 Saturday Night Live is a cultural institution. In the 39 years since the show first aired, audiences have moved from analog sets to the internet. Saturday Night Live is no longer confined to Saturday night. So as the show is gearing up for its Christmas episode, we sat down with cast member Taron Killam to talk about the evolution of SNL and his new comic book, The Illegitimates. Taron, thank you much for taking the... Let me start that again. Thank you much. No, we... Thank you much! Let's move forward. Yeah, thank you much. Oh, Taron, thank much you so much. I really thank you much. I thank you much. It's Paula, right? Yeah. I miss her. Sure. I don't know. It's a phraseology is all I'm saying. This is exactly how I wanted this to start. It's perfect. How are you doing? I'm excellent. How about yourself? Great. Great. Congratulations on an awesome season. Thank you, buddy. Thanks. Yeah. And you're getting a recurring character with Jebediah Atkinson. Yeah, yeah. You never know. You just never know. How does that start when... That's a complete fluke. That was a text from Seth the day of the show, Saturday. Hey, we have this idea for an update character. Come up to 9 and do a read-through if you can this afternoon. And yeah, Seth and the update team wrote that. And we performed it less than 12 hours after I had first heard of the idea. So you just never know. It's funny because a character like that, that clip went kind of viral on the internet. Is there any push for certain clips to go viral? No. Absolutely not. Yeah, no. That's the frustrating thing sort of as a performer. You're like, well, come on, man. Make a t-shirt of that and put it in the lobby. But it really is so much of this show and what people connect with is dictated just by the audience and audience response. And I could even tell that that hit more than other things from my own social circle. When friends reach out through text and stuff. You know what I mean? It's exciting that your friends on the show the first year, maybe even the first few months. But nobody's going to text every week. But that was one where a lot of people reached out to tell me how much they liked it. This season, it feels like we're seeing more pre-tapes. Certainly. Obviously, the first season we had fake commercials with John Belushi. Is there a push for more pre-tapes now? Yeah, yes, there is. Lonely Island changed the game, man. But truly, what those guys accomplished is so amazing. And they connected in a huge way with a new generational audience. You know, this tech savvy era social media society that we live in. Even though the sketches are normally around the same length, there's something about the look of a pre-tape that matches so much of what people are seeing online in terms of funny or die clips or stuff you'll find on YouTube. So I think that's why those travel well. And they do tend to be the slightest bit shorter. And I would say, in general, pre-tapes tend to have more of a musical element to. And the biggest things online, the things that get the most amount of hits, are anything musical, any music video. That's all the stuff that people will play over and over again because they want to listen to it. Writing the pre-tapes, does that start before the week because they're so big? Yeah. When I came in, Lonely Island had already achieved sort of Goliath status. So their process was sort of like, you know, the producers would kind of go to them and, hey, what are you doing this week? And they'd get to kind of go off and manage that. But none of us have the track record that they do. So people, everybody's submitting stuff. Cast members are submitting pieces. Writers are submitting pieces for the table. And then even then, something might happen later in the week. What will also occur is that something that was pre-taped a week previous, maybe, like played alright, but didn't have the host in it and wasn't necessarily time sensitive. So that'll get delayed and they'll bring that back a week later and do some additional reshoots. That happened with Mokiki. Myself and Matt Nause, two of our pre-tape directors, just kind of went out on the street and just shot it ourselves, most of it, and calling in favors from people in different departments and cast-wise. And then it played pretty good. It didn't have the host in it. And the part that Anne Hathaway ended up playing was Vanessa Bayer. And so we did reshoots and then kind of beefed up Anne's role as well when we did it the next week. You were saying about like YouTube and Hulu, and also you mentioned like Funny or Die or Above Average. Are these new platforms providing more opportunities for creative original content? It is. It's a very interesting time because someone in Kansas City can be their own distributor, really. You know what I mean? If