The 25 most influential comedians to come out of 'Saturday Night Live'

Mike Myers was a franchise inside of "SNL," with his own stable of fully realized characters in their own elaborate, catchphrase-heavy worlds — the basement public access show of "Wayne's World," "Coffee Talk" with Linda Richman (named and modeled after Myers' actual mother-in-law) and the bizarre German world of Sprockets. He went on to make the blockbuster Austin Powers films, featuring a lot of catchphrases, and also villain Doctor Evil, who sounded suspiciously like "SNL" head Lorne Michaels. Myers also had some wild swings and misses like "The Cat In The Hat" and "The Love Guru," plus dramatic turns in "Inglourious Basterds," before inexplicably returning to TV to host the revival of "The Gong Show," heavily made-up and in character as a fictional British comedian named Tommy Maitland. But Myers' lasting influence is still felt with dads everywhere, still yelling "Do I make you horny, baby?" in terrible British accents.

Dan Aykroyd was the most versatile of the Not Ready For Prime Time Players, equally comfortable playing Jimmy Carter (with a mustache!) and a Wild and Crazy Guy. But he really shined as smarmy guys like shady costume vendor Irwin Mainway. Aykroyd had years of movie success, from "The Blues Brothers" to "Trading Places" and even an Oscar-nominated role in "Driving Miss Daisy," before focusing his later career on blues music, UFO theories and Crystal Skull Vodka. Still, Aykroyd's greatest influence might be teaching a generation of young men that, yes, men could be "Ghostbusters."

Larry David claims he had only one sketch air during his entire year working at "Saturday Night Live" and in fact once quit in a huff — then returned two days later pretending nothing happened, in an extremely George Costanza move. But many of those unproduced sketches became the seeds for episodes of "Seinfeld," a show that later used fellow "SNL" alumna Julia Louis-Dreyfus. Post-"Seinfeld," David starred in "Curb Your Enthusiasm," the yellingest great TV comedy of all time. In Japan it's called "Larry No Mid Life Crisis." And thanks to his impression of Bernie Sanders, David became a de facto extra "SNL" cast member in 2016, 30 years after he couldn't get anything on the air. Pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty good!

It's no exaggeration to say that the members of The Lonely Island — Andy Samberg, Jorma Taccone and Akiva Schaffer — fundamentally changed the structure of "Saturday Night Live" itself. It used to be that taped bits were the exception, but once Lazy Sunday exploded in popularity, Digital Shorts became an integral part of the show.  Aside from the show, The Lonely Island has released albums, won Grammys and created the greatest unsung comedy of the 2010's, "Pop Star: Never Stop Stopping." Meanwhile Samberg is still starring in "Brooklyn Nine-Nine," Taccone had an incredible appearance on "Girls" and The Lonely Island-produced sitcom "PĖN15" had a remarkable first season on Hulu. But the weirdest and greatest recent work of the collective was "The Bash Brothers Experience," a Netflix special centered around a fictional rap album by Oakland A's stars Mark McGwire and Jose Canseco.

What is there to say about Eddie Murphy, by far the biggest star to ever come out of "Saturday Night Live"? He went from an unknown 19-year-old comedian to the biggest box-office star in America in less than five years. He had two of the biggest standup films of all time with "Delirious" and "Raw," and he had enough juice in the '80s to release his own single with Rick James, presumably before his couch got ruined. He even had a secondary career as a star of family-friendly films in the '90s and won a Golden Globe for his part in "Dreamgirls," and he still has the most distinctive laugh in movie history.

The person best able to sum up the essence of Bill Murray is probably Bill Murray himself, who once told The New York Times, "The more relaxed you are, the better you are. That's sort of why I got into acting. I realized the more fun I had, the better I did. I thought, well, that's a job I could be proud of." Murray has had a wildly successful career in both comedies and dramas, and he might be Wes Anderson's favorite actor. But he's mainly a legend for being "Bill Murray." Whether he's bartending with the Wu-Tang Clan, reading poetry to construction workers, defacing talk show sets or (allegedly) tackling random strangers and running away, shouting, "no one will believe you," Bill is larger than life, though not Larger Than Life. He probably regrets making that one.

Julia Louis-Dreyfus is the greatest comedic actress since Lucille Ball, and she's arguably got a larger body of work. She's had three different hit sitcoms — "Seinfeld," "Veep" and "The New Adventures of Old Christine" — for which she's won 11 Emmys. Even her guest roles are stellar, from "Arrested Development" to "Curb Your Enthusiasm" to "30 Rock," where she played Liz Lemon during cut-away sequences in its live episodes. She's also the first former female cast member to host "SNL," which is impressive. And it's also ridiculous that it took until 2006 for that to happen!

