Molly Shannon RULES!

Nick Digilio
Jul 23
6 min read

One of the things I love most about having this website is that it gives me an excuse to celebrate the people who have brought me an enormous amount of joy over the years. Sure, I use this space to review new movies, talk about television, recommend books, rant about pop culture, and occasionally climb up on one of my many soapboxes

But sometimes it's just nice to say, "Hey, here's somebody I absolutely love," and spend a little time talking about why. Usually there's something happening in the entertainment world that gives me the perfect excuse to do it, and that's exactly what's happening here.

With the debut of The Hawk, the new Netflix golf comedy series created by and starring Will Ferrell, Molly Shannon returns to co-star alongside one of her greatest comic partners.

Watching Ferrell and Shannon together again immediately brought back memories of their years on Saturday Night Live, where they created unforgettable characters, elevated each other's material, and proved they were one of the funniest comedy pairings of their generation.

Seeing them reunited (and not to mention, seeing Molly receive a star on The Hollywood Walk of Fame recently) reminded me just how much I love Molly Shannon, so I figured this would be the perfect opportunity to put together ten of my favorite Molly Shannon moments from throughout her incredible career.

Now, let me be completely upfront about this: I unapologetically adore Molly Shannon. I think she's one of the funniest people to have ever walked onto a stage or in front of a camera. She's enormously talented, fearless, endlessly inventive, and she possesses something that you simply can't fake, she has a genuine, infectious love of making people laugh.

Every time I see her on a talk show, an awards broadcast, a red carpet interview, or just being herself, she radiates happiness. She seems sincerely grateful to be in show business. You get the sense that entertaining people is never a job to her, it's a privilege. That joy is absolutely contagious. She makes me smile before she's even delivered a punchline.

What's remarkable is that behind all of that exuberance is a life story that is surprisingly heartbreaking. Shannon was born on September 16, 1964, in Shaker Heights, Ohio, into a close-knit Irish Catholic family. When she was only four years old, tragedy struck when a devastating car accident claimed the lives of her mother, younger sister, and cousin.

Shannon and her older sister survived, and her father raised them afterward. It's impossible not to think about that unimaginable loss when you read her wonderful memoir, Hello, Molly!, a book I've read twice and can't recommend highly enough. It's revealing, funny, brutally honest, emotional, and beautifully written.

She opens up about that childhood tragedy, her complicated relationship with her father, her years of struggling as a young actress, and the long road that eventually led her to Saturday Night Live. It's one of the best celebrity memoirs I've ever read because, like Molly herself, it's incredibly funny while never shying away from life's pain.

After graduating from NYU's Tisch School of the Arts, Shannon did what so many struggling actors do: she waited tables, worked odd jobs, and grabbed whatever acting opportunities she could.

She appeared in the 1989 remake of The Phantom of the Opera opposite Robert Englund, showed up in Twin Peaks as the memorably bizarre "Happy Helping Hand" woman, popped up on In Living Color, and slowly built a résumé that demonstrated just how fearless she was as a performer.

Then, in 1995, everything changed. She joined Saturday Night Live midway through the season as a replacement for Janeane Garofalo and immediately became one of the brightest lights in a cast that was undergoing a major overhaul.

And here's where I make a statement that I know some people will argue with, but I stand by it completely: in my opinion, Molly Shannon is the funniest, most gifted female cast member in the history of Saturday Night Live.

Yes, I know that's saying something. The show has been blessed with extraordinary women like Vanessa Bayer, Gilda Radner, Jan Hooks, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Ana Gasteyer, Maya Rudolph, Kristen Wiig, Kate McKinnon, Amy Poehler, Tina Fey, and many others. They're all brilliant. But for me, nobody combined fearless physical comedy, unforgettable character work, emotional commitment, and sheer comic originality quite like Molly Shannon.

Look at the roster of characters she created. Mary Katherine Gallagher alone would have guaranteed her television immortality. The awkward, hopelessly enthusiastic Catholic schoolgirl with the too-short plaid skirt, the nervous sniffing, the underarm-finger ritual, and limitless confidence became one of the defining characters of the late-'90s and even made the leap to the feature film Superstar, a character Shannon had originally developed while studying at NYU.

