Celebrities Who Are Part Of SNL's Five-Timers Club

The venerable sketch comedy series "Saturday Night Live" has always had its favorite hosts, entertainers who make regular appearances amidst the usual run of movie stars, athletes, and politicians. But those frequent hosts did not have an official designation until December 8, 1990, when Tom Hanks hosted for the fifth time. His monologue was a sketch in which he was inducted into the Five-Timers Club, a literal clubhouse for recurring hosts such as Steve Martin, Paul Simon, and Elliott Gould, all of whom made guest appearances. Five-Timers get a custom smoking jacket, a secret handshake, and can literally phone in their performance for the rest of the show from within the clubhouse.

Over the years, more and more hosts would be inducted into the Five-Timers Club, and what started as a quick comedy sketch has become a full-fledged badge of honor, with comedian and former "SNL" writer John Mulaney becoming the newest Five-Timer. Let's take a look at the members who came before him, starting at the very beginning.

Steve Martin is arguably the most famous "SNL" cast member who was never actually a cast member. A bona fide comedy rock star at the time, Martin became a Five-Timer even faster than Buck Henry had, with five appearances in just the second and third seasons. He would go on to host a total of 15 times as of February 2022, with countless more guest spots throughout the entire run of the show. When not appearing on "SNL," Martin has managed to eke out a living as one of the comedy world's most respected elder statesmen, a beloved actor, respected author, and award-winning playwright. His "SNL" novelty song about King Tut reached #17 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1978, and his 1986 monologue "A Holiday Wish" is a perennial favorite on the show's yearly Christmas specials.

The first former "SNL" cast member to become a Five-Timer, Chevy Chase reached this milestone in 1986 when he co-hosted with his "Three Amigos" castmates Steve Martin and Martin Short (plus "Three Amigos" songwriter Randy Newman as the musical guest). Chase was one of the show's original cast members, and the first one to leave the show for Hollywood, becoming a star in films such as "Caddyshack" and "National Lampoon's Vacation." When he returned to host the show for the first time in 1978, he famously got into a fight backstage with his replacement, future Five-Timer Bill Murray. That combative nature would be a constant throughout Chase's career, leaving hurt feelings in his wake as he returned to "SNL" as host and occasional special guest in the 1980s and 1990s, and became the most contentious cast member of the hit NBC sitcom "Community."

Candice Bergen was the first woman to host "SNL," the first woman to host it a second time (just a month and a half later), and the first woman to become a Five-Timer, though that would take a little while longer. The daughter of famed ventriloquist Edgar Bergen, she made her mark as an ingenue in the late '60s and early '70s, appearing in films like "Carnal Knowledge" and the westerns "Bite the Bullet" and "The Hunting Party." Like Elliott Gould, Bergen fit right into the ensemble in the show's first five years, more like a cast member than a proper host. Often she played the straight woman, whether dealing with an extremely stupid person or challenging child endangerment pioneer Irvin Mainway.

Bergen's first three episodes were all within the first two years of the show, but she wouldn't make it to five until 1990, when she hosted in the midst of her incredibly successful CBS sitcom "Murphy Brown." In 2018, she appeared on Jonah Hill's fifth episode along with Tina Fey and Drew Barrymore to welcome him into the club.

Not every Five-Timer gets the smoking jacket and celebrity cameo treatment. When actor and director Danny DeVito hosted in 1999, cast members Cheri Oteri and future Five-Timer Will Ferrell marked the occasion by presenting him with a fruit basket and a large wrapped box. DeVito opens the box, and out jumps Chris Kattan as his jungle primate character Mr. Peepers, who proceeds to hump the cameraman and spit chewed-up apples in DeVito's face. DeVito first appeared on the show in 1982; and the 1999 episode was actually his sixth time as host, if you include the 1983 episode he hosted alongside then-wife Rhea Perlman. To date, his last appearance on the show was in 2011, when his "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" castmate Charlie Day hosted.

Like Steve Martin and John Goodman, actor Alec Baldwin shares the rare distinction of hosting "SNL" more than a dozen times — 17 times, in fact, from 1990 to 2017. His double-digit hosting record has become a running joke on the show, and prompted a new layer to the Five-Timers Club mythos: The Platinum Lounge. His early appearances banked on his status as a heartthrob; note the spontaneously horny response to his entrance as a cowboy in this 1990 sketch. As the years went on, though, Baldwin developed his own comic arsenal and recurring characters. Although it's often said that the great recurring hosts could have been cast members, Baldwin actually put that theory to the test, essentially becoming a regular cast member between 2016 and 2020, thanks to his frequent appearances as then-president Donald Trump.

