Saturday Night Live

General

• Originally, SNL was going to have Albert Brooks as a permanent host, but NBC and the SNL show creators (Lorne Michaels, Michael O'Donoghue, and Dick Ebersol) didn't want SNL to be like Laugh-In (which Lorne wrote for before creating SNL), so they opted for booking different celebrities each week at Brooks' suggestion, while he contributed several short films to Season 1. Also, the first episode was supposed to have Billy Crystal as a guest performer. Crystal would later go on to host SNL twice and become a cast member for one season (Season 10/ 1984-1985).
• Andy Kaufman's special guest appearances warrant some examples:
  • The Christmas-themed Mr. Bill Show short was intended for the Season 5 Christmas show (1979) but cut when Kaufman's "championship" wrestling match with a woman ran significantly longer than planned. Not only did the short wait a whole year to finally air, but Lorne Michaels was so angry with Kaufman over this that he didn't ask him back for the remainder of the season; Kaufman wouldn't appear on SNL again until January 1982, midway through Season 7. The Mr. Bill Christmas short ended up airing on the season six Christmas episode hosted by David Carradine.
  • That November, Kaufman was permanently barred from further appearances after a viewer phone-in poll in Season 8's Drew Barrymore/Squeeze episode. Kaufman was behind the idea of the poll and willing to follow it through, but the fallout from this was so damaging to his career that (at the behest of Kaufman's agent George Shapiro) the producers considered trying to get him back on the show; the plan that got the furthest was having him appear for several weeks as a background character (specifically, an African-American cleaning lady!) and then having him break character to reveal his comeback. But the producers were afraid that viewers who voted him off would object to the promise being broken — there had already been complaints over an ad Kaufman made asking for reinstatement being screened in a "Weekend Update" segment. In 1983, guest host Joan Rivers convinced them to bring him back as part of her episode, but he had a prior commitment to the Broadway play Teaneck Tanzi and couldn't participate; his death in 1984 meant that he never did properly return to the show.
  • According to friend/collaborator Bob Zmuda, it was Kaufman who convinced producer Dick Ebersol to give Eddie Murphy's Hates the Job, Loves the Limelight take on Gumby a chance when the original skit risked being cut over concerns that the audience wouldn't remember the character and thus get the joke.
• In April 1976, during the first season, Lorne Michaels offers The Beatles a ridiculously low sum of $3000.00 to reunite and perform on the show. Unknown to him, Paul McCartney was in town visiting with John Lennon, both of them saw that skit, and the two of them seriously considered racing down to the studio for an impromptu appearance. They ended up not going because they were just "too tired."
• Dana Carvey got another offer the day he was invited to join SNL — that being the host of Double Dare (1986), meaning in another universe Carvey wound up an icon to a generation of kids instead of being of SNL's top impersonators.
• Burt Reynolds himself once talked with Norm Macdonald about a Celebrity Jeopardy! sketch where the real Burt would come out and punch Norm in the face, then the real Burt would take over and be worse than the fake one. This ended up not happening when Norm got fired.
• Season Six was originally supposed to be headed by Al Franken following Lorne Michaels' departure. However, Franken wrote a Weekend Update segment called "A Limo for the Lame-O," which made fun of Fred Silverman. As a result, Franken left along with Lorne Michaels, the writers, and the remnants of the Not Ready for Primetime cast and NBC hired Jean Doumanian in his place. (More details on this can be found at this page.)
• From the 2015 40th anniversary special:
  • The Celebrity Jeopardy skit had a Video Daily Double in which Kenan Thompson appears as Bill Cosby preparing a cocktail in his private bar. According to Norm Macdonald, Eddie Murphy was originally scripted to play Cosby, but he declined because, as Norm expressed on Twitter, "he will not kick a man when he is down", in the light of the allegations of sexual abuse against Cosby. Four-plus years later, though, with Cosby having been convicted and imprisoned for his crimes, Murphy cheerfully mocked him in his monologue in the Season 45 Christmas Episode.
  • Nora Dunn was asked to reprise her Liz Sweeney character in the musical medley sketch, but she declined because she didn't want to perform the character without the recently deceased Jan Hooks as Candy Sweeney.
• Robert Smigel, who created and wrote the Bill Swerski's Superfans sketches, originally wrote the part of Carl Wollarski for Phil Hartman. Head writer Jim Downey made him play the part instead because Smigel was a Chicago native and had a more authentic-sounding accent.
• Tim Meadows was nearly fired alongside most of his cast mates following the turbulent 20th season. Lorne Michaels changed his mind after he realized firing Meadows would leave the show without any African-American cast members.
• In his 2019 autobiography, "Baby Don't Hurt Me", Chris Kattan claims he pitched a Roxbury Guys sketch for Chris Farley's hosting stint in 1997 with Farley as the third bar-hopper. It was scrapped when Farley began practicing the "What is Love" head bop and a little bit of blood flew out of his nose, causing everyone to quickly decide that Farley was in no condition to perform such a sketch.
