Saturday Night Live Wiki
Advertisement

Akira Yoshimura (born May 7, 1946) is the long-serving production designer at Saturday Night Live. An original member of SNL's crew, Yoshimura has made many cameo appearances during SNL's run, most notably as Hikaru Sulu in "The Last Voyage of the Starship Enterprise", a sketch from the May 29, 1976 episode; he would make appearances as Sulu in many future Star Trek parody sketches. He also made several appearances in season 7, appearing in faux-interview segments with Mary Gross during the final phase of SNL NewsBreak (which utilized Gross as a field reporter while Christine Ebersole was at the desk).

He is one of only three original staff members to remain with SNL, along with SNL creator/executive producer Lorne Michaels and crane camera operator John Pinto. Michaels was not working at the show between 1980 and 1985, making Yoshimura and Pinto the only crew members to work on every season of the show, and also the show's longest tenured staffers.

Onscreen cameos[]

Gallery[]

External links[]

Advertisement