Weird But Steady, Beck Bennett Held His ‘SNL’ Cast And Sketches Together

In almost every sketch comedy ensemble, you’ll find several archetypes. The alpha star. The weird omega, often the fool and the butt of jokes. In between, the specialists, such as the wacky wildcard, the celebrity impersonating chameleon, the utility player, or the member who thinks they’re the star while nobody else agrees.

In Saturday Night Live, an ensemble with rotating parts from one season to the next, it’s as important if not more so to have one actor in the cast who can play all of the parts.

For the past few seasons, Beck Bennett was that guy. Let’s enter into evidence this sketch from 2017 as demonstrable proof, in which Bennett desperately compares himself to guest host Benedict Cumberbatch.

Bennett announced his departure from Studio 8H on Monday, after eight seasons on the show, writing on Instagram: “Love you, SNL. Gonna miss you so much. Thank you for 8 years of remarkable people and incredible experiences that completely changed my life. I had so much fun.”

Hired in 2013 alongside Kyle Mooney and editor/director Dave McCary as a team (they’d previously made videos with Nick Rutherford, who also served as an SNL writer for a season, as Good Neighbor), Bennett got promoted from featured player to main cast in 2015. McCary already left the show and married Emma Stone, not necessarily in that order. So with all of the other Good Neighbors gone, does that leave Mooney on a lonely island, so to speak?

SNL stats nerd Mike Murray seemed to think so, posting on Twitter: “Beck Bennett leaving without Kyle Mooney is like when you have 2 dogs and you know one of them will die first, but you never want to think about it.”

The fuller, better answer is that both Bennett and Mooney established their own identities apart from one another already, even if they enjoyed most of their SNL success together in live and pre-taped sketches. Here’s just one example where they worked well off of each other as well as the guest host, in this sketch that’s an ad for “Del Taco” (and in real life became a radio jingle for Del Taco!) in which Bennett provides just enough to egg on Mooney and Adam Driver.

One of Bennett’s earliest and biggest efforts to create and sustain a recurring character on the show was his baby boss, a corporate executive somehow trapped in the constraints of a baby’s body, a character demanding lots of physical acumen and comedy.

As his tenure went on, Bennett settled into his own zone as a steady presence in sketches.

For topical needs, he could launch a cold open as either CNN’s Wolf Blitzer or CNN’s Jake Tapper, or enter any political scene as Vladimir Putin or Mitch McConnell, or disgrace the proceedings as MyPillow’s Mike Lindell.

But what’s more steady than a dad, especially if he’s a slightly unhinged father figure?

Here are two great examples from the past season, which would prove to be Beck’s last.

Bennett’s cast mates also have sounded off already with their own tributes and sketch rewatch recommendations.

From Heidi Gardner: “He has too many great performances, but please go back and watch Ass Angel Jeans from last season for the performance of a lifetime.”

Cecily Strong bid fond farewell to Bennett on her Instagram, whom she called “Beckie-boo,” adding: “My favorite bad stage kiss partner, fellow reporter in 1000 sketches, male voiceover counterpart, husband to the amazing and wonderful Jessy, and so much more. One of the best “straight” guys the show has ever had but also one of the greatest weirdest and wackiest character actor. It’s hard to find pictures and videos of all my favorite moments when there are just so so many favorite moments. Here are just some I could find easily on my phone. *One that is not pictured here is when Leslie rehearsed her first sketch I think and full on punched Beck in the stomach instead of a stage punch. And Beck took it so well I’m still laughing about it without feeling tooooo bad. Thank you for making snl so much better as a show and a job and a place and a home.”

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But as Jason Nummer noted for Decider two years ago, “Sadly, People Aren’t Going to Fully Appreciate Beck Bennett Until After He’s Left The Show.”

Just look at this fan-made compilation from the summer.

This won’t be the last Bennett tribute video to exist on YouTube, that’s for certain.

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Sean L. McCarthy works the comedy beat for his own digital newspaper, The Comic’s Comic; before that, for actual newspapers. Based in NYC but will travel anywhere for the scoop: Ice cream or news. He also tweets @thecomicscomic and podcasts half-hour episodes with comedians revealing origin stories: The Comic’s Comic Presents Last Things First.