SNL 40 adds comedy legends Billy Crystal, Bradley Cooper, and Miley Cyrus to its parade of stars
As everyone knows, the 40th anniversary is often recognized as the “endless celebrity cameo anniversary.” It’s usually a tough one to pull off, since your average anniversary celebrator doesn’t have the phone number of literally every famous person ever. However, SNL’s Lorne Michaels is not your average anniversary celebrator, and he’s going to prove that by—what else—calling up literally every famous person ever and asking them if they’ll show up for Saturday Night Live’s 40th anniversary special, wave to a camera, and then step aside so the next famous person can wave to a camera. He already somehow convinced Eddie Murphy to come back, plus so many other stars that we’re not going to bother listing any of them here. Sarah Palin will also be there, but that’s probably because the only way to get her to stay away from something is to make her the governor of it.
Now, according to Deadline, SNL 40 has added even more famous people: Billy Crystal, Bradley Cooper, Edward Norton, Miley Cyrus, and ex-castmembers Kevin Nealon, Ana Gasteyer, Colin Quinn, Joe Piscopo, Tim Meadows, and Will Forte. To accommodate all of that extra star-power, NBC has granted SNL 40 an entire extra half hour, bumping the running time to a Christopher Nolan-esque three-and-a-half hours. Deadline says this is giving the network “another 10 ad units,” and that they’ll be “worth more than the cost of extending the special,” which makes us wonder why NBC doesn’t just drop all of these ill-conceived notions about being a real network and air nothing but a constant feed of new SNL sketches. Kenan would probably have to be replaced by a robot at some point, but it could just sell 10 more ad units to offset the cost of that.
Anyway, here’s the full list of guests, and don’t forget to hit “ctrl+F” to find your favorites: Fred Armisen, Dan Aykroyd, Alec Baldwin, Jim Carrey, Dana Carvey, Chevy Chase, Bradley Cooper, Billy Crystal, Jane Curtin, Miley Cyrus, Robert De Niro, Jimmy Fallon, Will Ferrell, Tina Fey, James Franco, Will Forte, Zach Galifianakis, Ana Gasteyer, Bill Hader, Jon Hamm, Tom Hanks, Derek Jeter, Norm MacDonald, Peyton Manning, Steve Martin, Melissa McCarthy, Paul McCartney, Tim Meadows, Seth Meyers, Garrett Morris, Eddie Murphy, Bill Murray, Mike Myers, Kevin Nealon, Laraine Newman, Jack Nicholson, Edward Norton, Joe Piscopo, Amy Poehler, Colin Quinn, Chris Rock, Paul Rudd, Maya Rudolph, Andy Samberg, Adam Sandler, Jerry Seinfeld, Molly Shannon, Martin Short, Paul Simon, David Spade, Emma Stone, Jason Sudeikis, Taylor Swift, Justin Timberlake, Christopher Walken, Kerry Washington, Kanye West, Betty White, and Kristen Wiig. Whew! Did anybody actually read all of that?