Saturday Night Live supervising producer Ken Aymong, who has retired after 36 years on the show, was acknowledged during the curtain call at the end of the Season 47 premiere. Colin Jost held a cue card that read “We’ll miss you, KEN!” as the camera showed a close-up of the sign in a clearly planned tribute to the SNL veteran.
Aymong has been a fixture at SNL, which he joined as an associate producer in 1985, rising to a supervising producer two years later. In addition to the mothership series, he also worked on the SNL clip specials, most recently the Saturday Night Live Election Special 2020.
A top lieutenant to SNL boss Lorne Michaels, Aymong has shared in seven of the SNL‘s Emmys, most recently its fifth consecutive Variety Sketch Series trophy last month. He is the second longtime senior SNL staffer who retired after last season, along with Emmy-winning director Don Roy King.