‘Saturday Night Live’: Fred Armisen finally confirms departure from show

This took a while, didn’t it? While we first heard reports before the end of “Saturday night Live’s” season finale last month that Fred Armisen was going to join Bill Hader in leaving the show, neither the actor nor NBC actually confirmed that it was going to happen … leading some to imagine the frightening thought of next season opening up with a new edition of Armisen’s extremely-overplayed “The Californians,” one of his weaker sketches.

However, everything is now officially out in the open, and Armisen is gone. The “Portlandia” actor confirmed the news while speaking in an interview with Splitsider, where he had the following to say about the Ian Rubbish musical number that was a perfect way to sign off from a show that he has dedicated more then a decade of his life to:

“I think it’s clear … I didn’t do any kind of official announcement, but I really felt like it was obvious [with that last sketch], a love letter to all the music I grew up with, and also to my friends and to SNL and to Lorne [Michaels] and to the cast.”

Now, this puts almost every “SNL” mystery out there to rest … almost. There is still the gargantuan question about Jason Sudeikis leaving the show and while we lean towards it happening, we still feel it possible that Lorne could convince him to do one final farewell tour so that there is less of a panic to try and re-cast such a huge majority of their male regulars.

Since we would be remiss to end a “Saturday Night Live” article without trying to give you a reason to laugh, we present you with the following: If you want to see what may be the biggest catastrophe ever in a dress rehearsal sketch, all you have to do is click here.

Photo: NBC