When Was Amy Poehler’s Last Season on SNL? All about the Season 34 cast
SNL took aim at the 2008 presidential election in Season 34, and said goodbye to a beloved cast member.
The enduring legacy of Saturday Night Live has showcased exceptional talent season after season, giving fans half a century’s worth of laughter.
But presidential election years provide an even larger stage on which to operate, and Season 34, which overlapped with the 2008 election was no exception. Tina Fey memorably returned to portray vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin (who appeared on the show alongside Fey). And presidential hopeful Senator John McCain also participated in a QVC sketch with Fey’s Palin (air date: November 1, 2008).
The entire SNL Season 33 cast returned for Season 34, plus a few newcomers. And it would be the final season for fan favorite Amy Poehler. Read on to learn more.
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Who was in SNL's Season 34 cast?
Amy Poehler
Second City alum Amy Poehler joined the SNL cast in 2001 and stayed until 2008. The Massachusetts-raised comedienne moved to New York City in 1996, starting with bit parts on NBC’s Late Night with Conan O’Brien before joining SNL in Season 27 and getting the office that once belonged to Molly Shannon, an SNL performer from 1995 to 2001, Poehler revealed in a 2024 sit-down on NBC’s The Kelly Clarkson Show.
Poehler and Fey, who met through Chicago’s comedy circuit before their SNL days, became the first female-only hosts of "Weekend Update" after Poehler replaced Jimmy Fallon, a cast member from 1998 to 2004. She later co-hosted alongside Seth Meyers.
Looking back at her SNL career in 2021 on NBC's TODAY , she said on watching unaired episodes — “the ones that bombed” — with the rest of the cast was one of her greatest memories.
“We would love to watch the ones that never made it past dress [rehearsal] where there was just crickets,” Poehler fondly recalled. “We’d just laugh and laugh and laugh because we would remember how horrible it was and how painful it was… That was what we enjoyed."
Poehler famously played in recurring roles as Michael Jackson, Hillary Clinton, and Sharon Osbourne before finding post-SNL success as the star of NBC’s Parks and Recreation, among numerous other roles.
Fred Armisen
Fred Armisen joined SNL as a featured player in Season 28, becoming a repertory cast member two seasons later and staying there until leaving in Season 39, a stretch that makes him one of the longest-running cast members of the series.
An acclaimed musician raised on Long Island, Armisen sought success as a drummer before shifting into comedy. He drummed for eight years with Chicago-based punk band Trenchmouth and two with the Blue Man Group, he once told Drum! Magazine.
“Originally, that’s all I wanted to do was I just wanted to be a drummer in a band,” Armisen said. “But then I just started to make these videos of interviewing bands and stuff as different characters. And it kind of took off. Within the space of about a year, I completely went from being a musician to being a comedian. And I had no control over it. I’ll probably never understand how it happened, but before I knew it, that’s what I was doing full-time.”
His recurring role as Stuart on the soap opera-style sketch "The Californians," plus impersonations of Barack Obama, Prince, and one-half of "Weekend Update" regular guests "Garth and Kat," were just a few notable characters from Armisen’s SNL career.
Will Forte
Will Forte, a former That ’70s Show writer tapped for SNL while with the L.A.-based comedy troupe The Groundlings, performed on the NBC sketch series from 2002 to 2010. He recalled in a June 29, 2016, interview on the Off Camera Show that he didn’t think he’d get the words out during his very first sketch, one guest starring Matt Damon (Season 28, air date: Oct. 5, 2022).
“I think, definitely, I would overthink stuff in the early going because it’s first-impression stuff,” said Forte. “So, it’s really important. These little phrases could be the difference between something being funny versus not funny.”
Forte would have numerous parts during his tenure, though his "MacGruber" character — based on the MacGyver action TV series — became one of his best-known and the sketch would later be adapted into a 2010 film and original series on Peaock.
His other popular roles included the soft-spoken presidential candidate Tim Calhoun, a regular on "Weekend Update." On June 5, 2024, he was cited by longest-running SNL cast member Kenan Thompson as someone he “learned a lot from” on the show.
Bill Hader
Funnyman Bill Hader received four Emmy Award nominations for his work on SNL between 2005 and 2013 (and an additional 25 noms and three wins across his career). The Tulsa-raised Hader started as a production assistant in Hollywood. Like many of his SNL predecessors, Hader joined the Second City improv comedy troupe in Los Angeles and was noticed by Will & Grace actress Megan Mullally.
