Our ‘SNL’ Quiz Is No Joke

Near the beginning of each episode, SNL typically airs prerecorded commercials for fictitious products. One of the earliest ads was for Spud Beer, which aired during SNL’s first season. “Brewed for people who can’t taste the difference,” it’s “filled with the full, rich flavor of potatoes,” the commercial joked. SNL has advertised hundreds of faux products since, including high-waisted mom jeans and the Happy Fun Ball, a simple children’s toy that comes with a litany of comical disclaimers.

Real-life friends Will Ferrell and Cheri Oteri were brand-new to SNL in 1995 when they came up with the idea for the Spartan cheerleaders — social outcasts Arianna and Craig, whose school spirit was so intense that they formed a renegade cheer duo after being rejected from their school’s cheerleading squad. Oteri, who had been a cheerleader in high school, often did cheer moves when she was killing time. When Ferrell noticed and began mimicking her with a straight face, the Spartans were born.

Although SNL’s “Weekend Update” is known for its satirical take on the news, the jokes that the anchors make about current events are funny only in the short term, whereas the humorous characters who join them at the  desk are timeless. A fan favorite in the 2000s was Bill Hader’s Stefon, who delivered outlandish descriptions of what he claimed were New York’s hottest clubs. Hader says he based Stefon’s speech and mannerisms on a barista at a coffee shop in the city’s Chelsea neighborhood.

Kristen Wiig conceived Target Lady while performing as part of the Los Angeles–based improv group The Groundlings. “It was based on a woman in the Burbank Target,” Wiig told Vanity Fair in 2014. “It was a little bit of her voice so I just kind of went with it and exaggerated it and created this woman.” The character, whose name is Peg, launched Wiig’s career: She ended up on SNL in 2005 when executive producer Lorne Michaels saw a tape of Wiig as Target Lady and asked her to audition.

The Five-Timers Club is an elite group of celebrities who have hosted SNL five times or more. Alec Baldwin has hosted 17 times; Steve Martin has hosted 16 times; John Goodman has hosted 13 times; and Tom Hanks has hosted 10 times. Other five-timers include Tina Fey, Drew Barrymore, Dwayne Johnson, Candice Bergen, Bill Murray, Justin Timberlake and Melissa McCarthy. Former cast member Kristen Wiig became the newest member in April 2024.

Irish singer Sinéad O’Connor made TV history in 1992, when she performed Bob Marley’s “War” on SNL. Best known for her cover of Prince’s “Nothing Compares 2 U,” O’Connor ended her performance by tearing up a picture of Pope John Paul II as she sang the song’s last line, “We have confidence in the victory of good over evil.” “Everybody froze at SNL,” record label executive Daniel Glass told The Guardian after O’Connor’s death in July 2023, adding that she was “totally canceled” afterward.

Tesla and SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk — who famously acquired the social media platform Twitter in 2022, then rebranded it as X — hosted SNL in May 2021. The billionaire investor and business mogul followed in the footsteps of several other tycoons who previously hosted the show, including New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner, Forbes publisher Steve Forbes, and former President Donald Trump, who has hosted the show twice.

Ego Nwodim joined SNL in 2018 and had a breakout moment in 2023, when she starred in a sketch titled “Lisa From Temecula.” The sketch went viral after host Pedro Pascal broke character laughing at Nwodim’s portrayal of a pink-clad lawyer who likes her meat well-done and “just doesn’t have time for nonsense,” as Nwodim put it in a 2023 interview with the Los Angeles Times. The Atlantic called Lisa — who has already made several more appearances — an “instant-classic character.”