Christopher Guest spent one memorable season at "Saturday Night Live" as part of the all-star cast that Dıck Ebersol assembled for his final year as the show's producer, alongside Billy Crystal, Martin Short and Harry Shearer. Guest started directing shorts for the show that summer, including his film about an Olympic men's synchronized swimming duo. That sensibility extended to films like "Waiting For Guffman," "Best In Show" and "This Is Spinal Tap!" While no one has followed in his footsteps yet, Guest opened the door for members of the House of Lords to star on "SNL."

Robert Smigel went from writing some of "SNL's" best sketches to working as the first head writer for "Late Night With Conan O'Brien," to a memorable six-episode run on the weird but great, "Dana Carvey Show." He's the creator and puppeteer of Triumph, the Insult Comic Dog, wrote "Hotel Transylvania" and "You Don't Mess With the Zohan" with Adam Sandler and created The Ambiguously Gay Duo as well.

Maya Rudolph is the most musically talented cast member in the history of "Saturday Night Live," and she could play any character, celebrity, ethnicity or gender you could imagine. Then she went on to star in classics like "Idiocracy" and "Bridesmaids" and the criminally underrated "MacGruber." She's the first high-profile woman of color to find huge success on "SNL," and in perhaps the coolest post-"SNL" move of anyone associated with the show, she started an all-female Prince cover band called Princess.

Conan O'Brien was the two-time editor of "The Harvard Lampoon," jumped to "SNL" where he wrote sketches and occasionally appeared on screen. He moved on to a different comedic institution in "The Simpsons," where he wrote the Monorail episode, among others, and then went on to some obscure TV hosting gig for the next couple of decades. 

Tina Fey was the show's first female head writer, and she eventually began hosting Weekend Update, first with Jimmy Fallon and then with Amy Poehler. She subsequently created and starred in "30 Rock," wrote a successful memoir called "Bossypants" and her first movie, "Mean Girls," is now a hit Broadway show. Perhaps her greatest moment was her uncanny Sarah Palin impression on "SNL" in 2008, which might have done as much as anything to torpedo the McCain campaign and put President Obama in office.

Dennis Miller famously called writer Jim Downey the second-most important person in the history of "Saturday Night Live," besides Lorne Michaels. He worked on the show in three different stints for a total of 30 years and remained the show's primary guy for political materials and cold opens. Writers work behind the scenes, so people might know Downey best for his role in "Billy Madison," where he awards Billy no points at the academic decathlon and asks God to have mercy on his soul. Reportedly, Downey said something similar in response to many of Chris Farley's sketch pitches.

I don't want to get off on a rant here, but Dennis Miller's stretch hosting Weekend Update was the greatest run of fake news on NBC since Brian Williams started telling helicopter stories, babe. He went on to host "Dennis Miller Live" for eight years on HBO, where he won five Emmys. That's more trophies than the wives and girlfriends section at Mar-a-Lago, Chachi. Miller even announced "Monday Night Football" for two seasons, which was like the Hindenburg disaster only with less humanity.

Jimmy Fallon's post-"SNL" movie career may not have taken off the way he hoped — apologies to all the "Fever Pitch" fans out there — but his talk show has exceeded anyone's expectations. His incarnation of "The Tonight Show," with its songs, games and giggly celebrity interviews, proved such a ratings bonanza that CBS had to import James Corden from England to compete in the singing host arms race. While he was great on "SNL," Fallon is even better as a talk-show host because it doesn't matter if he laughs at his own jokes! Plus he will always have the appreciation of the frat boy community by presenting such a positive depiction of beer pong.

Gilda Radner was the first person cast on "Saturday Night Live" for good reason. She created some of the show's most memorable characters right out of the gate, like hard-of-hearing Emily Litella, newscaster Baba Wawa and Roseanne Roseannadanna, comedy's least problematic Roseanne.  In 1979, her one-woman show, "Gilda Radner - Live From New York," was a hit Broadway show, featuring the immortal song "Let's Talk Dirty To The Animals."  She enjoyed a post-"SNL" career in plays and movies, but in 1985, after a series of misdiagnoses, she found out she had ovarian cancer. Radner released a touching memoir, "It's Always Something," detailing her career and struggle with the disease, but she died in 1989 after her cancer returned. Another part of her legacy, aside from comedy, is the existence of Gilda's Clubs, a community organization for patients, friends and family of people living with cancer.

While head writers from "Saturday Night Live" often go on to great success, that success usually doesn't mean getting Oscars. But that was the case for Adam McKay, who won for "The Big Short," for which he also got a nomination for direction. He honed his teeth as a director making the original Digital Shorts for SNL, including "The H is O," a short where Ben Stiller tries to seduce Eagles frontman Glenn Frey (R.I.P.), played by Will Ferrell. Since then he's started Funny Or Die and Gary Sanchez Productions, directed "Anchorman" and "Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby" and produced "Eastbound and Down" and "Succession" (he directed the first episode). His Dıck Cheney biopic "Vice" also garnered eight Oscar nominations.

