The Dark Stories Behind SNL
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VOICE OVER: Ryan Wild
WRITTEN BY: Amanda DeMel
“Saturday Night Live” may seem like a light-hearted comedy show, but there's been plenty of drama behind the scenes. For this essay, we'll be shining a light on the darker side of SNL. We'll be covering stories such as Chevy Chase's problematic ego in the early days, host Steven Seagal's unprofessional behavior, Damon Wayans' mid-sketch protest, and more.
Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we’re discussing The Dark Stories Behind “Saturday Night Live.” “Saturday Night Live” may seem like a light-hearted comedy show, but there’s been plenty of drama behind the scenes. Do you know of any stories we missed? Let us know in the comments!
“SNL” is a well-loved sketch comedy show that’s been on air since 1975. Written mainly by the rotating members of the ensemble cast, each episode of each season greatly differs from every other. With so much change, it makes sense that there would be a lot of drama behind the scenes. In this video, we’ll be looking at the shocking, controversial, and generally dark stories of the variety show.
“Saturday Night Live” debuted on October 11, 1975, and it quickly developed a fanbase. Three women were in the original cast: Gilda Radner, Jane Curtin, and Laraine Newman. The group of original staff writers also had three women, and even more were behind the camera in other roles. However, breakout star John Belushi still believed that women were genuinely and fundamentally unable to do comedy. Over his four seasons on the show, he would not put effort into sketches written by his female colleagues, actively sabotaging their success. His wife, Judy Belushi-Pisano, argues against these claims, though.
Another original cast member, Chevy Chase, caused problems on the show. He was known to be hard to work with from the beginning, and his ego had apparently grown even larger since his departure during the second season. He returned as a host in the third season, the first former cast member to do so, and he was anything but cooperative. During the week leading up to the episode, Chase initially refused to do the “Weekend Update” segment with Jane Curtin, though he later relented, and he was generally abusive to the writers and cast. Tensions mounted, and just before he went on stage to give his monologue, he and Bill Murray got into a fistfight. Thankfully, Murray’s brother was there to break them up. During the monologue, Chase was clearly shaken up, frequently pausing and trailing off.
Lorne Michaels is a well-known name in “SNL” history, being the creator and first producer of the show and still producing it as of the 48th season. But did you know that he left in 1980, along with the whole cast and almost every writer? Michaels was replaced by Jean Doumanian for most of the sixth season. Viewership declined by 30% and critics panned the show, failing to find the old joy and humor in it. Maybe they were right because very few sketches from this time have made “Best Of” lists and compilations. The season started on the wrong foot, with the first cold open introducing the new cast members as mixes between old ones. Who thought that comparing new faces to well-worn, beloved talent would go over well? After two F-bombs slipped on air, Doumanian produced one more episode and was fired. Dick Ebersol took over for the rest of the season, which was cut short until Michaels returned in 1985. As a result of all the shake-ups and poor reception, Season 6 is often credited as the worst of the series.
In the eighth season, Nick Nolte was set to host “SNL” to promote his upcoming film “48 Hrs.” But when the time came, he was too hungover to go on stage, so his “48 Hrs.” co-star Eddie Murphy stepped up. Since Murphy was still part of the cast in 1982, this setup was already peculiar. As of Season 48, he is still the only person to host while being a cast member. During the eighth season, Eddie Murphy was one of the most featured performers of the cast, and hosting the show only gave him more screen time. To make matters worse, he ended his solo cold open by saying, “Live from New York, it’s the Eddie Murphy Show.” His castmates were not pleased, to say the least.
Eddie Murphy left the show just before the end of the ninth season, leaving big shoes to fill. Damon Wayans was hired for Season 11 but denied big parts, apparently because Lorne Michaels thought it would look racist to replace Murphy so quickly with another funny Black man. As you can guess, this didn’t sit well with Wayans. The breaking point came on March 15, 1986, when Wayans deviated from the script for a sketch parodying “Miami Vice.” Although he was supposed to play his role in a subdued manner, staying in the shadow of Jon Lovitz as Mr. Monopoly, he decided to play it as an effeminate, flamboyant gay man. Michaels was furious and fired Wayans right after the sketch before the show even ended.
