Here are the 13 best SNL characters ranked from least to most funny — as Saturday Night Live celebrates its 50th season.
But First
Of course, these things are subjective. Comedy, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. So if you think we missed someone, let us know in the comments. Same thing if you think we got the rankings wrong.
Also: When we’re talking about characters who are part of a duo or group, like the Bronx Beat ladies, we’re only counting them once. And we’re counting original characters, not impersonations.
OK, let’s go with this list of the best SNL characters ranked, from very funny to extremely funny.
13 — Gumby (Eddie Murphy)
Eddie Murphy is one of the most singularly talented people ever to star on SNL, but he did so much it’s hard to choose one character. For its sheer absurdity and originality, we’re going with Gumby.
Murphy didn’t invent Gumby — children of the 1950s remember him as a beloved clay TV character — but Murphy did have a brilliant take, playing him as a cynical, cigar-chomping showbiz washout with endless resentments.
Gumby (along with Buckwheat) was one of his many brilliant, meta riffs on the dark side of the entertainment industry.
12 — Lionel Osbourne (Tim Meadows)
We know, not many people would put Lionel Osbourne on a list of the best SNL characters. But as played to bone-dry perfection by Tim Meadows, we find him to be one of the most fascinating of all SNL figures, because we just imagine what’s going on behind the surface.
Lionel Osbourne is a man phoning in his job hosting a public affairs talk show called Perspectives. It airs at about 4:50 in the a.m., and serves to barely fulfill a local New York station’s “community programming requirement.” Lionel seems to barely listen to his guests as he recites useless details to fill time.
And yet: Is this a quiet act of protest? He must know he’s fulfilling a quota. His cool, low-effort performance seems like a quietly brilliant protest of the station’s lack of real commitment to authentic public affairs programming.
Or he may be playing the game, giving the network what it wants. Or — or! — Lionel may just be barely awake. We’ll never know, and it’s hypnotic.
11 — The Wild and Crazy Guys (Dan Aykroyd and Steve Martin)
The hard-boogieing Czech-born Festruck brothers, Yortuk (Dan Aykroyd) and Georg (Steve Martin), had a wide-eyed Bicentennial-era love of America, and their awkward attempts to assimilate into a disco-driven culture are impossibly endearing.
So are their malapropisms, catch phrases, and oddly gentlemanly approaching to inviting “foxes” back to their “swinging bachelor pad.”
One thing that makes them some of the best SNL characters is that they aren’t making fun of Czech expatriates — they’re making fun of the trendy vanities of 1970s New Yorkers.
10 — The Bronx Beat Ladies (Maya Rudolph and Amy Poehler)
Gossipy, cynical, but ultimately good-hearted, Maya Rudolph and Amy Poehler’s salt-of-the-earth Bronx Beat characters Jodi and Betty are two of the most human-seeming characters ever to pass through Saturday Night Live.
Through motherhood, complicated marriages, complaints, and gentle counseling for local library volunteer Maureen Diccico (Katy Perry), the ladies get through their harried lives with wisdom, friendship, and realistic expecations, because what are you gonna do.
9 — Sally O’Malley (Molly Shannon)
The older we get, the funnier Sally O’Malley is.
A lot of Molly Shannon characters could be on this list of the best SNL characters, but the irrepressible Sally O’Malley is our favorite. Fifty years old, as she likes people to know, she still has the grace and grit of an athlete-dancer half her age.
One thing we love about the Sally O’Malley sketches is that she’s not the butt of the joke — all her boasts are proven to be true.
8 — The Californians
How often does someone effectively satirizing an entire state?
The Californians is a masterful soap opera parody with recurring stars Stuart (Fred Armisen), Karina (Kristen Wiig), Devin (Bill Hader), with pop ins by Trey (Kenan Thompson) and Rosa (Vanessa Bayer).
It’s actually mocking a very specific type of Californian — mostly from San Diego through Santa Barbara — who poses as laid back and relaxed but spends an inordinate amount of time talking about freeway interchanges. We think about this one every time someone says “jammed.”
7 — Emily Latella (Gilda Radner)
We think about this character every day, decades later, so that has to stand for something.
Gilda Radner was the heart of the early Saturday Night Live, and misguided concerned citizen Emily Latella was one of her most endearing characters.
Her routine feels like it would have worked as well on a vaudeville stage in the 1920s or today as it did in the 1970s: She latches on to some upsetting piece of news while visiting the Weekend Update desk, launches into a heartfelt rant — and soon realizes she’s misheard some crucial piece of information fundamental to her point.
