“Saturday Night Live” Promotes Gay Comedian Chris Kelly To Head Writer

Kelly's co-head writer Sarah Schneider is the show's first female head writer since 2008.
From: NewNowNext

A shakeup at Saturday Night Live could mean higher-brow comedy in seasons to come, as NBC has confirmed seasoned writers Chris Kelly and Sarah Schneider have been promoted to co-head writers for the iconic show’s upcoming 42nd season.

Variety calls the move “a dramatic change in tone to better fit with a younger, modern audiences” in light of the recent firings of Jay Pharoah, Taran Killam, and Jon Rudnitsky, a trio that specialized in the kind of “toxic bro humor” SNL devolved into these last couple years.

Together, Kelly and Schneider are responsible for some of the more hilarious sketches since they joined the show in 2011, like “The Beygency,” “Back Home Ballers,” the Emmy-nominated “(Do It On My) Twin Bed,” “Bern Your Enthusiasm,” and “Bar Talk” with Hillary Clinton.

In a 2015 interview with Splitsider, the duo explained how they first met on the set of a CollegeHumor video in 2011, and how they’ve used each other to spin pure comedy gold ever since.

“The first year [working on SNL], I would kind of write from a place of fear,” said Kelly. “I would be like,’What do I do? What do I write? What will they like? What will the show want? What will make the audience laugh? What isn’t stupid? What won’t get me fired?'”

“And then I started to slowly write for what would make Sarah laugh and then what would make us laugh in the room — you know, what would we like — and I think it’s so much better once you have a friend where you’re like ’Okay, what do we like?’…It kind of helps you not write from a place of fear — it helps you write more from a place of joy.”

Saturday Night Live season 42 premieres this fall. 

Prep yourself with some of Kelly and Schneider’s more hilarious work below: