10 years ago this week: Seth and Stefon got married + the end of an SNL era
Click to view• In the week leading up to Saturday Night Live's season 38 finale (hosted by Ben Affleck with musical guest Kanye West) it was announced that beloved and key cast member, Bill Hader would be leaving the show after eight seasons.
• To say goodbye, John Mulaney wrote a Stefon segment that resolved the years long will-they-won't-they between "Seth Meyers" and Stefon. The traditional Weekend Update correspondence piece transitioned into a send-up of The Graduate where Seth crashes Stefon's wedding. The church was full of characters Stefon had previously described and even included an appearance from Affleck, reprising his role as Stefon's brother from his very first appearance back in 2008.
• During a Late Night interview a few years ago Hader and Meyers discussed how emotional they became while watching the pre-tape that night as they waited to run back on set.
• That episode was also the final one for Fred Armisen and Jason Sudeikis, cast members since 2002 and 2005 respectively.
• Armisen announced his own departure in the last sketch of the night. He reprised the "Ian Rubbish" character he debuted on the show a month earlier and announced that it was Ian and The Bizzaros final time performing on the show, though they promised to keep playing together elsewhere. Armisen was on lead guitar and sang, Hader was on bass and Sudeikis on drums. Kim Gordon, Steve Jones, Aimee Mann, J Mascis, Michael Penn, and Armisen's Portlandia co-star Carrie Brownstein all appeared towards the end of the sketch and performed with the group.
• Sudeikis recently revealed that he wrote his own send-off sketch but it was cut after dress. The season before there had been a lot of speculation that he would be leaving the show alongside Kristen Wiig and Andy Samberg, but stayed on for another year because it was an election year and he was the show's Mitt Romney impersonator.
• The day after the finale then-cast member Jay Pharoah tweeted and then deleted a post that seemingly confirmed that Sudeikis was leaving the show, though Sudeikis himself wouldn't confirm the news until that summer.
• The following season, season 39, would be one of the rougher ”rebuilding” seasons the show has had.
• Over the summer the show added six new cast members (five men, one woman) and was roundly criticized by the lack of diversity among the new hires. Cast members Kenan Thompson and Jay Pharoah spoke to the press and criticized the lack of black female cast members and Sasheer Zamata would be hired midseason. She was the first black female cast member since Maya Rudolph left the show in 2008.
• Seth Meyers would leave the show in February 2014 (Amy Poehler, Andy Samberg, Hader-as-Stefon, and Armisen-as-David-Patterson were all on hand to send him off), and Colin Jost took over his spot on the desk to mostly negative reviews. By the end of the season only three of the new hires would stay on for season 40 (Beck Bennett, Kyle Mooney, and Zamata) while the rest were fired. Season 40 would be better as Kate McKinnon, Aidy Bryant, and Cecily Strong all took over the reins and new hires Leslie Jones and Pete Davidson made an immediate splash as cast members.
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