• Seasons six (1980-1981), eleven (1985-1986), and twenty (1994-1995) were all slated to be the show's final seasons due to those seasons being so bad with critics and audiences that cancellation seemed like the only solution. However, these seasons were saved by having the poor-performing cast and writers fired and hiring better talent.
• Paul Rudd's episode in Season 47 was much different than intended due to the spike in COVID-19 cases in New York and several cast members and crew testing positive. As a result, the episode was a Clip Show where almost all of the sketches are either pre-recorded from rehearsal or older Christmas sketches from past seasons, with the exception of Weekend Update, but with Tina Fey sitting in for Colin Jost. In fact, due to the cases occurring hours before the show went live, there were talks of the episode being scrapped, but it ultimately aired, with Kenan Thompson and Michael Che being the only current cast members at the time on set.
• While Eddie Murphy left at the end of Season 9, he almost tried to get back into the cast for Season 10, as he was convinced that the critical and commercial failure of his film Best Defense in the summer of 1984 would end his career as a film star. He was talked out of it by his manager, Robert Wachs, who pointed out firstly that it was to Murphy's credit that Best Defense even performed as well as it did,^note (It was originally a Dudley Moore vehicle that was deemed unreleasable by Paramount following dismal test audience reactions, and had Murphy's character clumsily inserted during reshoots in a vain attempt to save it) and secondly that he'd be better off waiting to see how his next film performed before making such a major decision. The film in question just happened to be Beverly Hills Cop, which firmly propelled Murphy into the mega-star leagues. Murphy would later joke about it in his monologue during his Season 10 hosting gig.
• Phil Hartman originally planned to leave SNL after season 16 (1990-91) before being asked to stay by Lorne Michaels, staying on till the end of season 19 (1993-94). During his last seasons, Hartman served as the show's Bill Clinton impressionist during the 1992 election and the start of the Clinton administration. Who would have filled the part had Hartman left earlier? Would Darrell Hammond have joined the show during this time and succeeded Hartman then and there? The premiere episode of season 20 (1994-95) humorously acknowledged Hartman's absence with some of SNL's male performers all auditioning to be the new Clinton.
• Pedro Pascal's Season 48 episode nearly ended with a different sketch, after "Lisa From Temecula" failed to elicit much laughter from the dress rehearsal audience. It ultimately stayed under the conditions that Lisa would receive a boneless steak, which Ego Nwodim could cut straight through, and that the effects person would shake the table as hard as he could.
• The cold open for the Season 49 episode hosted by Adam Driver initially had Cecily Strong making a surprise appearance as Republican House Representative Elise Stefanik. While Strong played the role at dress rehearsal, the role was ultimately played by regular cast member Chloe Troast instead.

Hosts and Musical Guests That Didn't Appear

• Some people were scheduled to be the host or musical guest, but were unable to appear for whatever reason. In some cases, they would never get to host/perform before their death. Some examples:
  • The Sex Pistols were supposed to be the musical guest for the December 17, 1977 episode, but they couldn't get a visa. The musical guest that episode was Elvis Costello, who wound up getting banned for performing "Radio Radio" when he wasn't supposed to.
  • Nick Nolte was planned to host the December 11, 1982 episode, but Eddie Murphy took over after he fell ill from a hangover. This decision is what confirmed many people's belief that Murphy (who was in the cast at the time, making him the first and, so far, only active cast member to host) was overshadowing everyone else on the show. Even Joe Piscopo (who was just as overexposed as Murphy was) agreed, and Steve Martin himself came on during the goodnights to call Murphy out on what he did and complain that he wasn't chosen as a substitute host.
  • Bill Murray was set to host the November 17, 1984 episode, but pulled out for unknown reasons and Ed Asner took over.
  • John Candy and Eugene Levy were supposed to host an episode in season 10 (1984-85) with musical guests Hall & Oates, but because of a writer's strike and the season's budget being too small to have a full season (since NBC was planning on canceling the show after season 10), the episode was scrapped. While John Candy (who previously hosted during the show's ninth season, cameoed on the season seven episode hosted by George Kennedy, and even was offered the chance to be a cast member) would never host another episode or appear on the show due to his death, Eugene Levy did cameo on the 2021 episode hosted by his son, Dan.
    • Season 10 also was supposed to have an episode hosted by former cast member Joe Piscopo (musical guest unknown) and another hosted by David Letterman (musical guest unknown, but there are rumors that it was supposed to be Prince and the Revolution), but those were scrapped due to a writer's strike and budget cuts.
  • Metallica were supposed to be a musical guest in the spring of 1987, but had to back out because singer James Hetfield broke his arm while skateboarding. The band would not appear on the show until season 23 on December 13, 1997.
  • Elvira, Mistress of the Dark was supposed to host the Season 13 Halloween Episode (which actually aired on October 31, 1987), but was replaced with Dabney Coleman and demoted to two brief appearances during the episode. Cassandra Peterson devotes a whole chapter in her autobiography Yours Cruelly, Elvira to what went wrong; Lorne Michaels apparently thought so little of her that what was supposed to be a show that would have had her in nearly every sketch whittled away her presence bit by bit.
