10 SNL Sketches That Made Its Cast Members Overnight Stars

"Saturday Night Live" has introduced generations of comedy icons to the world for over 50 years. Each iteration of its cast has produced a handful of unforgettable faces to the world of comedy, including stars like Will Ferrell, Eddie Murphy, Kristen Wiig, John Belushi, and Kate McKinnon. The show has even been credited with launching celebrities to A-list status just by inviting them on as hosts or musical guests, as is often declared for the likes of Adele, Nate Bargatze, and Patti Smith. 

From the show's very beginning, there have been cast members on "SNL" who have especially excelled while others struggled to stand out, and in some cases, even did their best work after leaving the cast. However, for a select few of its most iconic actors, their success on the show wasn't just a slow burn but the result of one sketch that catapulted them into legendary status overnight. Although a lot of iconic "SNL" stars had a rough time working on the sketch comedy show, others didn't need much to convince audiences they were the new faces of it. 

These comedians may have spent years working to simply getting hired on "SNL," and even while working on the show, they likely spent many a late night working on a sketch only for it to get unceremoniously cut before air. But we're honing in on the rare moment where a sketch they performed in didn't just make it on the air but put them among the show's greatest in one fell swoop. 

Here are 10 "SNL" sketches that turned cast members into stars overnight.

The original cast of "SNL" was a murderer's row of '70s comedy, including Chevy Chase, Dan Aykroyd, and Laraine Newman, but few made as much of a mark on the show as Gilda Radner. Not only did Radner inspire Mike Myers' work on "SNL," but she inspired generations of women in comedy, including some of the best female performers in future seasons of the show. It might be hard to believe, but she didn't have many stand-out moments in the show's first episode, aside from one memorable courtroom sketch. 

However, it was only about a month later that Radner debuted her first of many iconic characters, the loud and malapropism-prone Emily Litella, although it wasn't in her usual spot on Weekend Update. Litella first showed up in a talk show sketch, "Looks at Books," which was buried late into a November 1975 show hosted by Robert Klein. Sadly, the character didn't exactly pop off in this format, and it took another month for her to be brought back for a Weekend Update spot.

Her next appearance was in the iconic Richard Pryor show from December 1975, responding to an editorial about busing schoolchildren, although Litella has misunderstood it as "busting" schoolchildren. The bit seemingly went off so well, she was reprised only one episode later, discussing "firing" the handicapped rather than hiring them. And thus, the first recurring character of a future star was born... after a few tries. 

As mythologized in Netflix's documentary "Being Eddie," few in comedy have reached the heights that Eddie Murphy did after joining "SNL" in 1980, at only 19 years old. Though many know the comedian from all the best Eddie Murphy movies, like "Beverly Hills Cop," "Shrek," or "The Nutty Professor," there was once a time when the teenage comic had a lot to prove amongst a brand-new cast of "SNL," chosen by short-lived producer Jean Doumanian after Lorne Michaels' brief departure following the end of season 5. 

Murphy himself was a delayed addition to the cast, making his debut as a featured player in the fourth episode of the season, after a couple cameos in previous episodes of the season. However, less than a month later, during an episode hosted by Ray Sharkey, the show ran five minutes short than usual, and Murphy, only two episodes past his debut as a cast member, stepped up to do impromptu stand-up. 

One "yo momma" joke later, time hadn't just been filled, and a star had been born. Murphy was promoted from featured player to main cast only two episodes later. A few episodes after that, Murphy premiered "Mister Robinson's Neighborhood." Murphy would go on to become not only one of the biggest stars on "SNL," but one of the biggest stars in the world, and that Ray Sharkey episode wouldn't even be the last time he'd get sent out on his own to fill time. 

Season 11 of "SNL" was a notorious disaster of a mismatched cast and poor writing, forcing the show to revamp basically everything between seasons (only keeping cast member Jon Lovitz). For season 12, the show hired on a new slate of cast members who'd define the show for the next decade, including Phil Hartman, Jan Hooks, Kevin Nealon, and most of all, Dana Carvey. Although the pressure was on for this new cast to save the show from poor reviews and ratings, history tells us they did that and then some.

Carvey especially found success within the season's first episode, hosted by Sigourney Weaver and featuring a cold open cameo from Madonna, premiering the first of many recurring sketches titled "Church Chat," a religious talk show hosted by Carvey's sarcastic and devout Church Lady. Carvey was terrified to play Church Lady in her first iteration, though the audience's reaction quickly eased his nerves. Quite a far cry from Church Lady's recent return in season 50!