“It was preschool to Harvard overnight,” Hader said in a May 2023 interview with The New Yorker. “I had to get my bearings and it took, I would say, four years on SNL for me to feel comfortable.”
Hader breathed life into many characters over the years, including "Weekend Update" correspondent and city guide, Stefon, on top of his many celebrity impressions: Clint Eastwood, Al Pacino, and Dateline’s Keith Morrison (Season 37, air date: December 3, 2011), to name just a few.
Darrell Hammond
Darrell Hammond had a 14-season stretch on SNL from 1995 to 2009, making him the second-longest cast member behind Kenan Thompson. He has remained the show’s announcer since 2014, succeeding long-time announcer Don Pardo following Pardo’s death.
Speaking to Los Angeles’s KTLA in September 2024, Hammond said it was “hard” to pick just one of his favorite moments from SNL.
“Being on that set, I did maybe a thousand appearances over 500 shows, and [with] everyone from LeBron James to Nicole Kidman and George Bush and Al Gore and Obama walking past your dressing room, it’s hard,” said Hammond.
Hammond frequently played politicians on the show, from U.S. Presidents Bill Clinton to Donald Trump. His other recurring celebrity impersonations included Arnold Schwarzenegger, Dr. Phil, and Sean Connery, the latter of whom regularly appeared on the show’s "Celebrity Jeopardy."
Seth Meyers
Seth Meyers performed on the SNL stage from 2001 to 2014, unseating Dennis Miller (a cast member from 1985 to 1991) as the longest-running anchor for "Weekend Update," at least for a time. His span earned him a whopping 11 Emmy Award nominations and one win, though current cast member Colin Jost later surpassed the Weekend Update record.
Meyers co-hosted the weekly news segment with fellow cast member Amy Poehler and became the show’s sole anchor upon Poehler’s 2008 departure. From 2013 to 2014, he hosted with Cecily Strong, a cast member from 2012 to 2022.
When asked in a July 2019, interview with TODAY’s Savannah Guthrie about his best times, Meyers said he “specifically” knew which day of his life he would love to relive: “The day I found out I got SNL was the most exciting day,” he said.
Meyers continues to host NBC’s Late Night with Seth Meyers after more than a decade in that role.
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Andy Samberg
Brooklyn Nine-Nine star Andy Samberg got his comedy start in the early 2000s by uploading homemade videos with his friends Akiva Schaffer and Jorma Taccone in the early days of the internet. Just like that, The Lonely Island was born. All three members of the musical comedy trio were tapped to write for SNL, with Samberg joining as a featured player in 2005. Samberg became a main cast member the following year and stayed until 2012.
Original songs, including “Lazy Sunday” (Season 31, air date: Dec. 17, 2005), “D*** in a Box” (Season 32, air date: Dec. 16, 2006), and the Grammy Award-nominated “I’m on a Boat” (Season 34, air date: February 7, 2009) were just a few musical hits featured on the show. The singles helped popularize the then-new SNL Digital Shorts.
“For me, specifically, my dream was SNL from when I was 8 years old; that’s what I wanted,” Samberg told comedian and actor Kevin Hart on Peacock’s Hart to Heart, explaining that he would soak in SNL sketches as a child before performing them himself in front of his classmates.
Samberg played many original characters on SNL, from "The Blizzard Man" to "Weekend Update’"s contributor Liam, “the teenager who just woke up.” For SNL’s Season 50 premiere (air date Sept. 28, 2024), he made a special appearance in the cold open and returned the following episode with Schaffer to perform “Sushi Glory Hole.”
Jason Sudeikis
Before he was the titular character in the sports comedy series Ted Lasso, Jason Sudeikis came through several comedy circuits (including ComedySportz and Chicago’s Second City) before joining SNL as a writer in 2003, he said during a 2021 appearance of The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. Sudeikis became a featured player on the show in 2005 and stayed until 2013.
Of his SNL audition at Manhattan’s Stand Up NY, Sudeikis said he had no stand-up experience and only crafted his sketch comedy and improv talents. Worse yet, when it was time for Sudeikis to perform, SNL alum Chris Rock (a cast member from 1990 to 1993) unexpectedly arrived. Sudeikis knew Rock would be a tough act to follow.
“I was like, ‘OK, if I bomb, if I fail right now, I’ll always be able to sit at the end of the bar in Overland Park, Kansas, going, ‘I had to follow Chris freakin’ Rock,’” Sudeikis recalled. “And luckily, it worked out.”
The Emmy Award winner was known for playing a handful of politicians on SNL, like George W. Bush, Joe Biden, and Mitt Romney.