  • Gilda Radner was supposed to host the Season 13 finale on May 14, 1988 (the planned musical guest was U2), which would have made her the first female former castmember to host. However, her show was scrapped due to the 1988 Writers Guild strike, which stopped the season prematurely in February 1988. She was still interested in hosting during the following season, but in 1989, doctors had discovered that her cancer had spread into the rest of her body. She would pass away on May 20, 1989, the same day as the Season 14 finale. Steve Martin, who was hosting, would pay tribute to Radner by replaying the 1978 sketch of them dancing together. It wasn't till season 31 on May 13, 2006 that Julia Louis-Dreyfus became the first female former castmember to host, and U2 would perform on SNL in season 26 on December 9, 2000.
  • Sinéad O'Connor cancelled her appearance as musical guest during Season 15 in 1990 because Andrew "Dice" Clay was the episode's host. O'Connor eventually appeared later in the year during the Season 16 premiere, as well as during Season 18 in 1992, the latter being her infamous appearance where she tore up the Pope's picture.
  • Joe Pesci was scheduled to host during Season 17 on May 9, 1992, but was unable to because he was busy filming Home Alone 2: Lost in New York. He was replaced by Tom Hanks; this became the basis for Hanks's monologue in the episode (after mentioning that Pesci was supposed to host, Hanks ends up acting like Pesci in Goodfellas once he's "off-camera"). Pesci eventually hosted later in the year during Season 18.
  • Gary Oldman was scheduled to host in 1992, but was replaced by Tom Arnold.
  • Prince was scheduled to be the musical guest on the Season 21 premiere in 1995, but cancelled and was replaced by Blues Traveler. David Spade ended up trashing Prince on the show because of this.
  • Jim Carrey was supposed to host the Season 25 Christmas Episode in 1999, but pulled out; his Man on the Moon costar Danny DeVito hosted in his place.
  • Ben Stiller was supposed to host the September 29, 2001 episode (the first one to air after 9/11), but he pulled out, saying that he "couldn't be funny at a time like this". Reese Witherspoon took over.
  • Jennifer Garner was supposed to host the January 15, 2005 episode, but she had to back out after she suffered an injury on the set of Alias. Topher Grace wound up hosting instead.
  • Janet Jackson was supposed to appear as the musical guest for the March 15, 2008 episode, but canceled a few days beforehand because of a flu. Mariah Carey appeared in her place.
  • Ariana Grande was going to be the musical guest for the Season 44 premiere in 2018, but backed out and was replaced by Kanye West.
  • Morgan Wallen was supposed to perform in Season 46's Bill Burr-hosted episode, but the week of the show was caught on camera violating COVID-19 protocols (i.e. social distancing and wearing a mask) at a party and subsequently dropped. He was replaced by Jack White. Wallen would eventually appear on the show two months later as the musical guest for the episode hosted by Jason Bateman and also played himself in a sketch mocking the incident.
  • Charli XCX was going to be the musical guest for the Paul Rudd-hosted episode in Season 47, but her musical segments where she would perform "Good Ones" and "New Shapes" (the latter with Christine and the Queens and Caroline Polachek as guests) were scrapped because of the COVID-19 outbreak within the show's cast and crew, resulting in no musical performance in the episode. She stated she was heartbroken by the decision and urged people to get vaccinated. She would make a proper appearance as musical guest later in the season in the Oscar Isaac-hosted episode.
  • Roddy Ricch was going to perform in Ariana Debose's episode in Season 47, but he had to back out due to COVID exposure, so he was replaced by Bleachers^note For those who don't know, Bleachers is a musical project band by fun. lead guitarist and drummer Jack Antonoff.
  • Yeah Yeah Yeahs were supposed to be the musical guest for the Austin Butler-hosted episode in Season 48, but had to back out after guitarist Nick Zinner was hospitalized due to pneumonia. They were replaced by Lizzo.
  • Chris Evans revealed in an interview that he has been approached to host the show several times, but has repeatedly turned it down because he finds the idea of hosting a live show too intimidating.
  • Pete Davidson was set to host on May 6, 2023 along with musical guest Lil Uzi Vert. However, the 2023 Writers Guild strike began the week the episode was supposed to air, which resulted in production being stopped and the rest of Season 48, including the Davidson-hosted episode, being scrapped. It was later revealed that, had the season gone on as planned, the season's remaining hosts/musical guest pairs would have been Kieran Culkin/Labrinth and Jennifer Coolidge/Foo Fighters.
  • Michael Cera was approached to host following the release of Superbad in 2007, but he turned it down because he felt overwhelmed by the sudden increase in fame he experienced in wake of the film's success. He would, however, host the show's live "episode" that was put onstage at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater during the 2007-2008 WGA Strike to raise money for the workers affected by the production shutdown.
  • Mark Ruffalo was asked to host by Lorne Michaels but turned it down out of fear that his dyslexia and the show's short production window would make it too difficult for him to use the cue cards or memorize the scripts for the sketches.

