Oddly enough (at least to me) the SNL page on the Wikipedia doesn't explain
what differences there are between featured and full cast members. Like Doug,
I'm assuming they are on different payscales/contracts.
An SNL wiki hosted on Fandom claims that this distinction started in season
five (1980), with some differences over the years until season 23 (1998). From
then on, this claims that all cast members start as featured. As this wiki
isn't sourced, I'm skeptical.
This Quora answer quotes an interview with Rachel Dratch (the link to which has
rotted).https://www.quora.com/On-Saturday-Night-Live-what-is-the-difference-between-the-cast-before-and-after-and-featuring
It supports the notion that everyone starts as featured, as it was in Dratch's
contract that she would be 'featured' for two seasons before becoming regular
cast. She goes on to say that getting featured people screen time is a lower
priority. But, as seems to be common, if you write something good enough to
get on the show, you can cast yourself in it. I would also guess if you do
good enough work, you'd get bumped up to full cast sooner.
I am *not* sufficiently motivated to try and read the Tom Shales book on SNL to
see if this is explained therein.
On Saturday, September 22, 2018, 11:10:15 PM EDT, Doug Fields
<[email protected]> wrote:
I have no first-hand knowledge, but I’ve always assumed the main difference
between the two (other than the obvious priority billing in the credits for the
cast members) is the paycheck, with official cast members getting a higher
salary than the featured players. As to the amount of screen time, I don’t
think it matters much…cast members and featured players all seem to get varying
number of appearances. For some reason, (cast member) Pete Davidson often gets
less air time than many of the featured players…which they’ve turned into a
running joke on the show.
Doug Fields
Tampa, FL
From: [email protected] <[email protected]>On Behalf Of Doug
Eastick
Sent: Saturday, September 22, 2018 11:00 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [TV orNotTV] New SNL cast member, four new writers
what's the official diff between 'featured' and 'cast members' ???
Mikey, Melissa, and Alex have been major people in my view of 2017-2018 season.
On Sat, Sep 22, 2018 at 9:30 PM Tom Wolper <[email protected]> wrote:
On Fri, Sep 21, 2018 at 9:45 PM Steve Timko <[email protected]> wrote:
Ego Nwodim graduated with a biology degree from USC, but liked the UCB better.
LINK
Also, they added four new writers. Any names ring a bell?
Alan Linic, Alison Gates, Eli Mandel and Bowen Yang.
Anyone else announced as not coming back this season?
>From eonline:
Nwodim's casting news comes soon after it was announced thatMikey Day,Melissa
Villaseñor andAlex Moffat have been made cast members, while Chris Redd
andHeidi Gardner will return as featured players.Luke Null, who joined the show
last year, is not returning.
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