As Saturday Night Live prepares for the comedy birthday party to end all comedy birthday parties, expect plenty of classic characters to get their encore flowers. Maybe Wayne and Garth will get in one last schwing! Stefon might reignite his love affair with Seth Meyers. Eddie Murphy could break out Mr. Robinson or Gumby.
But thanks to evolving cultural norms around comedy, these 10 SNL characters are virtually guaranteed not to get an invite to the festivities. Sorry, Merv the Perv, you’re not on the list.
Pat
Pat was Julia Sweeney’s signature SNL character, showing up 12 times to repeat the same tired joke: No one could tell if the androgynous character was a man or a woman. Playing gender identity for laughs isn’t cool — and it doesn’t help that whiny, whinging Pat was insufferable.
Ching Chang
@sassollou
Dana Carvey often brings up his cringe Asian character as an example of something he wouldn’t be allowed to do today. He was barely allowed to do it in the ‘80s, as host Candace Bergen told Carvey his character was a racial stereotype during a sketch. “And that was the last one we did,” he says.
Uncle Roy
@huggyattack
Ten-time host Buck Henry played creepy Uncle Roy in multiple sketches, pulling out his camera to snap candids of young girls’ underpants. Somehow, Henry thought he was shining a light on the problem of pedophiles. “I talked myself into the fact that we were performing — or that I was performing — a public service,” he says in SNL oral history Live From New York.
Merv the Perv
@huggyattack
Typical Merv line: “Well, well, well — lookee here. All these skirts and me with only one wiener.” Oof.
Canteen Boy’s Scoutmaster
@thealmanac77
There’s an outside chance that Adam Sandler’s Canteen Boy returns, but we won’t be seeing Alec Baldwin’s shirtless Scoutmaster again. Child molestation just doesn’t seem as funny as it must have in 1994.
Monica Lewinsky and Linda Tripp
Molly Shannon will be back, but her Monica Lewinsky won’t be. SNL painted Bill Clinton as a rascally “boys will be boys” horndog, while Lewinsky got the ditz treatment. Who was the authority figure committing adultery anyway? As for Tripp: “Kids are so sensitive about their parents,” she told Larry King. “And my kids always thought I was pretty. And they were so completely shattered by John Goodman.”
Lyle the Effeminate Heterosexual
Lyle walks with a swish and talks with a lisp — but he likes women! Feel free to roll your eyes as Carvey breaks out every limp-wristed gay stereotype in the book.
The Continental
A real-life Pepe Le Pew, Christopher Walken’s Continental made several appearances as a would-be Lothario who traps women until they give him the love he desires. The character’s one redeeming quality: He’s so inept that the women always escape before the unwanted fondling begins.
Dion
If Lyle the Effeminate Heterosexual were actually gay, he’d fit right in with Eddie Murphy’s Dion and Joe Piscopo’s Blair. The characters would have been right at home in a 1960s nightclub, where a lisp and a flamboyant attitude were guaranteed laughs. Despite Dion’s popularity — eight appearances — he won’t be making a ninth.