Within this same episode, Carvey also stood out in another sketch, playing a singer named Derek Stevens who performs the song "The Lady I Know" for record executives, only for the song to just devolve into singing about how she's "choppin' broccoli." Not only did Carvey's performances in this episode set the future of "SNL" in this era up for success, but it also quickly made Carvey one of the show's newest and most iconic faces. 

Much like Dana Carvey, Molly Shannon was also on "SNL" for an interesting period of its history. In 1995, amidst low ratings and critical panning, a majority of the cast left, including Adam Sandler, Chris Farley, and Phil Hartman. One of the few cast members to survive the exodus was Shannon, herself a mid-season replacement for Janeane Garofalo, who left partway through season 20. Though she'd go on to star in some of the best moments in the "SNL 50" anniversary special, it wasn't until this cast shakeup that she got to introduce her most famous character to television audiences. 

Four episodes into season 21, in an episode hosted by Gabriel Byrne, Shannon made her debut appearance as Mary Katherine Gallagher, an anxious Catholic schoolgirl trying out for her high school's talent show. Even in her first showing as Gallagher, Shannon's character work and physical comedy prowess felt one-of-a-kind. Gallagher was considered by many the first breakout character from this new era of "SNL," and more importantly set into motion a domino effect of incredible female performers joining the cast in the next few years. 

Mary Katherine Gallagher ended up making a total of 19 appearances across Shannon's seven years on the cast, not including the 1999 feature film centered around the character, "Superstar." It's not surprising Shannon went on to become a heavy anchor of the late '90s cast of "SNL," since this character made her a superstar. 

Since leaving "SNL," Maya Rudolph has constructed an incredible career, starring in comedy films like "Bridesmaids" and the Apple TV+ series "Loot." By the time she was returning to "SNL" to play Kamala Harris, she was a certified legend of the sketch show, but it wasn't always that way when she was in the cast. Rudolph joined "SNL" mid-way through the 25th season in 2000 and stayed on until 2007, becoming known for sketches like "Bronx Beat" with Amy Poehler as well as her impressions of celebrities like Beyoncé and Oprah Winfrey.

However, it wasn't until the end of her tenure on "SNL" neared that Rudolph began showcasing just how powerfully unique she is as a performer. The best example of this is in her last season, in an episode hosted by Hugh Laurie. The sketch, titled "National Anthem," sees Rudolph playing a contest winner singing the titular song at the World Series, though her interpretations and riffs on the melody are... abstract, to put it nicely. For a sketch essentially carried by one performer, it's a marvelous display from Rudolph far later in her "SNL" time than deserved.

As Rudolph's most famous sketch from the show (and likely the one most synonymous with her comedic stylings), it's no surprise she herself referenced it during a commencement speech for Tulane University in 2015, nearly a decade after it had aired on TV. And you know what? It's still just as funny there. 

While most performers on "SNL" have the show to thank for making them relevant, in the case of Andy Samberg, the show has more to thank him for on that front. Samberg joined the cast of "SNL" for season 31, bringing with him his friends and collaborators Akiva Schaffer and Jorma Taccone, together making the comedy troupe The Lonely Island. Quickly, Samberg, Schaffer, and Taccone began self-producing SNL Digital Shorts, incorporating their own absurdist humor into the show. 

Nine episodes into Samberg's tenure on "SNL," during an episode hosted by Jack Black, Samberg and fellow cast member Chris Parnell debuted "Lazy Sunday," a hardcore rap song about going to Magnolia Bakery and seeing "The Chronicles of Narnia" in the theater. Out of all the examples of overnight success on this list, what "Lazy Sunday" did for Samberg and The Lonely Island is probably the most immediate rise of a cast member going from an unknown comedian to household name. Not only did they bring "SNL" into the Internet era, but they even invented the concept of rapping about Alexander Hamilton.

Though the short's success might have the dawn of YouTube to thank for its widespread virality, it set a bar for Samberg and his collaborators to keep striving for in making SNL Digital Shorts. Thankfully, they were able to recapture lightning in a bottle numerous times before Samberg left "SNL," with some of the most notable examples being "D**k in a Box," "Shy Ronnie," and "Dear Sister." 

Kate McKinnon joined the cast of "SNL" in 2012, becoming a major presence throughout the 2010s before she eventually left the show in 2022. Before that, however, she won two Emmys for her performances on the show, and one of them might have just been based on the strength of one sketch: "Close Encounter." This recurring sketch, written by Mikey Day and Streeter Seidell (pre-dating Day joining the cast in 2016) received its first iteration in a 2015 episode of "SNL" hosted by Ryan Gosling, in which three folksy friends (McKinnon, Gosling, and Cecily Strong) are interviewed by scientists regarding their abductions by aliens.