Cast Members and Writers Who Didn't Make It

There are a handful of celebrities (some of whom went on to host an SNL episode) who originally auditioned to be cast members and writers on the show, but never made it:

• Albert Brooks was approached with the idea of being the series' host. He didn't like the idea of appearing every week, and suggested the rotating host format the show still employs. He did submit several of his short films to be played on the show throughout Season 1.
• Richard Belzer: Even though he was a warm-up comic and one of the writers of the "Not Ready for Primetime" era of SNL (1975-1980), Belzer actually auditioned to be a cast member. The closest Belzer got to be a cast member was when he "filled in" for Chevy Chase on Weekend Update after Chase suffered a groin injury (Chase fell on a podium that didn't have padding on the sides) which opened the show, but was actually the show's first political sketch.
• Mimi Kennedy: One of the final candidates for the original cast, but Lorne thought she was too similar to Gilda Radner in appearance and comic ability, and picked Jane Curtin instead.
• Jim Carrey: Auditioned for the both the 1980-81 season (Season 6, which had a number of experienced comics turned down, as shown below) and the 1985-86 season (season 11), but Carrey saw a man on the ledge of the 30 Rock building threatening to kill himself and was afraid that working on SNL would drive him to suicide. Coincidentally, the 1985-86 season had Damon Wayans as a cast member (until he was fired), and both Carrey and Wayans would meet again — first working together on Earth Girls Are Easy, they went on to another sketch show: In Living Color!. Clips from Carrey's audition video for the 1985-86 season can be seen in the SNL 40th anniversary special. Lorne Michaels has actually gone on record to say that he regrets not hiring Carrey as a cast member. Carrey was subsequently picked to play Joe Biden in SNL's 2020/Season 46 election sketches, more-or-less treating him like the cast member they never had.
• Several future stars were turned down for the Jean Doumanian-produced Season 6 in 1980, which, given how much of a disaster the season turned out to be, was a true blessing-in-disguise for them:
  • The aforementioned Jim Carrey and future cast member Dana Carvey, who were beaten by Joe Piscopo and Charles Rocket.
  • John Goodman lost out to Joe Piscopo.
  • Paul Reubens and Dom Irrera both lost out to Gilbert Gottfried (Reubens later claimed that Gottfried allegedly was cast over him because Gottfried was friends with one of the producers), Irrera would appear in sketches as an extra throughout the season.
  • Richard Karn was beaten by Gottfried as well.
  • Cassandra Peterson was passed over in favor of Gail Matthius.
  • Future Academy Award and Tony Award winner Mercedes Ruehl (who, if hired, would have been the show's first Latina cast member, as Mercedes is part-Cuban) lost out to Denny Dillon (who also made history on SNL as the show's first lesbian cast member^note though not the first to be open about it, since she wasn't when she was hired, even though some cast members knew of her homosexuality).
  • Doumanian decided to add male and female African-Americans as featured players to diversify the cast. Yvonne Hudson took the female slot, but the male slot proved to be a struggle to fill. Robert Townsend was chosen but forgot to sign his contract and couldn't be reached. Charlie Barnett then got picked but, since he was a barely-literate high school dropout, he was self-conscious about his reading skills and missed a script reading. The show's talent coordinator recommended a young up-and-coming comic named Eddie Murphy, and most of the crew thought he had a lot of potential, but Doumanian didn't seem to agree and he barely appeared in his first few episodes, until a Murphy standup bit added as Padding when the show was running short became a surprise smash with the audience and he quickly got upgraded to a full cast member. Townsend would become a star later on, but Barnett's life ended up taking a tragic turn.
• Catherine O'Hara: Chosen to be Ann Risley's replacement when NBC was trying to fix SNL after Doumanian's tenure, but quit and was eventually replaced with Robin Duke (a featured player on SCTV and a close friend of O'Hara) before the start of Season 7 (1981-82). The book Saturday Night by Doug Hill and Jeff Weingrad reported that she was scared off by former SNL writer Michael O'Donoghue, who held a meeting with the Season 7 staff where he yelled at them for ruining the show and went on an extended rant about how the show needed more "danger", culminating with O'Donoghue spray-painting the word DANGER on the wall and giving everyone spray cans to similarly vandalize the room. O'Hara has since clarified that her leaving was more due to realizing that SNL wasn't a great fit for her in general and that she missed SCTV, and the DANGER incident was basically the last straw that finally nudged her to leave.
• John Candy: Like Catherine O'Hara, Candy was another SCTV cast member who was asked to be on SNL. Unlike Catherine O'Hara, Candy shot down the offer the moment Dick Ebersol asked him to be on the show.
• Harold Ramis: Another SCTV cast member, Lorne Michaels offered him a writer job at SNL. Ramis turned it down because he was already SCTV's head writer and he was wary of the intense work environment at SNL.
