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The 'SNL' Weekend Update anchors throughout the years, ranked

Good evening, and what can we tell you? "Saturday Night Live" has changed a lot throughout the years, but one constant has been Weekend Update, the fake newscast that sits in the middle of the show. While the format remains the same, the show has been through 23 different anchors in its 43 seasons, with styles ranging from straightforward parody newscasts (Jane Curtin and Dan Aykroyd) to a stream-of-consciousness stand-up act behind the desk (Dennis Miller) to a more freewheeling, giggly showcase for recurring characters (Jimmy Fallon and Tina Fey). 

Some went solo, some teamed up, and some have tried to move the format over to their own post-"SNL" shows (Colin Quinn and Seth Meyers). So as the pair of Colin Jost and Michael Che return to the anchor chairs after tag-teaming the hosting job at the Emmy's, here's a ranking of all the Weekend Update anchors throughout the years. We're leaving out the one-offs, like Buck Henry in the disastrous New Orleans show, though we'd have loved to see a full season of Don Rickles or Bob Uecker behind the desk. 

Enjoy the list, and have a pleasant tomorrow.

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23. Charles Rocket

Charles Rocket was the only Weekend Update host who was an actual news anchor before landing on Update, hosting local broadcasts in Pueblo, Colorado and Nashville. He was supposed to be the breakout star of the first season without the original cast — people compared him to Chevy Chase because he was tall, handsome and kind of a dıck backstage, but audiences really only responded to The Rocket Report, a man-on-the-street segment filmed on the streets of New York. His Update performances are...not great. He's most famous for saying the f-word on live television, for no particular reason. Rocket was fired immediately, the show was placed on hiatus and eventually, the entire cast besides Eddie Murphy and Joe Piscopo lost their jobs. Some Weekend Update hosts have been bad, but only Charles Rocket was so bad he nearly got the show canceled. Later Rocket played the bad guy, Nicholas Andre, in "Dumb and Dumber" where he continued to be tall, handsome and not very funny.

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22. Gail Matthius

Gail Matthius was the co-anchor of a whopping six episodes of Weekend Update in Season 6, the historical low point of "SNL." She paired with Charles Rocket, and while the segments weren't great, Matthius comes in ahead of Rocket because she didn't almost get the show thrown off the air. She was pushed aside by Bill Murray and Chevy Chase for the season's last two episodes and did not return for Season 7. She's probably best known for her voice work on 90's cartoons like "Tiny Toon Adventures" and "Animaniacs," but she deserved better from "SNL."

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21. Christine Ebersole

Christine Ebersole joined Brian Doyle-Murray for the last two episodes of Season 7, during a period when Dıck Ebersol was trying literally anything to keep the show on the air. The six segments weren't memorable, but then again, nothing on the show was besides Eddie Murphy. Ebersole only did one season on the show before moving on to a soap opera, still the only "SNL" cast member to make that career move. Ebersole went on to a long-acting career on stage and screen, winning two Tony Awards, appearing in films as diverse as "Amadeus" and "The Wolf of Wall Street," and never reading fake news off a prompter again.

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20. Mary Gross

Mary Gross shared the "SNL NewsBreak" desk with Brian Doyle-Murray seven times in Season 6, in three different stints. That same year, Doyle-Murray did six episodes with Christine Ebersole and eight solo efforts. Periodically Gross would appear as a field reporter during the BDM-hosted editions of the news. While she didn't return to the news, Mary Gross did survive the cast purge at the end of the season and remained on the show for three more years. She also played assistant troop leader Annie Herman opposite Shelley Long and Rilo Kiley singer Jenny Lewis in "Troop Beverly Hills."

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19. Colin Jost

Colin Jost took over as head writer and Weekend Update anchor in 2014, though he stepped down from the head writer job for a while before Season 41. He may be a talented joke writer, but there's something off-putting about him. Maybe it's that he's as smirky as any of SNL's other preppy Update anchors, but without having their chops. It also might be that he's in the wrong era: Comedy audiences have never cared less about the opinions of rich white guys from Harvard. Jost is better the more he loosens up, banters with Michael Che and has a sense of humor about himself. He's worse when he's posing for photos while golfing or writing mediocre New Yorker pieces. However, no other Update anchor married Scarlett Johansson, so we're sure he won't sweat this ranking.

