This fall, “Saturday Night Live” will kick off its 50th season, a major milestone for the late-night sketch series that will include a huge celebration in the form of a 50th anniversary primetime special in February 2025. While it was believed that all of the cast members who were around for the show at the end of Season 49 would return for the landmark Season 50, at least one cast member recently revealed they won’t be returning.
According to LatenighterCast member Punkie Johnson will not return to “SNL” for Season 50. Johnson made the announcement during a stand-up comedy show at Brooklyn’s Union Hall on the evening of July 31, and several viewers subsequently posted about her comments on social media. LateNighter took the initiative to contact Johnson on the morning of August 1, and she confirmed her departure from the series, where she has been a repertory cast member since 2022, after joining the show as a featured player for Season 46 in 2021.
One Twitter user who attended the show wrote”Punky is leaving SNL, she said it was okay to share it online, so I think Twitter found out first. It definitely wasn’t a joke, like, she’s really gone, and she’s very happy about that.” However, during the show, Johnson also mentioned some disturbing details about why she left the show, and it seems pretty typical of “SNL’s” reputation behind the scenes.
Punkie Johnson apparently didn’t fit into the SNL mold
In a follow-up post on Twitter, the same user said, “She also said the problems started when she was told to lose her fear and stop being strong…” That’s pretty disappointing, especially since Johnson just became the first openly gay black woman to join the “SNL” cast. But the show has long had a trend of bringing in cast members from various racial backgrounds without successfully utilizing their diverse and unique cultural perspectives.
“SNL” often stereotypes comedians of color into certain types of characters or uses them as minority performers because they need a diverse cast to represent something other than white men. That’s not to say that some performers haven’t found great success on “SNL,” but it’s often the case that they don’t get a fair chance in the spotlight. That’s why Vera Drew’s indie comedy “The People’s Joker” focuses on a story that’s basically about comedy institutions like “SNL” and the Upright Citizens Brigade (where many of the “SNL” cast members began their careers) destroying the comedy dreams of anyone who doesn’t fit a certain type of character for the screen.
Coincidentally, this summer I saw a stand-up comedy show with “SNL” cast members James Austin Johnson, Andrew Dismukes and Devon Walker. During Walker’s set, the comedian spoke briefly about his time at “SNL” and how difficult it was for him, even saying that the best advice he could give for succeeding at “SNL” was to be white. So this isn’t a unique experience.
Punkie Johnson will be missed
While Punkie Johnson never got the chance to deliver any trademark recurring characters, she still had a lot of great moments on the show. One of my favorites, which you can watch above, featured her making a lovely appearance with Mikey Day at the Weekend Update desk. This is where a lot of stand-ups get the opportunity to really come out of their shell and show who they are on stage, and in this case, we saw Johnson being hilariously ignorant about pop culture while talking about the 2023 Oscar nominees. Honestly, I wish we could see her do this part at the desk a few more times before she leaves.
However, my favorite performance of Johnson might have been in this sketch:
In this sketch, which features the surprisingly brilliant host Bad Bunny, Johnson plays a supporting character on the set of a Spanish-language soap opera, but she can’t speak the language at all. The way Johnson incoherently speaks real Spanish is very funny, and the way she moves around in the scene is very funny. Johnson didn’t perform any recurring characters or impressions on the show, but she wasn’t without her own great hilarious moments.
If Johnson isn’t coming back for Season 50, I wonder if she’ll attend the 50th anniversary celebration. Surely all the former cast members are invited, and there’s probably a good one-liner to be written about her leaving the show before the big party. We’ll just have to wait and see what happens in 2025.