Triple threat Christopher Walken is in many ways the perfect "SNL" host: A stage-trained actor, singer, and dancer whose oddball energy makes it feel as if he's just making it all up as he goes along. By the time Walken hosted his fifth show in 2001, he had already racked up a score of memorable and recurring sketch characters, from Ed Glosser, trivial psychic (a parody of Walken's film "The Dead Zone") to cowbell-happy record producer Bruce Dickinson to would-be lothario The Continental. But his most enduring character is probably Walken himself, with his live-wire energy and offbeat cadence that's oh-so-fun to imitate.

Justin Timberlake is so far the only Five-Timer to have made their first appearance on "SNL" as a musical guest: Timberlake's boy band NSYNC performed in a 2000 episode hosted by "Dawson's Creek" star Joshua Jackson. In 2003, the year after his debut solo album "Justified," Timberlake made his debut as both host and musical guest. He would become a fixture on the show throughout the 2000s and early 2010s as someone who could just pop up without notice. Timberlake worked especially well with fellow young goofballs Jimmy Fallon and Andy Samberg, making multiple appearances as the soft-spoken Robin Gibb to Fallon's older brother Barry on "The Barry Gibb Talk Show," and starring with Samberg in a trio of filthy '90s-style slow jams. In 2013, he was awarded his very own Five-Timers Club monologue sketch with guest appearances from Alec Baldwin, Paul Simon, Tom Hanks, Steve Martin, Chevy Chase, and Candice Bergen.

Tina Fey started at "SNL" as a writer in the late 1990s, worked the "Weekend Update" desk for four years (first with Jimmy Fallon and later with Amy Poehler) then left to run her own sitcom, the showbiz-skewering satire "30 Rock," featuring Five-Timer Platinum Club member Alec Baldwin. She made her debut as a host in February 2008, and a few months later would become an unofficial cast member once again due to her uncanny resemblance to former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin. Fey earned her Five-Timer membership in 2015, co-hosting with Amy Poehler, and since then has made many trips back to SNL as a special guest. In 2017, her cake-based reaction to the white supremacist violence in Charlottesville, Virginia went viral, and in December 2021 she manned the Update desk with Michael Che for Paul Rudd's doomed, covid-struck holiday episode.

After years on shows like "Gilmore Girls" and "Mike and Molly," actress Melissa McCarthy rocketed to fame on the back of her Oscar-nominated role in the 2011 hit film "Bridesmaids." She hosted "SNL" for the first time later that year, and quickly stood out for her physicality and commitment to the bit, as we see in her second appearance in 2013, where she is completely undone by a pair of way-too-high heels. McCarthy celebrated her fifth time hosting in 2016 with an elaborate, prop-filled musical number, only to be informed by cast member Kenan Thompson that it was actually only her fourth time hosting. Not to worry, though: She got her actual Five-Timers jacket the next year.

The story of Jonah Hill's five episodes of "SNL" reflects his very quick evolution from Judd Apatow supporting player to Hollywood star who can get Leonardo DiCaprio to pop into his monologue for a quick "Titanic" joke. Hill received a best supporting actor Oscar nod for "Moneyball" between his first hosting gig in 2008 and his second in 2012, and was nominated again for "The Wolf of Wall Street" before his third appearance in 2014. Not that his sudden prestige changed much of his material on the show: His signature recurring character is still Adam Grossman, a six-year-old with the sensibilities of a Borscht Belt comedian, performing his insult comedy set to the people sitting around him at Benihana. In 2018 he was inducted into the Five-Timers Club by Tina Fey, Drew Barrymore, and Candice Bergen, as all the male Club members had recently been #MeToo'd.

The second Marvel superhero to be inducted into the Five-Timers Club, Paul Rudd was already an "SNL"-style comedy star, having starred in "Wet Hot American Summer," "Anchorman," and "Knocked Up" before his hosting debut in 2008. Other than serving as a member of the very affectionate Vogelcheck family, Rudd doesn't have many recurring roles in his host repertoire. However, he has hosted a surprising number of Christmas episodes — three of his five appearances have been in late December, including his ill-fated fifth episode in 2021. Rudd was set to host with musical guest Charli XCX, but after as many as four actors tested positive for COVID-19, the decision was made to scrap most of the live episode, the audience, and the musical performances. The show still aired live that Saturday, attended to by a skeleton crew, Rudd, and current cast members Michael Che and Kenan Thompson, plus Five-Timers Tom Hanks and Tina Fey. "Thanks for coming!" Rudd enthuses to Hanks and Fey. "I'm extremely...disappointed."