Will Forte leaving 'Saturday Night Live'

MacGruber has left the building in one piece. Will Forte said Thursday that he won't be back with "Saturday Night Live" when the show returns Sept. 25 for its 36th season.

Forte's spokesman, Lewis Kay, said in a statement: "After eight great seasons, Will has made the decision to move on from SNL to pursue new opportunities. He is eternally grateful to Lorne [Michaels] and all of the incredible people he worked with over the years."

A surprise? Hardly, and the operative phrase here is "eight great seasons." Forte joined the classic in 2002, making him one of the longer serving "repertory players" and - along with Fred Armisen - the last member from the class of '02. With the exception of Seth Meyers (2001) and Kenan Thompson ('03), most of the rest of the current cast arrived in '05.

There was nothing to indicate Thursday that Forte's exit was acrimonious and, in fact, it seemed to proceed according to an established "SNL" game plan: Score a major movie ("MacGruber") then get ready for life after Studio 8H.

Forte did hit a bit of a speed bump - "MacGruber," released in May, was box office poison - but he has a budding TV career, with a handful of appearances on "30 Rock" and regular voice work on "The Cleveland Show." More movies are expected.

His standout moments on "SNL"? There were many, most notably the dancing coach who inspired Peyton Manning into a frenzied if inelegant copycat routine in 2009; and MacGruber (based of course on the old ABC series "MacGyver") who always found just the right material, some of it scatological, to escape imminent peril.