Kenan Thompson
Hailed as the longest-running cast member in SNL history, Kenan Thompson joined the cast in 2003 and has been there ever since. He’s no stranger to the comedy world, either. As a child actor, Thompson was a regular cast member on the Nickelodeon children’s sketch series All That and costarred in the network’s Kenan & Kel in the 1990s. Plus, he appeared in an impressive bill of popular kid-friendly films, including D2: The Mighty Ducks (1994), Heavyweights (1995), and Good Burger (1997).
Thompson recently told current SNL cast member Heidi Gardner that “the confidence of performing in front of audiences” as a child prepared him for the NBC series later in life, according to Wall Street Journal.
The Atlantan said of learning the ropes of show biz, “I think it was very advantageous to not have to do all that learning on the fly,” thanks to his work experience.
Thompson has been nominated for six Emmy Awards, winning for the SNL original song “Come Back Barack,” which he performed alongside Chance the Rapper and Chris Redd (Season 43, air date: Nov. 18, 20
A few of his countless SNL bits include recurring roles as Bill Cosby, Rev. Al Sharpton Jr., and O.J. Simpson.
Kristen Wiig
Kristen Wiig was in her twenties living in Arizona when, upon receiving a psychic’s encouragement, she moved to L.A. to pursue her acting ambitions, she once told San Diego’s PBS affiliate. She later shifted into comedy and joined The Groundlings, graduating to the SNL stage in 2005 and staying until 2012.
“I was at the Groundlings, and my manager encouraged me to submit a tape of all my characters and sketches to SNL. They invited me to come audition after that,” Wiig said in an August 22, 2013, interview with The New York Times. “There were a couple things that made it to the show, one being Aunt Linda, who was the movie critic on "Weekend Update," and I did the "Target Lady" as well. But I’ve never even seen the tape that they sent in, because I don’t like watching myself. You never think they’re going to say yes.”
More of Wiig’s notable original parts included a Super Showcase spokesmodel and Karina on "The Californians." Off the SNL stage, she found commercial and award-winning success for her work on Bridesmaids (2011), Ghostbusters (2016), and dozens of films.
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Casey Wilson
Casey Wilson joined SNL in 2008 (the latter part of Season 33) and stayed for one more season. Though her time on SNL might have been shorter than her castmates, she performed several memorable impressions, including Katy Perry (Season 34, air date: Oct. 4, 2008) and Elizabeth Taylor, the latter of whom appeared on “Vincent Price’s Valentine’s Day Special” (Season 34, air date: Feb. 14, 2009).
Wilson has since appeared in handfuls of films and television shows, including the AppleTV+ series The Shrink Next Door and NBC’s Marry Me.
Abby Elliot
Daughter of famed comedian and 1994 SNL cast member Chris Elliot, Abby Elliot joined the show in 2008 and stayed until 2012. Her many celeb impressions over her four-season span included Meryl Streep, Nancy Grace, and Rachel Maddow, all of whom appeared multiple times.
“When I first started sketch comedy, I didn’t know how to really do characters, but I knew how to do impressions, and that’s kinda how I got into doing SNL,” Elliot said in a July 12, 2017, interview on BUILD Series. For her audition, she delivered impressions of Angelina Jolie, Katie Holmes, and Anna Farris, the latter of whom Elliot played on the show opposite the real-life actress (season 37, air date: Oct. 15, 2011).
Elliot has appeared in over a dozen TV shows, most notably as a main cast member in FX’s The Bear.
Bobby Moynihan
Bobby Moynihan joined the SNL cast in 2008, giving memorable sketches that included "Weekend Update"’s drunk uncle and his impression of former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie before leaving the show in 2017.
Moynihan graduated from the University of Connecticut and later became a staple at New York City’s Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre, where many SNL cast members — including Poehler, Kate McKinnon, and current cast member Bowen Yang — have honed their skills.
Moynihan has lent his voice to several animated series, such as The Simpsons, Cartoon Network’s We Bare Bears, and Hulu’s The Awesomes, as well as feature films including The Secret Life of Pets, Inside Out, and Monsters University.
Michaela Watkins
Michaela Watkins appeared on SNL for only Season 34, portraying Arianna Huffington on "Weekend Update" (air date: Nov. 22, 2008), TODAY host Hoda Kotb (air date: Jan. 10, 2009), and Barbara Walters (air date: Jan. 17, 2009), as well as the recurring character Angie Tempura, known for her celebrity-roasting snark. She's racked up numerous TV roles in her post-SNL days.
