Punkie Johnson’s relationship with “Saturday Night Live” is “still strong,” even if she won’t be among the cast members returning for its 50th season. “Mutually, we just understood that it was not my zone,” the stand-up comic said Wednesday, shedding more light on her recent departure. Johnson, who joined the NBC sketch series in 2020, caught up with fellow “SNL” alums David Spade and Dana Carvey on their “Fly on the Wall” podcast , detailing the circumstances that led to her exit.
The “Bottoms” actor, who got her start in stand-up, said she had been meaning to leave the show for quite some time. Johnson said she always felt out of place on “SNL.” “I never grew up in sketch, I never went to sketch school and I didn’t really feel like I fit,” she said, before adding “[‘SNL’] is for a different type of person.
” The New Orleans comedian said she felt her “all over the place” style differed from the structure that defines “SNL” and its sketches. When she joined the cast, she said, she thought “everybody else came from stand-up.” That wasn’t always the case.
“Y’all went to school for this? To be here?,” she recalled thinking at the time. Johnson said she struggled with getting ample airtime, noting that at one point she “only [got] maybe two or three [sketches] on the entire season.” With more than 20 cast members, “SNL” has “a lot of mouths to feed,” Johnson agreed with the podcast hosts.
Feeling unsure.