Chloe Fineman has a simple rule for Saturday Night Live impressions: the joke comes first. In the latest installment of The Rundown, the current cast member said impressions are among the hardest things to land on the show unless they are tied to a political cold open, and that the priority is “finding the laugh and the funny” rather than perfect imitation.
That view helped shape her pick for the digital series’ dream SNL episode. Fineman chose the season 37 sketch “Liza Minnelli Tries to Turn Off a Lamp” as the impression piece she would add, calling it “everything” because it has physical comedy, an impression and weird specificity. She said she would place it later in the show, not near the beginning, because stranger sketches often work better once the audience is settled in.
The choice fits a show that has leaned on celebrity impressions for nearly 50 years. Saturday Night Live has built some of its most durable recurring formats around that tradition, from Celebrity Jeopardy to Celebrity Family Feud and movie audition sketches, all designed to showcase a recognizable face without needing a complicated premise. Fineman said the best versions are built on affection, exaggeration and a deep understanding of the person being portrayed.
She also pointed to examples that show how far the format can go when the parody and the target meet in the same frame. Fineman cited Jimmy Fallon performing his Mick Jagger impression alongside the real Mick Jagger, and she brought up her own “Maybelline” sketch with Ariana Grande. On that one, she said Grande’s Jennifer Coolidge impression was “the best of all time.”
Fineman said she was influenced after joining the show by Melissa Villaseñor, Cecily Strong and Aidy Bryant, three performers she credited with helping shape her approach. That matters because the craft she describes is not just mimicry; it is calibration. On SNL, the performance has to survive in a live sketch, where the laugh can matter more than the likeness, especially when the impression is not part of a political cold open.
The contrast is what gives her answer its weight. The show’s impression history is full of spot-on celebrity work, but Fineman is arguing for something looser and harder to control: a version of the person that lands as comedy first. Her pick from season 37 says as much about the show’s enduring taste for oddball characters as it does about the limits of realism. For Fineman, the best impression is not the most exact one. It is the one that gets the biggest laugh.
