‘Saturday Night Live’ loses Bill Hader, leaves us begging for more Stefon
We were gutted last year to lose both Kristen Wiig and Andy Samberg from “Saturday Night Live,” but this might just be the most painful departure of all. On Tuesday, longtime cast member Bill Hader, who has consistently been an MVP thanks to various impressions and great improv skills, announced that he will be leaving the show after eight seasons on board.
Hader first confirmed his exit to the New York Times, with the real explanation for the exit merely being that it was time to do something completely different after years of making people laugh:
“It was a hard decision, but it has to happen at some point … It got to a point where I said, ‘Maybe it’s just time to go.'”
It would be hard to really sit here and say what Hader’s overall legacy on the show will be, except for maybe the best male performer since Will Ferrell. Just this year alone, he’s done some great sketches, including our personal favorite puppet performance from earlier this year that was incredibly hilarious and terrifying at the same time. We also have to applaud him for some of his characters, including impressions of James Carville and Clint Eastwood, and of course the magical man known as Stefon.
We’re not going to understate this in any way: In our mind, this “city correspondent” specifically is one of the five best characters ever in the history of the show. He’s of-the-wall, offensive, and while he follows a pattern every time of revealing “New York’s hottest club,” it’s always in a way that is so funny that Hader cannot keep it together no matter how hard he tries.
The season finale of “Saturday Night Live” is this weekend, and if there is not one more Stefon appearance, it could be a crime against humanity.
If you want to see what Hader was up to on this past weekend’s show, we have a link for you here with video highlights.
Photo: NBC