Jenny Slate & Nasim Pedrad: SNL's New Hires (VIDEO)

UPDATE II: Michaela Watkins & Casey Wilson have been FIRED from 'SNL.' Jenny & Nasim were thought to be additions, but they are actually replacements.

UPDATE: AP confirms the two are members of the cast, citing "a person close to the show" as their source.

According to Sean McCarthy over at the Comic's Comic, Jenny Slate and Nasim Pedrad are set to join the cast of "Saturday Night Live" for its upcoming season. McCarthy, who was the first to break the news of Michaela Watkins and Abby Elliott joining the cast last year, cites "knowledgeable sources" but NBC has declined to comment, telling us "we can't confirm the hires. If they were to be discussed it would be in the next week or two." This isn't much of an answer considering the staff began work this week for its 35th season, which starts September 26.

Jenny Slate is an actress and comedian best known as half of the duo "Gabe and Jenny." Here are two videos of her work, the first an original video she did for us last year during the election and the second an episode of "7th Floor West" from "Late Night with Jimmy Fallon."


WATCH:

236.com: "The Curse of Cindy McCain" from Gabe & Jenny on Vimeo.

Nasim Pedrad has appeared on "ER" and the "Gilmore Girls" and is a member of the Groundlings. She had a one woman show "Me, Myself & Iran" which has been removed from YouTube.

Comments

[JustinST]

Absolute garbage.

[foreveryourlady]

"trash talk" sketch is hilarious! especially the girl in pink when she goes off!

[The Albany Kid]

Best post-Eddie Murphy skit: The "At the Movies" Siskel & Ebert spoof from the 87-88 season (featuring reviews of three all-male movies).

[michaelovan]

As someone who's personally known Nasim for about five years now, I've got to just throw out there that she is an INCREDIBLY funny and humble young talent. All this madness about her being white, or Persian, or not being black, or blah blah blah aside, she's awesome. She's been working towards this for years and I for one am happy to see her catch a break as great at this.

She'll be around for a while - I'm calling it.

[SharonaMonk]

Peoples comments aren't really to bash her or say that she won't do a good job. Just highlighting SNL's trend. Personally, I doubt that I will start to watch the show again, either way. I tried for a few seasons, but I got tired of them only using the two black men they had on staff when the sketches had something to do with race; OR, they were forcing them to be black women - such as Star Jones or Serena and Venus Williams. And now, they can't even hire people that reflects the race of our current president and his family? I think it's quite pathetic.

That sad, I do wish her luck and I hope that she has a great career and follow in the footsteps of those who went on to star in comedies.

[Berkeleylefty]

I'm Gumby d-a-m-m-i-t!!

[Rita Luebke]

My favorite? Garrett Morris as Tina Turner. He was wearing silky bikini undies & looked like he was VERY glad to see all of us. Just what I needed after a night of heavy Margaritas: I was laughing so hard I also puked!

[olddognewtrick]

Two more to add to the Not Funny For Prime Time Players.

[SansArc]

New cast members can't cover the fact that SNL has had bad sketch writing for years. Couple that with a cast that hardly stands apart from eachother. Even in the 90's when the scetches were not so great at least the cast had definable looks and characteristics and characters. I'll give them a chance but I have a feeling they are just going to add to the already not so memerable cast.

[globalwarmingisafraud]

Why does everything have to be about race? Why wasn't there a white host of Soul Train? Is Nasim not ethnic? Maya Rudolph not ethnic? Was the last black woman on the show Ellen Cleghorn? --Shame they never found a vehicle for her.

[ItHadToBeSaid]

1. When all demographics are equally represented (and white guys aren't playing Black presidents and Black men aren't playing Black women), everything won't "have to be about race."

2. There wasn't a white host of Soul Train because the creator/ host happened to be a Black man.

3. Yes, Nasim is "ethnic." However if a part calls for the portrayal of an African-American woman, not even Nasim, with all her "ethnicity," will do.

4. Maya Rudolph is also an "ethnic" woman; in fact, she is Black. However, many of the roles she played were simply given to her by default as she was SNL's only woman of color, and as she was portraying Oprah Winfrey and Patti LaBelle, she was less than convincing as far as appearance goes. When viewers can't figure out who she's impersonating, the performance can only be described as lacking.

5. Prior to Rudolph, yes, Cleghorn was the last Black woman on the show.

Bottom line: SNL needs to HIRE BLACK WOMEN.

[globalwarmingisafraud]

1. When all demographics are equally represented ......Blacks make up 12% of the population in America so unless there are over 20 castmembers on SNL blacks are OVERrepresented on the show, throw in the guest star and its even more.

4. If people didn't know who Maya was playing then maybe it was b/c of Maya. I knew, and I thought she was hilarious. Better her playing Oprah than Tracy Morgan.

[cdchicago]

Soul Train was self produced by Don Cornelius personally. he owned and continues toown Soul Train. You see, he could not get a job on a main stream show, so he started his own business and pitched it himself, producing it with his own money earned from other business ventures until it would sustain itself. You see many years ago, when Soul Train first started there was only Bill Cosby on I Spy and Diane Carroll on "Julia"on TV. Since Mr. Cornelius continued to hist his own show until fairly recently, it never had a white host. I hope this makes sense to you.

[lemosno]

i which one will play Michelle Obama this season?

[iRock]

LOL.... seriously!

Lorne lacks cajones.

[Strepsi]

LORNE MICHAELS: for the love of god, please hire a woman of color! For once! I am a middle aged white man who has seen some hilarious black women on Second City stages. I have also seen some hilarious black and latina stand ups. But SNL keeps giving us these same vaguely WASPY or JAPPY chicks... who the %^&%$ is gonna play the First Lady, Fred Armisen?

[Sloane7]

The only good impersonation I've seen Armisen do is the Governor, so they don't even have a really good President Obama. But isn't Maya Rudolph Latina? I'm not sure, but she's really good at impersonations.

[rozboy]

Maya Rudolph is bi-racial. Her mother is the late Minnie Ripperton, a fantastic singer who sang "loving You" in the 70's. Died of breast cancer. I think her dad is a musicianas well.

I do love Armisen's governor impersonation.

[Sloane7]

Heh, I didn't see Victoria Jackson there. It would have been a pleasure to vote her down. So I gave Dennis Miller her vote too.

[SuperBenFranklin]

They should get Marisol Medina. That was some good funny stuff in that last clip.

[Berkeleylefty]

A female and a Latina... That's two strikes against her before she even gets to bat against Lorne Michaels' team...

[tesallison]

Marisol Medina and Erin Henriques are GREAT! Marisol's character sketch video at the end of "Trash Talk" was amazing..... LOVED the NPR character and the natural child birth mom.. Fantastic!

[ReformUS]

I can't even remember the last time I actually saw SNL.

But these two new additions sure are beautiful.

[MIKEinNYC]

SNL has not been funny for 20 years.

They ought to cut the show down to one hour. Maybe their writers can fill an hour with worthwhile stuff. One-and-a-half hours seems to be beyond their abilities.

The last 1/2 hour? Set up some cameras at one of the many New York comedy clubs and let them roll. It's bound to be better than what SNL has been offering. Not to mention that it will be fresher, more spontaneous, courageous and novel.