‘SNL’ is adding 3 new stooges
“Saturday Night Live” is adding three new cast members this year — suggesting some of the comedy show’s best-known players won’t be back.
Taran Killam, a refugee from the cast of the long-running sitcom “Scrubs,” and two young comedians from Chicago — Paul Brittain and Vanessa Bayer — have been signed to the cast, according to several reports over the weekend.
News of the signings came just a day after it was announced Will Forte, who’s been on “SNL” for eight years and was perhaps best know for his “McGruber” take-off, was leaving the show.
Lorne Michaels, the show’s creator and longtime producer, always creates a stir just before the beginning of each season because he refuses to tell the cast who will be coming back.
Regulars such as “Weekend Update” anchor Seth Meyers, Andy Samberg, Jason Sudeikis and Kenan Thompson are among those who have not yet said if they are being re-hired, according to reports.
Michaels has been sighted in Chicago a bunch of times this summer, scouting new talent in the city famous for its improv comedy companies.
Among the new cast members, Killam, 28, is by far the best known.
He is the longtime boyfriend of “How I Met Your Mother” star Cobie Smulders and the father of a 1-year-old baby with her.
He became free when the proposed series he’d been working on — the Arianna Huffington-produced comedy called “Freshman,” about three first-term congressmen living together in the same D.C. apartment — was not picked up by ABC.
Brittain and Bayer are little known outside Chicago, where they have starred in stage comedies and done stand-up.
The connection between Chicago comedians and “SNL” dates back to the earliest days of the show.
John Belushi, Bill Murray, John Candy, Gilda Radner, Mike Myers, Chris Farley and Tina Fey were all recruited out of the ranks of Windy City comics, especially the famous Second City improv troupe.
“SNL” starts the new season — its 36th — in late September.
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