John Belushi and Dana Carvey were great, Eddie Murphy was legendary and Gilda Radner was spectacular,. But for our money, there's no greater "SNL" cast member than Will Ferrell. No one was so good for so many seasons on the show, anchoring sketches, doing celebrity impressions from the contemporary — Alex Trebek and George W. Bush — to the inexplicable — Robert Goulet and Harry Caray — while always providing the perfect amount of cowbell. His post-show career is notable for its wild success but also the strange detours, like making an unannounced Lifetime Original Movie ("A Deadly Adoption") and a comedy that was entirely in Spanish ("Casa de Mi Padre"). 

Chris Rock has said that being on "Saturday Night Live," where he was the first African-American cast member in years, was like going to film school. It shows, because aside from being one of the all-time greats of standup comedy, Rock is a skilled producer of television shows. He's had "The Chris Rock Show" and "Everybody Hates Chris" and produced "Totally Biased With W. Kamau Bell." He turned dramatic with his starring role in Season 4 of "Fargo," but his lasting legacy is always going to be the standup specials, particularly "Bring The Pain," which would go on to win two Emmys and a Grammy.

John Belushi was a force of nature on "Saturday Night Live," on screen and off. He was a Samurai, a Blues Brother, the finest Shatner impersonator of his era and a donut-fueled decathlon champion in his all-too-brief career. His supporting role in "Animal House" is made up of only classic scenes that have had a second life in inspirational scoreboard montages, and he could sing like Joe Cocker. Without John Belushi, there'd be no Chris Farley and worst of all, no Jim Belushi.

Molly Shannon and her character, Mary Katherine Gallagher, were the breakout stars of the "Saturday Night Live" cast in 1995, and Shannon was one of the only cast members to continue on with the brand-new cast. And while her "Superstar" movie didn't tear it up, Shannon's career did. She's particularly great in comedies with a degree of seriousness, like her starring role in "Year of the Dog," and in "Enlightened" and "Divorce." She's been on Broadway, she's written children's books, and she's revitalized the Rose Parade — Shannon truly is a superstar.

Phil Hartman, along with Chris Farley, is a guy who was gone way too soon, murdered in 1998. But Hartman really did an amazing amount of stuff in his life, from anchoring "SNL" in the late '80s (cast members called him "the glue" because he was such an invaluable supporting sketch player) to his role on "NewsRadio" to writing "Pee-wee's Big Adventure" to starting his own graphic design firm, where he made album covers for Poco and designed the logo for Crosby, Stills & Nash. At the time of his death, at age 49, he was starting to do stand-up comedy as well. Hartman was incredibly reliable in sketches, so when he actually broke, he took other cast members down with him. Sadly, his death also meant the demise of legendary "Simpsons" characters Lionel Hutz and actor Troy McClure, whom you may know from such films as "The Erotic Adventures of Hercules."

You can see a lot of Adam Sandler's influence in later cast members Jimmy Fallon and Andy Samberg. There's musical comedy, dirty comedy with a childish tone and, of course, laughing in the middle of sketches. The Sandman mainly makes movies for Netflix now, but he's been a box-office powerhouse over the years and made three true all-time classics in "Billy Madison," "Happy Gilmore" and "Punch-Drunk Love." He's also one of the last guys to put out classic sketches-and-songs comedy albums that still resonate with comedians today, and he no doubt inspired a new generation of fans with his music-filled Netflix special "100% Fresh." And with "Uncut Gems," he showed a whole new side of the Sandman, and Independent Award voters agreed that "This is how I win." 

In the first season of "Saturday Night Live," Albert Brooks made a series of short films, one of which included a satire of a TV pilot that was just like "Three's Company." A few years later it was a real show. That's Brooks' stock in trade: comedy that's hyper-real, like the documentary parody "Real Life" or "Lost In America," a serious comedy that detonates its premise after the first act. He's also one of the few actors to improvise all their lines in a movie classic, in "Taxi Driver," but he's also had memorable roles in "Broadcast News," "Drive" and as Hank Scorpio in "The Simpsons."

No, Tracey Ullman was never on "SNL," but "The Tracey Ullman Show" came about in part from contributions from original "SNL" writers Anne Beatts and Marilyn Suzanne Miller. Beatts helped develop it originally, while Miller won a writing Emmy there. Both also wrote for "Murphy Brown," where Miller's episode about breast cancer won a Humanitas Prize. Beatts also created the cult favorite "Square Pegs," while Miller returned to "SNL," writing memorable sketches for the "SNL 25" special. The original performers are more well-known, but it's important to remember the funny women behind the Wild and Crazy Guys on screen.