No More Gilly on ‘SNL’! U-S-A! U-S-A!

Oh man, what an awesome week this is shaping up to be. I didn’t think anything could trump the news of Osama bin Laden being killed, but this certainly comes close: Kristen Wiig has retired Gilly, the Worst Character in SNL History™. (I’m not sure why she’d trademark such a thing; I just report the facts.) The revelation comes from an interview in Time that buries the lede on the second page:

Because her characters are simple, she’s smart enough to retire them long before other SNL cast members would. She’ll no longer do Penelope the one-upper or Gilly the mischievous schoolgirl, not even at [Lorne] Michaels’ request. [Time via Vulture]

I’m happy to see Penelope go, too, but at least Penelope was funny at one point. Gilly has never been anything more than an agonizingly long six-minute sketch in which the same joke gets repeated three times. Wiig is one of my favorite “SNL” cast members, and that’s part of what made Gilly so painful. I could never watch a Gilly sketch without thinking, “Why does this talented person person hate me so much? What did I ever do to her?”

And you know the best part about Gilly being gone? You can celebrate her death in the streets without being scolded by pretentious academics.

×