you have elbow grease and the idea and the equipment, you can have people see your work. You can make a TV show now to get people to watch it. It has to be good. You know what I mean? And so the television industry is run by professionals who have all put in their time and who have studied the craft and who are experts, who they are professionals. So I think that's why it still remains the go-to source for entertainment, the sort of mainstream stuff. But there is great stuff on the Internet that's done more independently, and then they tend to just be immediately scooped up by the evil corporations. Would you say that the SNL fan is different than a fan of, say, a sitcom or any other show? Absolutely. I myself am a fan of SNL, and up to the day before I got hired, could tell you who is funny, who wasn't, what they should do more of, what they should do less of, because fans feel like they own the show, and they do. Fans own the show, right? Lauren has said often that it's the most like a sports team, a TV show that's most like watching a sports team because a new roster comes in, and there's game day on Saturday, and you have a different performance every week, and people follow their favorites and love you or hate you based on how good you were just in recent history. Speaking of promoting, you said you have a new comic book. I do, yeah, and this is creatively the thing that I'm by far most proud of. It inspired comics in particular, and things spurred from there, be it animated series or movies, are what inspired my imagination. Ninja Turtles, X-Men, Batman, Spider-Man, you know, this is what made me want to play pretend. This is what made me want to be other characters. It's really why I'm doing any of this. It's just also an art form that I respect so much. It's a platform that I respect and that I love, and that I was very curious about too. Yeah, the traditional trajectory of an SNL career is this into comedy movies, or maybe your own TV show after, if you're lucky. I guess I'm not too worried about that right now, because if it comes great and you're only in so much control, a comic book felt like something that I could manage more on my own, as opposed to spreading myself super thin over a very lofty goal of writing and starring in my own movie. It's something I'd like to do down the line, but this just felt like a good first step into something that I love.
 Saturday Night Live is a cultural institution. In the 39 years since the show first aired,
 audiences have moved from analog sets to the internet.
 Saturday Night Live is no longer confined to Saturday night.
 So as the show is gearing up for its Christmas episode, we sat down with cast member Taron Killam
 to talk about the evolution of SNL and his new comic book, The Illegitimates.
 Taron, thank you much for taking the...
 Let me start that again.
 Thank you much. No, we...
 Thank you much!
 Let's move forward. Yeah, thank you much.
 Oh, Taron, thank much you so much.
 I really thank you much. I thank you much.
 It's Paula, right?
 Yeah.
 I miss her.
 Sure. I don't know.
 It's a phraseology is all I'm saying.
 This is exactly how I wanted this to start. It's perfect.
 How are you doing?
 I'm excellent. How about yourself?
 Great. Great. Congratulations on an awesome season.
 Thank you, buddy. Thanks. Yeah.
 And you're getting a recurring character with Jebediah Atkinson.
 Yeah, yeah. You never know. You just never know.
 How does that start when...
 That's a complete fluke. That was a text from Seth the day of the show, Saturday.
 Hey, we have this idea for an update character.
 Come up to 9 and do a read-through if you can this afternoon.
 And yeah, Seth and the update team wrote that.
 And we performed it less than 12 hours after I had first heard of the idea.
 So you just never know.
 It's funny because a character like that, that clip went kind of viral on the internet.
 Is there any push for certain clips to go viral?
 No. Absolutely not. Yeah, no. That's the frustrating thing sort of as a performer.
 You're like, well, come on, man. Make a t-shirt of that and put it in the lobby.
 But it really is so much of this show and what people connect with is dictated just by the audience and audience response.
 And I could even tell that that hit more than other things from my own social circle.
 When friends reach out through text and stuff. You know what I mean?
 It's exciting that your friends on the show the first year, maybe even the first few months.
 But nobody's going to text every week.
 But that was one where a lot of people reached out to tell me how much they liked it.
 This season, it feels like we're seeing more pre-tapes.
 Certainly.
 Obviously, the first season we had fake commercials with John Belushi.
 Is there a push for more pre-tapes now?
 Yeah, yes, there is.
