snl bill hader fred armisen   Saturday Night Live will look
pretty different in September, as this past weekend's season
finale saw the departure of mainstay favorites Fred Armisen and
Bill Hader.  Armisen was on the show for 11 years and Hader for
eight, so their exits leave a pretty large hole in the cast. And
then there are the persistent rumors that Jason Sudeikis is
likely to quit the show too, meaning SNL is potentially losing a
third of its repertory players, not to mention the imminent
departure of Seth Meyers for Late Night. There are, in other
words, going to be a lot of new faces around Studio 8H.  To my
mind, the biggest loss of the bunch is Armisen. Weird and
occasionally cerebral (a mode that's better showcased on
Portlandia), Armisen was the indie/Brooklyn-y cast member. Which
might sound like an insult, but is really not meant to be.
Armisen often went broad and ridiculous, but also had an
insightful, exacting side, a real specificity to his humor, that
will be sorely missed on the show.  No o