• The cast of Fridays (Mark Blankfield, Larry David, Michael Richards, Darrow Igus, Maryedith Burrell, Melanie Chartoff, Rich Hall, Brandis Kemp, Bruce Mahler, and John Roarke): When season nine of SNL ended and Dick Ebersol was trying to look for a way to pump some energy into the show for season ten since Eddie Murphy left for a movie career and Joe Piscopo left out of exhaustion, he decided to get some more experienced sketch comedians. His first idea was to get the cast of Fridays (the early 1980s sketch show that nearly dethroned SNL as the edgy, late-night weekend sketch show that aired live) to be the new cast of SNL. With the exception of Larry David (who was hired as a show writer for SNL, which he hated, as all of his good pieces ended up in dress rehearsal or airing after Weekend Update, which is where all the experimental, less funny sketches go) and Rich Hall (hired as a cast member for season 10), all of the other cast members of Fridays declined the offer.
• Geena Davis: Auditioned for Season 10 (1984-1985), but lost to Pamela Stephenson.
• Andrea Martin: Yet another SCTV cast member asked to be on SNL during the mid-1980s. She turned it down.
• All of the cast members of The Kids in the Hall (Dave Foley, Mark McKinney, Kevin McDonald, Bruce McCulloch, and Scott Thompson): All auditioned to be on the 1985-1986 cast. Only McKinney and McCulloch were hired as writers, and McKinney would later be a cast member on the show from 1994-1997. The good news out of this is that they got their own show that Lorne Michaels created.
• The "Actor's Gang", Tim Robbins, John Cusack and Kerry Armstrong auditioned for Season 11 (1985-86) but were passed over in favor of Anthony Michael Hall, Robert Downey, Jr. and John's sister Joan.
• If former short-lived cast member Dan Vitale is to be believed, Anjelica Huston apparently spoke with Lorne Michaels about joining the show for one year.
• Bonnie Hunt: Auditioned for the 1986-1987 season, but took issue with the male-dominated atmosphere at the time (if only she'd wait until the mid-1990s, when women like Tina Fey, Ana Gasteyer, Molly Shannon, Cheri Oteri, and Maya Rudolph would prove that women can be just as funny as the men) and was told by Lorne Michaels that she wasn't allowed to improvise.
• Lisa Kudrow, Kathy Griffin, Jennifer Aniston, and Mary Scheer: Auditioned for Season 16 (1990-91), but lost to Julia Sweeney.
• Judd Apatow: Apatow sent in a writer's packet sometime in the early 90s and received serious consideration from head writer Jim Downey. However, Apatow never got to formally audition, allegedly due to Rob Schneider telling Downey he didn't think Apatow was ready. Apatow considers it a Necessary Fail, as has he never would have written The Cable Guy and met his wife Leslie Mann had he gotten the SNL gig.
• Stephen Colbert: Auditioned for season 18 (1992-1993) as a writer. Didn't make the cut, though he did find fame on the short-lived sketch show The Dana Carvey Show, was a writer for SNL when Dana Carvey's show got canceled, did voicework on The Ambiguously Gay Duo, and, of course, became popular on The Daily Show and its spin-off The Colbert Report.
• David Cross: Another 1992 cast member hopeful, though he didn't get the part because his audition was a disaster, not because Lorne Michaels thought he wasn't good enough. It's just as well, since he went on to do Mr. Show, which is considered by some to be a better sketch show.
• Dave Attell: Like Richard Belzer in the 1970s, Dave Attell was a writer on the show during the 1993-1994 season (season 19) who originally auditioned to be a cast member.
• Andy Dick: Was offered the chance to be on SNL during the 1993-1994 season (season 19), but rejected it because he was already hired as a cast member on The Ben Stiller Show.
• Louis C.K.: Auditioned for season 20 (1994-1995 season) at a time when he was broke and desperate. While C.K.'s performance didn't get him hired on SNL (and given that SNL at the time was plunged into Seasonal Rot following the departure of Phil Hartman, the increasingly mediocre writing, and the cast members becoming sick of each other and the show's direction, maybe it was for the best that C.K. didn't start his career there), it did lead to Jim Downey (one of the show's writers) recommending him to Robert Smigel to be a writer for Late Night with Conan O'Brien, which became his first TV job.
• Amy Sedaris: Auditioned for the 1994-1995 season as Janeane Garofalo's replacement. Sadly, Sedaris was busy starring in a play called One Woman Shoe and couldn't make it. Molly Shannon took over.
• Kevin McDonald: Auditioned for the 1995-1996 season (season 21), but lost to Mark McKinney
• Jennifer Coolidge: Auditioned for the 1995-1996 season (season 21), but lost to Will Ferrell, Chris Kattan, and Cheri Oteri
• Adam McKay: Auditioned to be in the show's cast for the 1995-1996 season (season 21), but was hired as a writer instead, rising to the rank of head writer the following season and starting a fruitful collaboration with Will Ferrell on such movies as Anchorman, Step Brothers, and Talladega Nights.
• Jon Glaser: Another 1995-1996 cast hopeful who didn't make it. Instead, he was hired as a writer for Late Night With Conan O'Brien and went on to star on the [adult swim] series, Delocated.
• Marc Maron: Met with Lorne Michaels to potentially replace Norm Macdonald on Weekend Update, but claims he botched the audition. It has been suggested that Michaels didn't actually intend to replace Macdonald, but met with Maron to warn Macdonald that his off-stage behavior had him on thin ice.
• Kevin James: James auditioned in 1996, but was passed over because he didn't have any characters he could bring to the show.
