Free Post: The First 25 Seasons of SNL By the Numbers
Free Post: The First 25 Seasons of SNL By the Numbers
Now that we are halfway through our quest to watch all 50 seasons of Saturday Night Live, it’s time to pause and look back at what we’ve found. As you may have heard us discuss on the podcast, we watch every episode, grading every sketch and Weekend Update installment. We then tally up all the numbers, giving us a final grade for each episode and season.
The grading scale is simple: an all-time classic sketch gets a “5,” while only the most appalling sketches get a “1.” A pretty average episode will come in at around a 2.5, while a really good episode will top 3.0.
According to the grading system, the Top 20 episodes in the first 25 years of the show are:
Steve Martin (3.87) Season 3, Ep. 18
Tom Hanks (3.85) Season 14, Ep. 1
David Alan Grier (3.65) Season 21, Ep. 8
Christopher Walken (3.625) Season 18, Ep. 4
Tom Hanks (3.6) Season 16, Ep. 8
Steve Martin (3.55) Season 4, Ep. 4
Ralph Nader (3.4) Season 2, Ep. 11
Paul Simon (3.4) Season 13, Ep. 8
Stevie Wonder (3.38) Season 8, Ep. 19
Eric Idle (3.35) Season 5, Ep. 2
Jerry Seinfeld (3.35) Season 17, Ep. 18
Michael Jordan (3.31) Season 17, Ep. 1
Tom Hanks (3.31) Season 17, Ep. 19
Candice Bergen (3.3) Season 2, Ep. 10
Art Garfunkel (3.26) Season 3, Ep. 13
Steve Martin (3.26) Season 14, Ep. 20
Linda Hamilton (3.26) Season 17, Ep. 6
William Shatner (3.25) Season 12, Ep. 8
Chris Evert (3.25) Season 15, Ep. 5
Kyle MacLachlan (3.25) S16, Ep. 1
The first thing that becomes obvious when you look at the list (other than the fact there are three Hankses and three Martins) is that there is only one all-time great episode in the post-1994-95 (Season 20) era. That is the episode in which David Alan Grier showed up during Will Ferrell and Cheri Oteri’s first year on the show. Twelve of the shows on the list happened between seasons 12 and 18, which are the Dana Carvey/Phil Hartman/Jon Lovitz/Jan Hooks years.
Here is a season-by-season breakdown of each episode’s grades. For seasons 1-13, go here (9-13), here (6-8), here (5), and here (1-4). You can scroll down here to see a single chart of every season rating from 1 to 25.
Here are the episode grades for seasons 14 through 25:
That brings us to the season-by-season comparison, which looks like this:
If you have listened to us discuss each season, this all checks out: The greatness of the first five years, followed by struggles through Season 11, then a surge in the late 1980s. This was followed by the very poor seasons 19 and 20, then ending with the remarkable consistency of seasons 21-25 (the Ferrell years.)
So thanks to all of you for listening - we are halfway done, and we are just on the cusp of a new cast (Amy Poehler, Will Forte, Fred Armisen, and Kenan Thompson) are waiting in the wings.
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