After six confirmed departures, Saturday Night Live has refilled its writers’ room with a new crop of scribes whose backgrounds range from stand-up clubs and improv stages to TV writers’ rooms and the pages of The Harvard Lampoon.
Here’s what we know about the show’s new additions for Season 51:
Jo Sunday was cited as a New Face of Comedy by Just For Laughs just this summer. A University of Chicago graduate, they cut their teeth with the school’s storied improv troupe Off-Off Campus before moving to New York, where they co-host the shows Body Count and Freak Latte. Sunday was profiiled this past July by Refinery29 in video piece titled “I Make $500 a Month as a Comedian in NYC.”
Jack Bensinger is a comedian and writer who has frequently collaborated with SNL cast member Sarah Sherman, touring as her opener and serving as an executive producer on her upcoming HBO special Sarah Squirm: Live + In the Flesh.
Maddie Wiener, a rising stand-up who was named a Just for Laughs New Face in 2021, is a regular at New York’s Comedy Cellar. She made her Tonight Show debut in 2024, co-hosts the podcasts We’re Having Gay Sex and Phone is in the Bag, and previously teamed with former SNL featured player Emil Wakim on the live show Rats in a Cheese-less World.
Rachel Pegram has written for Peacock’s Killing It, Netflix’s Blockbuster, and HBO Max’s Harley Quinn. On screen, she’s appeared in Netflix’s The Week Of and Mike Birbiglia’s Don’t Think Twice. She was recognized as a Just for Laughs “New Face: Characters” in 2019 and released the stand-up album silly, loud, delightful earlier this year.
Claire McFadden performed on the Second City Mainstage after touring with its National Company. She has also appeared at the Edinburgh Fringe and San Francisco Sketchfest, and created the web series Framed, an official selection at the New York Television Festival.
Maxwell Gay and Tucker Flodman, writing partners from The Harvard Lampoon, won the Stage 32 TV Comedy Contest in 2023 with their pilot script Rebounding. They join a long line of Lampoon alumni who have gone on to SNL, including Al Franken, Conan O’Brien, Simon Rich, and current Weekend Update co-anchor Colin Jost.
Departing the writing staff are Celeste Yim, John Higgins, Rosebud Baker, Steven Castillo, and Auguste White. In addition, Ben Marshall of Please Don’t Destroy was promoted to featured player earlier this month.
Season 51 of Saturday Night Live premieres with host Bad Bunny and musical guest Doja Cat this Saturday Oct. 4 on NBC and Peacock.
As a past pageant mom.
This miss univerise pageant was a complete joke , first the director belittled the contestant
She didn’t belong top5 top 5.
I think a great skit would be :
Bring Steve Harvey back like when he called the wrong girl and had to apologize and pass the crown to the winner.
It would b great skid
I’m a boomer and have been watching SNL since the start with Jon Belushi, Gilda, and the gang….. but over the past couple decades the show has gotten EXTREMELY BORING and soooo really, NOT FUNNY …..so I stopped watching it for the most part but scan the PVR every few months over the past couple decades only to delete after a few minutes of boredom/mediocrity…..until today I watched the Dec 6, 2025 episode with Glen Powell (don’t even know him) and actually LAUGHED for the first time in decades, so much that I actually watched the whole show….what a breath of fresh air !
The writing seems so starkly different but refreshing like the old days….. it’s actually funny again, I may just endeavour to tune in more often if this keeps up.