 Lonely Island changed the game, man.
 But truly, what those guys accomplished is so amazing.
 And they connected in a huge way with a new generational audience.
 You know, this tech savvy era social media society that we live in.
 Even though the sketches are normally around the same length,
 there's something about the look of a pre-tape that matches so much of what people are seeing online
 in terms of funny or die clips or stuff you'll find on YouTube.
 So I think that's why those travel well.
 And they do tend to be the slightest bit shorter.
 And I would say, in general, pre-tapes tend to have more of a musical element to.
 And the biggest things online, the things that get the most amount of hits,
 are anything musical, any music video.
 That's all the stuff that people will play over and over again because they want to listen to it.
 Writing the pre-tapes, does that start before the week because they're so big?
 Yeah. When I came in, Lonely Island had already achieved sort of Goliath status.
 So their process was sort of like, you know, the producers would kind of go to them and,
 hey, what are you doing this week? And they'd get to kind of go off and manage that.
 But none of us have the track record that they do.
 So people, everybody's submitting stuff.
 Cast members are submitting pieces. Writers are submitting pieces for the table.
 And then even then, something might happen later in the week.
 What will also occur is that something that was pre-taped a week previous, maybe,
 like played alright, but didn't have the host in it and wasn't necessarily time sensitive.
 So that'll get delayed and they'll bring that back a week later and do some additional reshoots.
 That happened with Mokiki.
 Myself and Matt Nause, two of our pre-tape directors, just kind of went out on the street
 and just shot it ourselves, most of it, and calling in favors from people in different departments and cast-wise.
 And then it played pretty good. It didn't have the host in it.
 And the part that Anne Hathaway ended up playing was Vanessa Bayer.
 And so we did reshoots and then kind of beefed up Anne's role as well when we did it the next week.
 You were saying about like YouTube and Hulu, and also you mentioned like Funny or Die or Above Average.
 Are these new platforms providing more opportunities for creative original content?
 It is. It's a very interesting time because someone in Kansas City can be their own distributor, really.
 You know what I mean? If you have elbow grease and the idea and the equipment, you can have people see your work.
 You can make a TV show now to get people to watch it. It has to be good.
 You know what I mean? And so the television industry is run by professionals who have all put in their time
 and who have studied the craft and who are experts, who they are professionals.
 So I think that's why it still remains the go-to source for entertainment, the sort of mainstream stuff.
 But there is great stuff on the Internet that's done more independently,
 and then they tend to just be immediately scooped up by the evil corporations.
 Would you say that the SNL fan is different than a fan of, say, a sitcom or any other show?
 Absolutely. I myself am a fan of SNL, and up to the day before I got hired,
 could tell you who is funny, who wasn't, what they should do more of, what they should do less of,
 because fans feel like they own the show, and they do. Fans own the show, right?
 Lauren has said often that it's the most like a sports team, a TV show that's most like watching a sports team
 because a new roster comes in, and there's game day on Saturday, and you have a different performance every week,
 and people follow their favorites and love you or hate you based on how good you were just in recent history.
 Speaking of promoting, you said you have a new comic book.
 I do, yeah, and this is creatively the thing that I'm by far most proud of.
 It inspired comics in particular, and things spurred from there, be it animated series or movies,
 are what inspired my imagination. Ninja Turtles, X-Men, Batman, Spider-Man, you know,
 this is what made me want to play pretend. This is what made me want to be other characters.
 It's really why I'm doing any of this. It's just also an art form that I respect so much.
 It's a platform that I respect and that I love, and that I was very curious about too.
 Yeah, the traditional trajectory of an SNL career is this into comedy movies, or maybe your own TV show after, if you're lucky.
 I guess I'm not too worried about that right now, because if it comes great and you're only in so much control,
 a comic book felt like something that I could manage more on my own, as opposed to spreading myself super thin
 over a very lofty goal of writing and starring in my own movie.
 It's something I'd like to do down the line, but this just felt like a good first step into something that I love.