Last year, SNL fired three of its cast members: Brooks Wheelan, Noel Wells and John Milhiser. No offense to the latter two — who I’m sure are doing just fine and will no doubt pop up somewhere soon (along with Paul Brittain) — but Brooks Wheelan is the only one of the recently fired SNL cast members with any public exposure. He’s doing the exact right thing for a standup comedian in his situation: He is owning the fact that he got fired. In fact, he’s making hay out of it.
Wheelan recently came out with a standup album, which largely pokes fun at himself for being fired from SNL. In fact, he revealed that he’d been fired on Twitter (with a joke) before the show could even announce it. He’s been out ahead of it the whole time, and you get the feeling that he’s going to be just fine.
On Late Night with Seth Meyers last night, he continued to have a great sense of humor about his firing in his conversation with his old boss. “Couple of SNL greats just hanging out,” he said. “[We are the] Mt. Rushmore [of SNL]. Got Fred (Armisen) over there. Probably be us three on it, I think … we got in, we killed it, we got out … One year, and I’m out. I Martin Short’d that thing.”
He was fantastic. He also talked about a sports wager with Seth Meyers that Meyers never paid up on. Turns out, he was at SNL long enough, at least, to talk about a favorite sketch that didn’t air, too (it was a 10-1 sketch that was cut for time).
It’s official: Brooks Wheelan is my favorite recently fired-after-one-season cast member.
