Seth Meyers confessed to Andy Cohen on Watch What Happens Live that he hasn’t gotten around to seeing Saturday Night yet, so maybe it’s no surprise that none of the original cast’s characters appears on his rapid-fire countdown of all-time Saturday Night Live favorites.
Who did make the cut? Here are the five greatest SNL characters ever, according to Meyers…
Debbie Downer
Presented without comment from Meyers, Debbie Downer was Rachel Dratch’s signature character. The name became synonymous with that person who manages to find doom in even the happiest news, bringing down the entire group in the process. The character’s first appearance may hold the SNL record for most crack-ups in a single sketch. “I always loved when things went ‘wrong’ on the show,” Dratch said in the SNL oral history Live From New York, “because it reminds you the show is really live.”
Buckwheat
“I know it pre-existed,” Meyers says, “but I think (Eddie Murphy) made it his own.”
Snoop Dogg, another of Cohen’s guests, proved it by singing “Wookin’ Pa Nub,” one of Buckwheat’s greatest hits.
Colleen Rafferty
Even though Kate McKinnon’s perpetually abducted character made Meyers’ all-time list, he doesn’t know her name, calling her “Colleen McCaffrey.” Perhaps he combined “McKinnon” and “Rafferty” to create the odd portmanteau? Cohen at least knew what Meyers meant by the “Close Encounters” character, calling it “amazing.”
MacGruber
Meyers shouted out Will Forte, citing his “enduring love for MacGruber.” And it’s not just the short sketches. “A great film,” said Meyers. “Only 90 minutes. Check it out.”
“I just watched the movie for the first time!” gushed Cohen. “It blew my mind.”
Stefon
Surprise, surprise. “My one true love” is Meyers’ pick as Saturday Night Live’s greatest character. “Just look at him!”
To be fair to all of the other characters in SNL’s 50-year history, Stefon is the only one who Meyers married on the show. “He was emotional, and I was emotional, and we’re sitting there, holding hands and almost crying, and he’s got a wedding veil, and I’m like, ‘This is a lot like an actual wedding,’” Meyers said on his Late Night show in 2014. “And then a few months later, I got actual married, to my current, real, human wife. And then when we got married? Nothing. Just nothing.”