Little Rock, Arkansas – On Sunday night, Saturday Night Live commemorates its 50th season, which began last year, with SNL 50: The Anniversary Special. Numerous former cast members and friends from the show’s past are reunited in the three-hour special.
There have been multiple references to the Natural State throughout the show’s long history. Some Arkansans have also served as the show’s hosts, musical guests, and even impersonators.
Several Arkansans have hosted the show over its 50 seasons, including Billy Bob Thornton in 2001 and Johnny Cash in 1982. Actor Judge Reinhold, who resides in Little Rock with his spouse, also presented the show in 1988.
Levon Helm played on the show with The Band in 1976 and again as a solo artist in 1977, among other Natural State musicians. Ne-Yo in 2012, Little Feat with Arkansan Fred Tackett in 1988, Al Green in 1986, and Junior Walker, a native of Blytheville in 1981, were among the other artists on the show.
Rhonda Oglesby Coullet, a former Miss Arkansas, also made two appearances on the show: once as a backup vocalist for the band Spinal Tap and once as an homage to John Belushi.
Over the years, the show has impersonated a number of Arkansas politicians, including Bill Clinton, who has been most famously represented by Phil Hartman and Darrell Hammond. Mike Huckabee, the former governor, has appeared on Weekend Update and been impersonated on the show.
Aidy Bryant has frequently impersonated Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders on Saturday Night Live, and in 2015, Kyle Mooney played Senator Tom Cotton.
In addition, Bobby Moynihan’s portrayal of John Daly in the skit “Where’d your money go?” and the 2016 season finale’s song about Fayetteville by the fictional Harkin Brothers Band, which included the chorus “Summertime in Fayetteville; hot, hot summertime,” are two more instances of Arkansas being mentioned in the show over the years.
Sasheer Zamata, a former cast member, learned in an episode of the PBS series Finding Your Roots that her great-grandfather Leroy Washington Mahon founded the town of Fargo in Monroe County, despite the fact that no Arkansans had appeared on the show.
