Best SNL cast member from each state
By Jeremy Dick
Charles Rocket (Maine)
Comedian Charles Rocket was born Charles Adams Claverie in Bangor, Maine. He can be recognized from some feature films he’s appeared in like Dumb and Dumber and Hocus Pocus, but perhaps the brightest spot of his career was when he joined Saturday Night Live in 1980, immediately following the leaving of the final original cast members of the show.
On SNL, Rocket regularly filmed a segment called “The Rocket Report” in which he pretended to be a reporter in New York, and was even cast as the anchor of Weekend Update. He was also known for his character Phil Lively, a game show host who didn’t quite know how to turn that loud, annoying part of his personality “off”. For that season, Rocket was in more sketches than any other male cast member other than Joe Piscopo.
While Rocket was one of the funniest SNL cast members of the time, he ended up leaving the show the following year. When satirizing the TV series Dallas which saw a popular character getting shot, Rocket played a character shot by a sniper rifle. Before the show went off the air, guest host Charlene Tilton asked Rocket how it felt to be shot, to which he replied, “Oh, man, it’s the first time I’ve ever been shot in my life. I’d like to know who the fuck did it.”
The bad press resulting from this snafu unfortunately led to Rocket’s firing from the series, but if you ask me, the line was really funny.
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