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Kristen Wiig and Maya Rudolph’s Best Moments Together on SNL
Guess who first introduced the future Bridesmaids stars at a baby shower (hint: She's an SNL Five-Timer).
Kristen Wiig and Maya Rudolph’s onscreen chemistry is a joy to behold. The comedians played best friends in the 2011 comedy classic Bridesmaids, for one. At the 2020 Academy Awards, they turned their award presentation segment into one of the night’s funniest moments.
But before these creative collaborations and more, Wiig and Rudolph shared hysterical scenes on Saturday Night Live during their three-season overlap as cast members and subsequent visits to the show. And on Season 49's December 16, 2023 Christmas episode hosted by Kate McKinnon, Wiig and Rudolph unexpectedly brought back that ol' magic during McKinnon's monologue, plus two standout sketches.
While you might assume that Wiig and Rudolph met at SNL, they actually first met in L.A. years prior. As Rudolph told Ellen DeGeneres in 2019, the Wiig and Rudolph were introduced at a baby shower for a mutual friend they knew through L.A. comedy school The Groundlings.
The shower’s host? Fellow Groundling, Bridesmaids co-star, and SNL Five-Timer’s Club member Melissa McCarthy. Despite the small world of that comedy community, though, Wiig and Rudolph never worked together until Saturday Night Live.
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When Wiig joined SNL in 2005, “I was on maternity leave, and I was actually watching the show,” Rudolph told DeGeneres. “And I remember watching and I thought, ‘I want to go back. I want play with her!,’” she continued. “It looked so fun.”
Below, revisit a few of Maya Rudolph and Kristen Wiig’s best SNL moments—including their favorite sketch together—below.
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When they were Super Showcase spokesmodels
Rudolph has cited the “Super Showcase” as both her and Wiig’s favorite SNL sketch they've ever been in together. “[Kristen] couldn’t keep it together the minute she read it out loud,” Rudolph told Ellen DeGeneres.
In it, Wiig and Rudolph played oddly-accented spokesmodels who help Bill Hader’s game show host show a contestant (Vanessa Bayer) the prizes she didn’t win. They clearly had the time of their lives making each other laugh, and Wiig winds up driving a slightly-out-of-control golf cart around the set.
That time they reinvented "My Favorite Things”
When Kristen Wiig returned to host SNL for a fourth time during the December 18, 2020 holiday episode, there was no denying things were a little less festive than usual that year. Wiig’s opening monologue found absurd joy in the chaos of 2020, featuring a hilarious rework of The Sound of Music’s “My Favorite Things.”
With lyrics like, “When my dog sits on the ceiling ‘cause he’s being bad / I simply remember my favorite things and then I will kiss your dad,” the song brought Wiig and Rudolph together for a glorious duet moment before they were joined by Kate McKinnon.
When they feuded, Real Housewives-style
Rudolph returned for The Women of SNL, an NBC prime time special, in 2010. She was joined by Wiig and fellow former cast members Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, Molly Shannon, Cheri Oteri, Laraine Newman, Julie Louis-Dreyfus, Ana Gasteyer, Jan Hooks, and Rachel Dratch for a very Bravo cold open hosted by Andy Cohen himself.
Wiig and Rudolph’s head-on “confrontation” was an absolute highlight of the sketch (and “she choked my dog till she passed out, y’all” sounds just wild enough to be an actual Housewives allegation).
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When they were in a "New Age Band"
Wiig and Rudolph are hysterical as irate bongo and pan flute musicians who struggle to make blissed-out music together in this sketch from Wiig’s second season. (Raise your hand if you also wish that Rainn Wilson, Fred Armisen, Maya Rudolph, Kristen Wiig, and Kenan Thompson were really in a band together.)
When they sang "ABBA Christmas" songs
When fellow former cast member Kate McKinnon hosted Saturday Night Live on December 16, 2023, Wiig and Rudolph "interrupted" her monologue to sing their own spin on "I'll Be Home for Christmas." The two returned to reunite in a live sketch later in the episode: "ABBA Christmas," in which Wiig, Rudolph, McKinnon, and Bowen Yang performing holiday songs in costume as the Swedish disco icons (standout moment: Rudolph singing directly into Wiig's...wig).
"We were good, old style, giggling and guffawing," Rudolph told Seth Meyers in a March 2024 Late Night interview. "This really did make me feel like the old days."
"Santa's My Boyfriend"
Another holiday episode, another occasion for Rudolph and Wiig to make beautiful music together—joined by Amy Poehler for an…um…romantic? song about Santa.
Their visit to "Tampon Farm"
During Kate McKinnon's 2023 SNL episode, Rudolph and Wiig also appeared in a pretaped musical sketch that doubled as a salute to several iconic women of SNL: In addition to Season 49 cast members Ego Nwodim and Chloe Fineman, it also features former longtime SNL writer and Girls5eva star Paula Pell (plus Billie Eilish and a blink-and-you'll-miss-it cameo from actress and director Greta Gerwig).
Wiig and Rudolph play earthy, baby-cradling, banana-chomping workers on Tampon Farm, a nurturing women's collective with unsustainable business practices.
How many times has Kristen Wiig hosted Saturday Night Live?
Four times! April 6, 2024 will mark Wiig's entry into SNL's Five Timers Club when she hosts with musical guest Raye.
Wiig previously hosted on May 11, 2013; November 19, 2016; May 9, 2020; and December 19, 2020.
Maya Rudolph has hosted SNL twice
While Rudolph has "only" returned as a Host two times on February 18, 2012 and March 27, 2021, she's made over two dozen cameos. She's well known for coming back to play Vice President Kamala Harris over the years.
Originally published Sep 11, 2023.