But what’s most impressive is how relevant the character feels in the 2020s, as people rush to comment on things they didn’t watch or read carefully.
6 — Hans and Franz (Dana Carvey and Kevin Nealon)
What we love about these characters is how they’re almost making fun of arrogance itself – and how it slowly becomes clear that their big talk masks a lot of insecurities. They have a surprising amount of depth.
Kevin Nealon has said the Hans and Franz originated while he was watching an Arnold Schwarzenegger interview on TV and called Dana Carvey to tune in. They nailed the characters when they realized that despite their commitment to avoiding flab, they would never, ever touch a piece of fitness equipment.
Conan O’Brien, Robert Smigel, Carvey and Nealon once had plans for a Hans and Franz movie that would have prominently featured Schwarzenegger, but the action star’s packed schedule made it impossible. Fortunately, they gathered together to re-enact it for the Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend podcast.
5 — Wayne Campbell and Garth Algar (Mike Myers and Dana Carvey)
Hard-rocking Aurora, Illinois teens Wayne (Mike Myers) and Garth (Dana Carvey) may be the most profitable of all SNL characters — the first Wayne World film was a massive hit, and follow-up Wayne’s World 2 also did quite respectful business. The characters kept going because Wayne and Garth, goofy as they seemed on the surface, had such surprisingly deep reservoirs of emotional and intellectual depth.
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Wayne was the quick wit of the duo, but Garth had a soulfulness and wisdom that made him ultimately the more lovable. (Carvey based him in part on his brother, Brad.)
For our money, Wayne’s World was at its most Wayne’s World when Wayne interrogated the members of Aerosmith about the state of communism in Eastern Europe.
4 — Keyrock, Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer (Phil Hartman)
Phil Hartman, nicknamed “the glue” by cast mates for his ability to coolly play just about anyone or anything, usually went for reliably nuanced acting. But with Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer he got to play someone big and absurd, and the result is one of the weirdest and best SNL characters.
In a truly nuanced and well-observed twist on what could have been a basic fish-out-of-water routine, Keyrock cynically exploits his unfrozen identity to convince jurors that he’s just “a simple caveman.” The joke isn’t on cavemen, it’s on manipulators.
3 — Debbie Downer (Rachel Dratch)
Rachel Dratch’s Debbie Downer has one joke — but what a joke. Her perfect commitment to Debbie Downer, who can find the gray behind any silver lining, makes her one of the most timeless of all best SNL characters of all. In many ways we’ve becomes a society of Debbie Downers — people who must always remind us of the perils of existence — and Debbie Downer deniers who just want to enjoy life.
If there’s anyone who made castmates break more than Chris Farley, it’s Rachel Dratch as Debbie Downer.
2 — Matt Foley, Motivational Speaker (Chris Farley)
Chris Farley’s hoarse motivational speaker, who famously lives in a van down by the river, is one of the most buckle-in, frenetic, fully committed of all SNL characters. He was created by Farley and the great Bob Odenkirk when both worked at Second City in Chicago, and made his way over to Saturday Night Live, where he became, for our money, one of the two best SNL characters.
No one on the history of the show could pull a laugh from nothing like Chris Farley, and with a full-throated, magnificent character like Matt Foley, he was unstoppable. One of the pleasure of the Matt Foley sketches is watching Farley’s co-stars try, just try, not to break up.
But the best thing about Foley was how somehow, Farley managed to wring out our sympathy and begrudging respect for Foley, a relentless hustler who never quit.
1 — The Church Lady (Dana Carvey)
For our money, Dana Carvey is the best all-around SNL player, and his Church Lady the best of the best SNL characters. She’s a perfect, weird vehicle for Dana Carvey’s quick, insightful, observational character work. Whether we go to church or not, we know a Church Lady — a person who lives to scold and does it with a surprising amount of wit and verve.
She makes us feel guilty for things it would never occur to us to feel guilty about, and yet we have an odd respect for her. Carvey imbues her with a powerful, unearned authority, and she’s one of the most enduring and flexible of all SNL characters — drop her into any scenario, and she’s funny.
And we loved seeing Carvey return as the Church Lady this season — with David Spade as Hunter Biden, no less. Hit it, Pearl.
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You might also like this list of Rad ’80s Movies Only Cool Kids Remember. And lots of great SNL routines not on this list are on our list of the 13 Best SNL Sketches.
All images from NBC’s Saturday Night Live.