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; 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 not only, the only crew members to work on every season of the show, but the show's longest tenured staffers as well.
Onscreen cameos[]
- October 11, 1975
- December 20, 1975
- May 29, 1976
- September 24, 1977
- April 8, 1978
- December 15, 1979
- January 26, 1980
- February 9, 1980
- February 16, 1980
- May 17, 1980
- May 24, 1980
- April 10, 1982
- April 17, 1982
- May 22, 1982
- March 22, 1986
- April 12, 1986
- December 20, 1986
- May 9, 1987
- May 16, 1987
- November 18, 1989
- September 29, 1990
- November 10, 1990
- March 16, 1991
- February 5, 1994
- May 2, 1998
- April 20, 2002
- December 6, 2003
- December 12, 2015
- May 6, 2017
- January 20, 2018
- May 22, 2021
- January 21, 2023