Although Gosling and Strong's character recount transcendental experiences with extraterrestrial life, McKinnon's Colleen Rafferty casually recounts a much different experience of being asked to pee in a metal bowl by tiny, grey aliens. Though Ms. Rafferty wasn't McKinnon's first recurring character on the show, "Close Encounter" debuted during a time when "SNL" needed a new anchor following the departures of heavyweights like Kristen Wiig, Andy Samberg, and Bill Hader, and this sketch proved McKinnon was it.

Ms. Rafferty has since made a total of eight appearances on "SNL" since this debut sketch, encountering all sorts of supernatural phenomena for her to have less-than-ideal experiences with. Even McKinnon's oddball "SNL" hosting gig got a boost from reprising this endlessly funny sketch. 

James Austin Johnson had quite the layup in becoming the new glue on "SNL," given that his impression of Joe Biden kicked off his very first episode in season 47. Johnson joined a cast that consisted of 20 other comedians, but within a few episodes, he felt like the type of cast member who'd been on the show for ages. And just think, that was before he had debuted his killer impression of then-former president, now-current president Donald Trump, who'd previously been portrayed on the show by the likes of Alec Baldwin and Darrell Hammond. 

The sketch in question saw Johnson's Trump (already popular on social media) appear as a guest on Fox News, congratulating Glenn Youngkin (Alex Moffat) on winning the election to become new governor of Virginia. You can actually hear the audience falling in love with Johnson's performance as he nails Trump's inflections and stream-of-consciousness way of speaking, applauding after each of his 60-second rants about "Dune" and the "Mario" movie.

Once the most controversial "SNL" sketches, Johnson gave new life to "SNL's" portrayals of Trump, which has become especially needed during recent coverage of his second term. As of season 50 and 51, the show's cold opens often now just feature Johnson interrupting as Trump to ramble for a few minutes on current events, which has always proven to be a choice that works with audiences. 

Last season, Ariana Grande hosted a mighty musical "SNL" and crushed it, but the episode really gave birth to a new star: Marcello Hernández, even though the performance that made him famous overnight was a brief appearance at the end of a sketch called "Bridesmaid Speech." In the sketch, Grande is joined by fellow bridesmaids (Sarah Sherman, Heidi Gardner, and Ego Nwodim) to sing a parody of Sabrina Carpenter's "Espresso" about the bachelorette party, in which the bride, Kelsey (Chloe Fineman), fell for a mysterious hot guy named Domingo.

Hernández shows up to sing the song's final chorus, crashing the wedding to assuage the groom Matthew's (Andrew Dismukes) fears about his wife's infidelity, while also admitting that he did in fact sleep with his wife. The sketch quickly went viral, and Domingo was reprised a few episodes later, crashing the couple's babymoon, but that's not where the Domingo hype train ended.

Not only did Hernández pop up at one of Sabrina Carpenter's concerts as the character, but he also made it into the "SNL 50" special, co-starring Carpenter herself as well as Pedro Pascal and Bad Bunny. Maybe it's the usage of popular songs by Carpenter, Chappell Roan, and Taylor Swift that helped make Domingo so popular, but either way, Hernández will likely have a lot of great years ahead of him, just as long as he doesn't get sick of crashing Kelsey and Matthew's major life events. 

It can be hard to predict the trajectory of a cast member on "SNL" too early in their run, but we feel confident in putting our money in Ashley Padilla. Currently a featured player on the cast, Padilla is on her second year on "SNL," but has already spent the current season 51 giving memorable performances left and right. She's been a woman saving face after a disastrous haircut with Glen Powell, a school principal with the hots for a student's parent played by Bad Bunny, and one half of a couple who just hooked up on Weekend Update with Andrew Dismukes, but her most impressive feat is breaking new ground in the long-trodden territory of fart jokes.

"Surprise," from Sabrina Carpenter's recent hosting debut, sees co-workers get more than they bargained for when their surprising of Padilla's character for her birthday results in a long, drawn-out fart out of fear. However, it's not the fart that makes the sketch work, but Padilla's characterization of a woman who's deeply embarrassed and indignant towards her regretful co-workers.

Publications like Vanity Fair are already calling Padilla the show's newest breakout star, and for good reason. "Surprise," more than most sketches from newer cast members, shows the world that Padilla is the type of performer who's born for a show like "SNL," and hopefully it's just the first in a long lineage of incredible sketches that'll make her "Best Of" DVD set, if they ever make those again.