SNL alum Ana Gasteyer recalls a sketch that left the audience silent despite cast laughter

SNL alum Ana Gasteyer has recalled a Saturday Night Live sketch that left the studio audience silent and stone‑faced, even though the cast and writers were “screaming with laughter” during the table read, according to her recent conversation with Amy Poehler on the Good Hang podcast.​

The sketch was a morning zoo crew bit, which Gasteyer described as “the loudest sketch ever” on Saturday Night Live, featuring her, Chris Parnell, Will Ferrell, and the episode’s host, whose name she could not remember.

The premise centered on a raucous group of radio VJs reacting in an over‑the‑top, obnoxious way to a weather chopper crash, playing up the exaggerated energy of real morning zoo shows.​

At the Saturday Night Live table read, where the cast and writers decide which sketches will make it to air, Gasteyer said the room was “howling with laughter” and that everyone thought it was “so funny”. 

“People at the table were screaming with laughter, it was so funny,” she recalled, describing the table read as a moment when the cast and writers were fully convinced the sketch would kill with the audience.​

When the sketch was performed in Studio 8H, however, the reaction was the opposite: the audience stayed “deathly silent,” like “a wall,” and the crowd in the Saturday Night Live studio looked “like a painting,” she said. 

Emphasizing how loud and frantic the performers were onstage while the crowd remained completely still and unresponsive, Gasteyer explained, 

“It was like the audience in 8H looked like a painting, and the whole time you’re like screaming”.

SNL alum Ana Gasteyer’s reaction and Poehler’s take

On Good Hang, Poehler asked Gasteyer if the awkward experience made her laugh in the moment, and Gasteyer replied: 

“Yes, ’cause it was so embarrassing. It was also just hilarious ’cause it was like the whole time you’re like, they don’t think this is funny. They listen to morning zoos. This is what it sounds like if you like driving to work and listening to that; then that’s just kind of a pleasant thing for you. That was embarrassing”.​

Gasteyer and Poehler then discussed how many Saturday Night Live alumni have a habit of rewatching their old sketches that bombed with the audience, a practice Poehler described as “what the kids would call cringe, but it’s even post‑cringe.

It’s like beyond cringe,” comparing it to “a primal scream”.

Gasteyer agreed, calling it “like a community therapy experience” for the performers, a way to process the sketches that “totally bombed” but that the cast had once found hysterical.​

She did not specify whether the silent audience reaction happened during the Saturday Night Live dress rehearsal or the live broadcast, only that the disconnect between the cast’s laughter and the audience’s stillness was stark and unforgettable.​

Gasteyer’s time on Saturday Night Live

Ana Gasteyer was a cast member on Saturday Night Live from 1996 to 2002, appearing in six seasons and becoming known for a range of characters, including her deadpan Martha Stewart impression and her role in the recurring “Delicious Dish” sketches with Molly Shannon.

Her tenure overlapped with Will Ferrell, Chris Parnell, and other major Saturday Night Live stars of that era, and she often performed in high‑energy, character‑driven bits that relied on timing and audience reaction.​

In a separate interview, Gasteyer noted that she was “pretty good at not breaking” character on Saturday Night Live, and that the only sketch that ever made her lose composure was a 1998 “donkey sketch” during the Monica Lewinsky scandal, in which she and other cast members sat on live donkeys while debating politics.

That sketch, written by Harper Steele, featured Gasteyer as CNN host Mary Tillotson, Tim Meadows, Darrell Hammond, and Will Ferrell, and while the donkeys caused chaos in rehearsal, Gasteyer managed to stay in character during the live Saturday Night Live broadcast.​

Why the morning zoo sketch may have failed

Gasteyer speculated that the morning zoo sketch may have failed because the Saturday Night Live audience consisted of fans who actually enjoyed loud morning radio shows, and so the exaggerated parody felt more like a realistic depiction than a joke. She said, 

“They listen to morning zoos. This is what it sounds like if you like driving to work and listening to that, then that’s just kind of a pleasant thing for you”.​

She did not name the specific episode or host involved in the sketch, and no exact air date or script has been publicly identified, but the anecdote has become a notable example of how a sketch that feels like a surefire hit in the writers’ room can fall flat in front of a live Saturday Night Live audience.​

Stay tuned for more updates.