Wally Feresten – SNL Cue Card Supervisor Discusses Lorne Michaels, How It Gets Done, Working Through COVID And Much More!

Wally Feresten is a cue card handler and supervisor known for his work on Saturday Night Live. He also does cue cards for Late Night with Seth Meyers and his private business, Cue Cards by Wally.

Feresten began working at Saturday Night Live after his brother, who worked at SNL as a receptionist at the time, informed him there was a vacancy in the cue card department. Feresten’s first cue card handling job was in 1990 during a “Sprockets” sketch featuring host Kyle MacLachlan.

His first appearance on camera was in 1991 during a monologue featuring Steve Martin. Feresten had his first spoken lines on the show in 1993 during an Alec Baldwin monologue.

Since 2014, Feresten has also been a cue card handler for Late Night with Seth Meyers. He has appeared on camera on the show several times including once as an interview guest when Action Bronson did not appear. His increasing frequency of spoken lines and his popularity with the audience has caused guest John Oliver to joke that Feresten is staging “a slow-motion coup”.

In 2020, Feresten began Cue Cards by Wally, a private business wherein he creates personalized cue cards, mostly for SNL fans. He started the business while SNL was doing remote-recorded episodes and, thus, his cue cards were not needed.

We discuss how he came to work at Saturday Night Live, what it’s like working with the great Lorne Michaels, that time he forgot to include the cue card that sai “Live From New York It’s Saturday Night”, and so much more!

Here it is on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/1wJS0g09S3tofqbF9SH3m6 

Here it is on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/saturday-night-lives-cue-card-mastermind-discusses/id1617821942?i=1000605141418 

Find out more about Wally here: https://cuecardsbywally.com/ 

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