• Keri Kenney-Silver: Tried out for SNL after MTV canceled The State in 1996. Lost to Ana Gasteyer.
• Johnny Knoxville: Was offered the chance to do his Jackass stunts as part of a short film series for the 1999-2000 season (season 25), but rejected the offer, as Knoxville didn't want his friends to be left behind if he did get picked.
• Zach Galifianakis: Tried out for SNL as a cast member at the end of the 1999-2000 season. Was hired on for a writer for the last two episodes of the season, then quit when he realized that the job just wasn't for him.
• Stephnie Weir: Auditioned for Season 25 (1999-2000), but lost to Rachel Dratch and ended up on MADtv.
• Kevin Brennan: Auditioned to be a cast member for the 1999-2000 season, but was rejected as Lorne didn't want to overpopulate his cast like he did in the early-to-mid 1990s. Brennan was given a writing job instead and was poised to be the new Weekend Update anchor for season 26 (2000-2001), only to quit after learning that Tina Fey and Jimmy Fallon would be the new anchors.
• Jeff Ross: Auditioned to be a writer and Weekend Update anchor for the 2000-2001 season. Lost to Tina Fey and Jimmy Fallon.
• Josh Gad says he auditioned for the show five times. We don't know if that means had five auditions in one year or auditioned five separate years.
• Kevin Hart: As mentioned in his monologue on the season 38 episode he hosted in 2013, Hart was supposed to be a cast member in the early 2000s (exact year unknown, but most likely the 2001-2002 season after Jerry Minor left), but got rejected (in favor of Dean Edwards) because he couldn't do celebrity impressions (though, when Hart hosted, this didn't stop him from playing Shaquille O'Neal and James Brown).
• Paul Scheer: Auditioned for the 2001-2002 season and the 2002-2003 season. For the latter audition, he lost to Fred Armisen.
• Jack McBrayer: Auditioned for the 2002-2003 season. Lost to Dean Edwards, but Lorne Michaels did keep him in mind when he was casting for 30 Rock.
• Dane Cook: Auditioned for Season 28 (2002-03), but lost to Will Forte.
• Maria Bamford: Auditioned for Season 29 (2003-2004), but lost to Finesse Mitchell and Kenan Thompson.
• Kel Mitchell: Auditioned for season 29 along with his old friend and comedy partner Kenan Thompson. Thompson won, which upset a lot of 1990s Nickelodeon fans who grew up with Kenan and Kel (both on All That and their own sitcom) and wanted to see them take their kid comedy to a more adult audience. (Kel would later get a cameo in season 48.)
• Rob Huebel: Auditioned for Season 30 (2004-05) along with comedy partner Rob Riggle. Huebel lost to Riggle, and Riggle only stayed on the show for one season.
• Jorma Taccone and Akiva Schaffer: Auditioned for the 2005-2006 season (season 31) along with their Lonely Island friend, Andy Samberg. Samberg was the only one who became a cast member while Taccone and Schaffer became writers (though they made occasional appearances with Samberg in the Digital Shorts).
• Arden Myrin auditioned in 2005 when the show was looking for a new woman. Of course Kristen Wiig wound up getting the slot. Myrin joined the cast of rival show Mad TV instead.
• Michael Patrick O'Brien (credited as Mike O'Brien): Another 2005-2006 potential cast member who became a show writer. O'Brien also auditioned to be a cast member for the 2009-2010 season, and didn't make the cut there either. On the 2013-2014 season, O'Brien was a cast member, along with then-new feature players John Milhiser, Beck Bennett, Noël Wells, Brooks Wheelan (who was originally hired as a writer, but when Lorne decided to make Tim Robinson a writer instead of a cast member, Wheelan was added to the new feature player cast), and Kyle Mooney (with Sasheer Zamata coming in on January 18, 2014^note hired to combat the criticisms of the show not having a black female cast member since 2007, and Colin Jost^note hired after Seth Meyers left to do his own talk show on NBC coming in on March 1, 2014). With the exception of Colin Jost and Kyle Mooney, the 2013-2014 cast has (as of 2021) all but vanished from the show (Wheelan, Wells, and Milhiser were fired after a season, Michael Patrick O'Brien went back to being a writer until he quit at the end of season 40, Sasheer Zamata stayed on until the end of season 42, and Beck Bennett left the show after season 46).
• Mindy Kaling: Kaling auditioned for the 2006-07 season cast and wound up being offered a job as a writer with the possibility of eventually graduating to the cast. However, Kaling was already a writer on The Office and show-runner Greg Daniels wouldn't allow her to leave for SNL unless she actually received a cast member offer.
• Donald Glover: Auditioned for Season 33 (2007-08) when Lorne was looking for a cast member to play Barack Obama and to replace Maya Rudolph, since she quit the show during the 100-day hiatus brought on by the 2007-2008 WGA Writers' Strike.
• Fortune Feimster, a former competitor on Last Comic Standing and future Chelsea Lately co-star, would audition for Season Thirty-Five, ultimately feeling like she wasn't right for the show. Had she been hired, she would have been the first open lesbian in the cast. As it was, that honor went to Kate McKinnon.