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18. Horatio Sanz

Horatio Sanz filled in at the Update desk for the first two episodes of Season 31, alongside Amy Poehler, while Tina Fey was out on maternity leave. Sanz did fine behind the desk, but the most memorable thing about his brief time on Update was the horn-rimmed glasses he wore as tribute to Fey.

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17. Brian Doyle-Murray

Part of the only pair of siblings ever to host Weekend Update, Brian Doyle-Murray was one of the few performers who worked for all three of "SNL's" producers: Lorne Michaels in Season 5, writing for Jean Doumanian in Season 6 and then returning to the cast and taking the rebranded "SNL NewsBreak" desk for Dıck Ebersol in Season 7. In the midst of all that, he also wrote "Caddyshack" with Harold Ramis and Doug Kenney. The gravel-voiced Murray was a perfectly adequate anchor for a perfectly forgettable season, who continued appearing in "SNL"-affiliated films for years (two "Vacation" movies with Chevy Chase, "Wayne's World" and countless movies with his brother Bill) and even wrote for Chase's ill-fated talk show in 1993.

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16. Brad Hall

Brad Hall was the man behind the "Saturday Night News" desk during Season 8, and the first half of Season 9. It followed the Chevy Chase template — good-looking preppy tall guy — but Hall pulled it off much better than Charles Rocket, possibly because he's a solid writer. Hall's most memorable stint behind the desk was probably anchoring the coverage of Buckwheat's death, but honestly, it was tough for anyone to stand out in those years who wasn't Eddie Murphy or Joe Piscopo. Even the legendary Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Hall's wife since 1987, couldn't get a foothold. Hall's writing was solid, as evidenced with his later Emmy-nominated work on "Brooklyn Bridge" and creating the sitcoms "Watching Ellie" and "The Single Guy."

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15. Christopher Guest

Christopher Guest joined the cast of "SNL" for its 10th season along with other "high-priced free agents" Billy Crystal, Martin Short and Harry Shearer. Dıck Ebersol's last year as producer. At the time, Guest was already well-established, having worked on "National Lampoon" productions with Chevy Chase and John Belushi and many other future SNL contributors. And "This Is Spinal Tap!" was already in theaters six months before he ever appeared on screen. Guest took over seven episodes into his lone season, after the show spent a year using its guest hosts as news anchors (including two episodes with Billy Crystal as "Fernando"). He was perfectly fine, but having Guest not play a character, do live performance. and deliver scripted material wastes nearly all of his most unique talents. But if he ever wants to make an ensemble comedy about local news, we'd be first in line at the theater.  

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14. Cecily Strong

In her second year in the "SNL" cast, Cecily Strong shared the Update desk with Seth Meyers and then Colin Jost. While Strong did a fine job as a news reader, the problem with her as anchor was that Update didn't get the benefit of her characters, like The Girl You Wish You Hadn't Started a Conversation With at a Party. While she certainly had the chops to grow into the role, as her gig hosting the White House Correspondents Dinner showed, she ultimately preferred focusing on her spot in the main cast.

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13. Colin Quinn

Colin Quinn took over after the controversial midseason firing of Norm MacDonald, and the circumstances made it tough for him to win over the audience. Quinn is a stand-up legend, and his material was often great, but much of the time he seemed visibly uncomfortable — in a suit, reading from a teleprompter, even dealing with the live studio audience, as he'd often shrug awkwardly when a joke didn't hit. The anchor chair seemed to take away some of his angry Brooklyn Irish edge, and while his opening monologues were often great, they didn't take as a permanent fixture of Update. But he parlayed what he learned on "SNL" into a series of wildly successful one-man theater shows.

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12. Michael Che

Michael Che is the first African-American head writer in "SNL's" history and the first African-American Update anchor in history, and he is now in his fifth year as the co-anchor. Initially Che wrote for the show, then became a "Daily Show" correspondent for just nine episodes, before being hired back at "SNL" to host Update. He's become more comfortable as the show adjusted to let him do long, stand-up-esque bits instead of just one-liners, because stand-up is still where Che seems looser and more comfortable. Unfortunately, that change has also meant Colin Jost gets to do monologues as well.