Then there was Sally O'Malley, the proudly fifty-year-old woman in the red pants who loved to "kick, stretch, and kick!" There was Circe Nightshade from "Goth Talk" with Chris Kattan, Miss Colleen from "Dog Show" with Will Ferrell, Helen Madden the self-proclaimed "Joyologist" whose enthusiastic "I love it! I love it! I LOVE IT!" never failed to crack me up, Terry Rialto from NPR's Delicious Dish, including the legendary "Schweddy Balls" sketch, and Jeannie Darcy, the hilariously awful stand-up comedian who punctuated every terrible joke with, "Don't get me started...don't even get me started."

And that's before you even get to the impressions. Monica Lewinsky. Anna Nicole Smith. Elizabeth Taylor. Ann Miller. Liza Minnelli. Neve Campbell. Courteney Cox. Madonna. Molly had an uncanny ability to capture someone's essence without simply relying on makeup or catchphrases.

More importantly, she could walk into a sketch where someone else was supposed to be the focus, and somehow your eyes drifted to her anyway. That's the mark of a truly great comic performer.

Her success didn't end when she left Studio 8H in 2001. In fact, she's had one of the richest post-SNL careers of anyone from that era. She stole scenes in films like Never Been Kissed, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, Serendipity, Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby, Scary Movie 4, Evan Almighty, The Five-Year Engagement, Me and Earl and the Dying Girl, Hotel Transylvania, and countless others. She's equally comfortable doing broad slapstick, understated comedy, voice work, or heartfelt drama.

One of the biggest surprises for audiences who only knew her from sketch comedy came with Mike White's Year of the Dog. It's one of the finest dramatic performances of her career, subtle, heartbreaking, and deeply human.

White clearly recognized something special in Shannon because he cast her again in his terrific HBO series Enlightened, where she earned an Emmy nomination. That collaboration helped remind everyone that beneath the wild physical comedy was an actress of remarkable depth.

Her finest dramatic work, though, has to be Chris Kelly's Other People. It's an absolutely beautiful film, and Shannon's performance as Joanne Mulcahey deserved every bit of acclaim it received.

She won the Independent Spirit Award for Best Supporting Female, and honestly, it was one of those victories that felt completely right. It's one of the great performances of the past decade, balancing humor, vulnerability, anger, fear, and love in ways that are genuinely moving.

Television has continued to be very good to her as well. Whether she's popping up in Glee, Divorce, The White Lotus, Only Murders in the Building, Better Things, Hannibal, or the criminally underrated I Love That for You, Shannon somehow makes every show better simply by showing up. Even a single guest appearance becomes memorable because she always finds something unique to do. She's incapable of giving a lazy performance.

And then there are the little things that make me love her even more. Hosting Saturday Night Live after leaving the cast. Writing children's books. Co-hosting the Rose Parade and the Royal Wedding broadcasts with Will Ferrell in character. Appearing on every late-night talk show imaginable and invariably stealing the interview. There simply isn't another performer quite like her.

So yes, I'm thrilled she's back alongside Will Ferrell in The Hawk. Watching those two together again reminded me how much laughter Molly Shannon has given me over the last three decades. She remains one of the great comic performers of our time, but beyond that, she just seems like someone who genuinely loves making people happy. That's a rare quality. It's authentic. You can feel it every time she performs.

So, in honor of Molly Shannon (and because I wanted an excuse to celebrate one of my all-time favorite comedians) I've put together ten clips that perfectly capture why I think she's so extraordinary.

They're not ranked in any particular order. Some are from Saturday Night Live. Some are from television. Some are from movies. Together they represent just a small sample of what makes Molly Shannon one of the funniest, warmest, most fearless performers of her generation.

So here are ten random moments of Molly Shannon being Molly Shannon...which, more often than not, means she's being absolutely hilarious.