• MADtv's Jordan Peele: Also auditioned for Season 33 when Lorne was looking for a cast member to play Barack Obama. While it was kind of a screw to the audience and Peele that Fred Armisen (who is of German, Korean^note Armisen originally thought his paternal grandfather was Japanese, only to learn later in life that he was an ethnic Korean who adopted a Japanese name, and Venezuelan descent) was chosen as Obama, SNL eventually got Jay Pharoah — a skinny black guy — to play Obama and Jordan Peele got to play Obama on his own show on Comedy Central's Key and Peele.
• T.J. Miller: Auditioned for the 2008-2009 season. Lost to Bobby Moynihan amid rumors that he acted like a Small Name, Big Ego at the audition (actually, Miller apparently was really jazzed about being invited to audition, and brought a backpack full of items to share with the other auditionees, including cookies, party poppers and beer. Everyone else was nervous and didn't want any of the snacks or party favors, and Miller felt awkward going into the audition. He apparently decided to do the entire audition in character, and didn't inform anyone of this, so Michaels assumed he was just a strange, annoying man. On his way out, Miller's backpack broke open and several things spilled out, including a can of beer. A security guard stopped him and questioned him. This led to rumors that he was turned away from the set, believed to be a homeless man, or that he threw a can of beer at Lorne Michaels, among other things. It was one of the more memorable non-hires in SNL history).
• John Mulaney: Auditioned to be a cast member for the 2008-2009 season, but was given a writer job instead. Had he had been a cast member, his collaboration with Bill Hader on the Stefon character probably wouldn't have happened.
• Nick Kroll: Auditioned for the 2008-2009 season. Lost to Bobby Moynihan, Abby Elliott, and Michaela Watkins.
• Aubrey Plaza: Auditioned for the 2008-2009 season. Lost to Bobby Moynihan, Abby Elliott, and Michaela Watkins. With her Puerto Rican heritage, Plaza would have been the first Latino female cast member if she was hired. Instead, Noel Wells became the first Latino female (Wells is a quarter Mexican) in 2013.
• John Roberts (the voice of Linda Belcher): Auditioned for the 2008-2009 season. Lost to Bobby Moynihan, Abby Elliott, and Michaela Watkins. Had John Roberts been chosen, he wouldn't have been the voice of Linda Belcher for Bob's Burgers and he would have been the second male homosexual cast member hired on SNL. A homosexual cast member wouldn't be hired until season 37 with Kate McKinnon (who is a lesbian), but there were no male homosexual cast members hired after Terry Sweeney from the 1985-1986 cast until John Milhiser was hired in season 39, though Milhiser barely made an impression in the time he was on. As of 2020, however, SNL hired another gay male cast member. This time, it was a writer they had for their 44th season named Bowen Yang, who would become a feature player for season 45.
• Kumail Nanjiani: Had a bit role as a reporter in the "New York Times Reporters Meeting" sketch on the season 34 episode hosted by James Franco. Four years later, Nanjiani auditioned for the 2012-2013 season, and didn't make the cut as he wasn't good at doing characters (though he did host in season 43 and showed that he was more-or-less capable of doing sketch comedy, even if he had no recurring characters or celebrity impressions).
• Erica Ash (from The Big Gay Sketch Show and MADtv): When SNL was looking for a black female cast member to combat the criticism they got from hiring mostly white feature players^note though Noel Wells is Tunisian and Mexican, making her the first Hispanic female cast member ever hired and the first one to be from a North African country for season 39 and to fill the upcoming void that will be left behind by Seth Meyers (though Colin Jost, Seth's co-writer, was hired to fill the void Meyers left behind at the Weekend Update desk), Lorne Michaels pulled in every young, up-and-coming black female sketch comedian/stand-up comedian they could to be the newest cast member. Erica Ash (who, like Kate McKinnon, was on The Big Gay Sketch Show, and like, Taran Killam, was on MADtv for one season and rarely appeared in episodes^note only Erica lost her job because FOX announced that MADtv was ending its run on FOX due to low ratings, budget cuts, and the network deciding not to bother with a late-night line-up on Saturdays. In her short time on the show, Erica Ash did celebrity impressions of Condelezza Rice, Michelle Obama — which is one of the main reasons why SNL was hiring a black woman: so Jay Pharoah's Barack Obama can have a Michelle — WNBA basketball player Lisa Leslie, and Raven-Symone) was one of many auditioning black female cast members). Sadly, Erica was passed up in favor of Sasheer Zamata (originally from the New York division of the Upright Citizens' Brigade), along with Leslie Jones and LaKendra Tookes as writers with an option to perform in case any current cast members at the time quit or were fired. Leslie Jones went on to get hired the year after Zamata was cast and become a more popular black female cast member during her stay on the show. As of 2020, Zamata and Jones are no longer on the show and SNL's latest black female cast members are Ego Nwodim (who was hired during the 44th season) and Punkie Johnson (who was recently hired for the 46th season).