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11. Dan Aykroyd

Dan Aykroyd is the first Update co-anchor to change jobs at the fictional newscast — after co-anchoring with Jane Curtin in the show's third season, he got transferred/promoted to the "Station Manager" position for his final two years on the show. Primarily, that was so he could keep doing debates with Curtin, though perhaps the Weekend Update staff needed his management experience behind the scenes. As talented as he was, Aykroyd wasn't a perfect fit as the primary anchor, mainly because his greatest skill was disappearing into characters. It's the same reason Lorne Michaels never put Phil Hartman or Will Ferrell on Update. At the news desk, Aykroyd was at his best playing the chauvinist foil to Curtin, but having Aykroyd do straightforward reads of news jokes was a waste of his gifts.

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10. Kevin Nealon

Kevin Nealon took over after Dennis Miller's departure with a different take on Update. The verbose fount of esoteric references was replaced by Nealon doing Update in character as a befuddled newsman. And Nealon looked the part, too. But where he shone was as the straight man to the various Update characters, especially Tim Meadows' Ike Turner, Chris Farley's air-quote enthusiast Bennett Brauer and all of Adam Sandler's various singers. After three seasons, Nealon passed the baton to Norm MacDonald and returned to the regular cast.

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9. Jimmy Fallon

When he took over the Update desk with Tina Fey, Jimmy Fallon was already a big star on "SNL," thanks to his celebrity impressions and the songs he'd do on Update. Plus he was cute — the first Update anchor to make People's 50 Most Beautiful People list. But Update showed he was more than the guy who would break up in sketches. Plus his dynamic with Fey made Update much more, well, dynamic. He could nail straightforward jokes as well, which opened the door for opportunities to host award shows and eventually have the most popular late-night show in the country.

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8. Bill Murray

Murray paired up with Jane Curtin for Seasons 4 and 5 of "SNL," debuting a laid-back, breezy style that can be best described as "extremely Bill Murray." For example, in a story about Beethoven's 208th birthday, Murray called him "Ludwig von B" and an "old knockwurst-head." Murray wasn't trying to imitate a real news anchor; his persona was more like, "What if a TV station hired Bill Murray to read news, and he was a little bit stoned?" It's certainly enjoyable, and he paired well with Jane Curtin's straighter approach. His annual Oscar picks were always a highlight, typified by him dismissing most nominees with "Who cares?" or "Didn't see it." Plus, he's easily the Update anchor who did the most singing at the desk.

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7. Jane Curtin

After Chevy Chase left, Jane Curtin held down the anchor desk for the next four years, first opposite Dan Aykroyd and then Bill Murray. Curtin's deadpan delivery served the show well, particularly in the Point/Counterpoint debate segments with Aykroyd, a parody of a recurring "60 Minutes" feature at the time, highlighted by Aykroyd's "Jane, you ignorant sŀut" opening salvo. But she gave it back in kind: "“There’s an old saying, behind every successful man, there’s a woman — a loving, giving, caring woman. But you wouldn’t know about that, Dan, because there’s no old saying about what’s behind a miserable failure.”  Among the Not Ready For Prime Time Players, Curtin was the most grounded — she was married, and preferred going to the opera with her husband to drinking until dawn at Belushi and Aykroyd's bar — and the Weekend Update desk was the perfect piece of real estate for the cast's resident grownup.

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6. Amy Poehler

Amy Poehler was half of Update's first all-female anchor pairing, a spectacular two-year run with Tina Fey only interrupted when Fey went on to make "30 Rock," though they later teamed up for a three-year run hosting the Golden Globes together. Poehler was already a phenomenal impressionist and character comedian, but she proved she could nail jokes, too, especially in Women's News. When she teamed up with Seth Meyers, they also added bits like "Really? With Seth and Amy." But Poehler gets extra credit for her jaw-dropping Sarah Palin rap, performed in front of the vice presidential candidate while Poehler was nine months pregnant, truly one of the greatest moments in Weekend Update history.

