The mass exodus of “Saturday Night Live“ cast members continued last night in largely unexpected fashion. Kate McKinnon, Aidy Bryant, Kyle Mooney, Pete Davidson, Alex Moffat and others have left this year. But, at least they still had Cecily Strong…until now.
Strong has been one of the most versatile cast members, proving herself with her range of impressions, accents, and ability to sing. Her surprise final episode aired December 17th, 2022.
Strong joined “SNL” in 2012 as a featured player, but quickly moved up to being one of the main cast members. She also served as a bridge between Weekend Update eras as she co-anchored with Seth Meyers in his final season, and co-anchored with Colin Jost when he first started. She would later be replaced with Michael Che, forming the longest running duo of hosts Weekend Update has ever had. It’s interesting in retrospect to see how Cecily helped transition the segment from one tenured host to another.
Outside of Weekend Update, Strong has done a tremendous amount of work in terms of original characters. Most notable The Girl You Wish You Hadn’t Started a Conversation With at a Party. The name pretty much says it all as Cecily’s characters rambles on in a drunken stupor of horribly uninformed intellectualism and self-righteousness. Given her departure happening around Christmas though, we’d be horrible remiss if we didn’t mention her performance as Diane Gellerman; a knock-off Barbara Streisand who belts out the most baffling version of “Jingle Bells” you’ve ever heard. (It’s actually a direct reference to Streisand’s own insane version from 1967.)
Keeping with the Christmas theme, it was a holiday song that the cast helped send Cecily off. Host Austin Butler, star of Baz Luhrman‘s “Elvis,” did a version of “Blue Christmas” that had the cast coming on stage to sing and cry. It was a hugely emotional moment for everyone even before the singing started. The sketch began with the guise that Cecily was an employee of RadioShack and was leaving after 11 years. The manager, played by Kenan Thompson, praised Cecily’s tenure at RadioShack, a thinly veiled stand-in for “SNL.” Then, came the Casual Elvis impersonator they hired, and the music and tears rolled.
Strong’s tenure at “SNL” was in-line with her last name, strong. Her reliability in any and every sketch she was a part of helped cement her as one of the best cast members in “SNL” history. She also helped mark a time period where the female players were true standouts. Between her, McKinnon, and Bryant, there was a winning trifecta of talent that brought so much to the show. At the very least, we can continue to see Cecily put her vocal and comedic talents to use in AppleTV+’s musical comedy series “Schmigadoon!.”
We wish Cecily Strong the very best, and thank her for all the laughs.