  • Other black female comedians and up-and-coming actors who auditioned during the show's 39th season include Tiffany Haddish (who later hosted during the show's 43rd season), Amber Ruffin (who is now a writer on Late Night with Seth Meyers and has her own show on NBC's Peacock streaming service), Nicole Byer (from Girl Code), Gabrielle Dennis, and Bresha Webb.
• Shane Gillis: He was originally hired for Season 45 along with Bowen Yang and Chloe Fineman, but when news hit that he had a podcast where he made a lot of racist, sexist, homophobic, anti-Asian, and anti-Muslim remarks and decided to double-down on his remarks rather than apologize for them, he was fired two weeks before he would have made his debut on SNL, marking the second time (after Catherine O'Hara) that a new cast member left the show before the season even started (not counting the oddball Emily Prager incident, where she was listed as a featured performer for the final Season 6 episode after Jean Doumanian's dismissal, only to have her one scheduled bit cut from the show before airtime, and she never returned). Despite the controversy, he would later get to host in Season 49 with musical guest 21 Savage.

SNL Movies and TV Spin-Offs That Never Happened

• While The Coneheads did get a movie adaptation in 1993, it was originally supposed to be a Saturday morning cartoon in 1983. It was animated by Rankin/Bass (the same guys who do those holiday specials, like Santa Claus is Coming to Town and Rudolph The Red Nose Reindeer), produced by Lorne Michaels, written by Al Franken and Tom Davis, and had Jane Curtin, Dan Aykroyd, and Laraine Newman reprising their roles. It did air as a NBC special and released on VHS. Had it been picked up, this show would have been the first Saturday morning cartoon based on an SNL character instead of Martin Short's The Completely Mental Misadventures Of Ed Grimley.^note Though Ed Grimley had originally debuted during Short's tenure with Second City, and later SCTV.
• In 1990, Saturday Night Live was going to be adapted to a feature-length, anthology-style string of comedy sketches on the theme of going to the movies called The Saturday Night Movie.
• Hans & Franz: The Girly-Man Dilemma: A movie centered on Dana Carvey and Kevin Nealon's Austrian bodybuilder characters. The story revolved around Hans and Franz following in Schwarzenegger's footsteps by traveling to Hollywood to become movie stars. The movie was to be a gag-heavy musical that toyed with a lot of the conventions of cinema, and would have featured Arnold Schwarzenegger as himself. Arnold Schwarzenegger got cold feet and pulled out, causing the movie to be cancelled. Presumably, it was because Last Action Hero, another satirical action film in which Schwarzenegger played himself, had bombed, and he didn’t want to star in anything that was in a similar vein.
• A movie based on the Bill Swerski's Superfans sketch was set for 1994-1995. The plot for the proposed film involved the Superfans dealing with a businessman who doesn’t understand football buying the Chicago Bears and turning Soldier Field into a luxury stadium for the rich. Robert Smigel and Bob Odenkirk wrote the part of Burton Kimpkington, the businessman who purchases the Bears, for Martin Short. Smigel even quit his job as Conan O’Brien’s head writer to work on the script, but the timing didn’t work out right. SNL was going through its disastrous 1994-95 season, and the network called off all future SNL movies because of how bad It's Pat and Stuart Saves His Family did at the box office. Though the need for more SNL movies would come about in the late 1990s into the 2000s with Superstar, The Ladies Man, and A Night at the Roxbury, and later with Harold the Bald Kid and MacGruber, this film never got off due to Chris Farley's death in 1997.
• Lorne Michaels expressed interest in a movie based on the "Gap Girls" sketches. However, David Spade, who wrote the original sketches, found it too difficult to stretch the concept into the length needed for a film so the idea was abandoned.
• The Ambiguously Gay Duo was going to be a movie in 2005, and it was going to be a live-action feature film, but the writers decided to scale it back and that's how it became a short film for the season 36 episode hosted by Ed Helms.
• In the mid-2000s, there were rumors that Lorne Michaels was going to create an American Idol-style reality show where the winner would become a cast member for Saturday Night Live. The rumors turned out to be false, though most people were relieved that SNL didn't jump on the reality talent show bandwagon.
• A movie centered on Stefon (Bill Hader's burnt-out Club Kid character) was planned by Bill Hader and John Mulaney, but later scrapped when they couldn't make it work. According to Bill Hader, the movie would have been centered on Stefon coming out to his parents, a blue collar couple from the Bronx^note though, according to Weekend Update, Stefon's mother is known as "Ms. Stefon" and his father is David Bowie, though the Bronx couple could be his adopted parents who are in denial that he is gay, though most Stefon fans are content with having the Weekend Update segment where Seth Meyers saves Stefon from marrying Anderson Cooper on the season 38 finale hosted by Ben Affleck with musical guest Kanye West as the closest thing to a Stefon movie (similar to the Ambiguously Gay Duo example above).
• A Sprockets movie was in the works, but Mike Myers, unsatisfied with all of the proposed scripts, pulled out and Universal sued him in retaliation. Hence, to get Universal off his back, he took the lead role of The Cat in the Hat (Tim Allen was supposed to be the lead, but the filming conflicted with The Santa Clause 2).

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