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5. Seth Meyers

The longest-running occupant of the Update chair, Seth Meyers hosted for seven-and-a-half years. He worked on the show for nearly 14 years, first as cast member, then writing supervisor, before becoming head writer and an Update anchor in 2006. He took over "Late Night" in 2014, where after about six months he changed his show so his monologue was basically a Weeknight Update performed at his desk. Meyers is a great joke writer, but the most memorable part of his hosting tenure might have been his special relationship with Bill Hader's Stefon. New York's hottest couple is Seth and Stefon!

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4. Chevy Chase

Chevy Chase created Weekend Update, along with legendary comedy writer Herb Sargent. At this point, it's one of the longest-recurring sketches in television history or, really, the history of sketches at all. Chase said that without Weekend Update there never would have been a "Daily Show" or "Colbert Report" or the ilk, and while that's a grandiose statement, he's also not wrong. Chase would start every segment on the phone with an unheard caller, presumably his lover, and right off the bat had his catchphrase "I'm Chevy Chase and you're not," and the recurring bit about Generalissimo Francisco Franco still being dead. Honestly, ranking Chase among everyone who followed is like ranking Babe Ruth among all home run hitters — he might have been surpassed by modern comedians, and it's hard to compare across eras, but it's undeniable that he was the first one to actually do it. Also, if you read any recent interviews, you know Chase comes off as a giant bambino.

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3. Tina Fey

Tina Fey began the tradition of SNL head writers taking over the Update desk when she and Jimmy Fallon replaced Colin Quinn in 2000. It was the first Update duo since two Brian Doyle-Murray pairings, and it evoked the old Aykroyd-Curtin dynamic. She'd been a staff writer for three years and head writer for one, but she was immediately great as an anchor. Not only was Fey a fantastic joke writer — long, precise, joke-dense sentences — but her jokes were all the more devastating when delivered in her sunny, smirkless delivery. Fey really hit her stride when paired with Amy Poehler, where the co-anchor chemistry was even better and the jokes even quicker. And while she's on her second award-winning sitcom since leaving "SNL," Fey's most lasting legacy might be in the trends in eyeglass fashion.

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2. Norm MacDonald

Norm McDonald was a unique anchor in Weekend Update history, because he truly did not care what the audience thought, and his dark humor reflected that. Paired with veteran Jim Downey, who was on staff purely to do Weekend Update at that point, Norm dropped deadpan bombs for eight minutes every week, guided by a few core philosophies: German people love David Hasselhoff, and O.J. Simpson is incredibly guilty. Arguably, doing roughly 100 O.J. jokes in his three-and-a-half years got MacDonald canned, when Simpson friend Don Ohlmeyer (who was a bigwig at NBC) demanded his firing in December 1997. There wasn't any pretense to pretending to be a news anchor; MacDonald led off every segment with, "And now, the fake news," and he seemed happiest when the audience was stunned. He didn't get any gentler after leaving the show, delivering a flamethrower performance as ESPYs host in 1998, at which point ESPN decided to go with actors and athletes who wouldn't make fun of anyone. He's one of the best to ever do it, and — sorry, Dan Aykroyd — the greatest Canadian to ever do the job.

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1. Dennis Miller

Dennis Miller had the longest tenure as a solo Weekend Update host, and he redefined the format to make it his. He joined the show when Lorne Michaels returned, along with the Weekend Update name. It wasn't just Miller's jokes but his snarky delivery, mixed in with obscure references, elaborate metaphors, a genuinely cutting mean streak, plus a smattering of "babes" and "Chachis" that made him so beloved. And also so easy to imitate, as this three-Miller Christmas Carol (with Dana Carvey and Tom Hanks) demonstrates. The format was so perfect for Miller, he essentially took it with him to his HBO show as "The Big Board," with the same photo-heavy topical joke format. "Dennis Miller Live" ran for eight years and won five Emmys, meaning Miller essentially did the news for 15 straight years. The only place his style didn't work was a brief detour into "Monday Night Football" before ABC's hiring of John Madden — "the Pliny the Elder of football," according to Miller — sent him back to the world of talk shows. Still, he was the best to ever do Update.

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