In 1990, popular and controversial standup comedian Andrew Dice Clay hosted “SNL,” although not everyone was excited about his episode. Cast member Nora Dunn refused to participate, objecting to his sexist and homophobic jokes. Fellow castmate Jon Lovitz says that she refused to do the episode in order to get more publicity. Regardless of the reasoning, there were several jabs at Dunn’s boycott throughout the show. Planned musical guest Sinead O’Connor also pulled out due to the host, and people protested both outside the building and inside Studio 8H. However, the episode had the highest viewership of the season thus far.
There are plenty of one-time hosts in the show’s history, like Andrew Dice Clay, but few have made as negative an impression as Steven Seagal. The week leading up to his Season 16 episode was difficult for the cast, as Seagal was rude, unprofessional, and generally disliked. His ideas for sketches were also not popular with the writers or the audience, and his comedic chops were clearly lacking. Lorne Michaels has even named this episode as the worst in “Saturday Night Live” history, mainly because of the host, who has been banned from returning.
Sometimes people other than the host can make life behind the scenes difficult. During her stay from Season 12 to Season 17, cast member Victoria Jackson didn’t mesh well with her coworkers. Part of this could be because she was a Christian right-wing conservative on a very liberal show. Apparently, she could change her lines if they included offensive words and was allowed to drop out of a sketch because it went against her religious beliefs. She has said that she felt it was her duty to tell the cast about Jesus, even if that didn’t make her popular. In fact, Jackson once gave her castmates audiocassettes of the Bible for Christmas. The gifts were promptly and angrily returned. Jackson was so disliked by her castmates that one person, Al Franken, never spoke to her again. After her time on “SNL,” she got involved in politics and even ran for a Tennessee county commissioner’s seat in 2014.
In the mid-1990s, the O.J. Simpson trial produced a lot of material for comedy. One comedian who took full advantage of the situation was Norm Macdonald, who frequently joked about Simpson on “Weekend Update.” Macdonald’s dry wit was very popular with audiences, but not so much with Don Ohlmeyer, an NBC president who was also friends with Simpson. Ohlmeyer didn’t appreciate the constant jokes about his pal and he was likely responsible for Macdonald’s firing from “Weekend Update” in the middle of Season 23.
Another successful comedian who lasted one season on “SNL” is Sarah Silverman. She was hired as a writer and featured player for the nineteenth season, though none of her sketches ever made it to air and she never acted as anything larger than a bit part. During one rewrite session with the cast, she was fixating on castmate Al Franken’s hair when got the idea for a strange prank. The joke was to put her pencil through a lock of his hair, but she missed the mark and ended up stabbing him in the temple. Silverman now jokes that this assault was why she didn’t last longer than a season.
Season 20, from 1994 to 1995, was a time of great change for “SNL.” Ratings and viewer numbers were declining, gossip was spreading, and Lorne Michaels later said it was the time he was closest to being fired. The members of the cast fluctuated over the year, with Mike Myers leaving mid-season and three people added at various points throughout the season. Janeane Garofalo was a new player from the first episode and Morwenna Banks was added mid-season, but both of them left before the finale. Someone was bound to notice all these changes and make fun of them. The joke came in the last sketch of the last episode, which featured several cast members playing themselves and jumping into the polar bear cage at the Central Park Zoo. It worked to give the message that no one on the cast was safe. “SNL” performer Jay Mohr even wrote a book about the overcrowded year, titled “Gasping for Airtime.”
John Belushi wasn’t the only well-known “SNL” cast member with substance use disorder, but he was the first to overdose. After his death from cocaine and heroin in 1982, friends came out to say that he had been spiraling downward for months, doing more and more drugs and being less and less cognizant. He was just 33 years old. Fifteen years later, in 1997, another breakout “SNL” star died of an overdose at the age of 33. This star was Chris Farley, who just so happened to idolize Belushi. Both men used comedy and drugs to cope with insecurity and ignored the multiple warnings from their friends.
In 1999, just before Season 25 started, a new contract was made and given to new hires. It states that if a performer wants to be a regular on the show, NBC has the right to remove them after their second year and put them in a sitcom. The small leeway allowed is the opportunity to turn down two sitcom offers, but the third has to be accepted. As if this creative control isn’t enough, another part dictates how much the performer would make for three movies with Paramount Pictures, all the rates of which are much lower than they had been before the contract. Although talent managers and agents usually advise against signing the contract, they are often ignored because “SNL” is such a giant in the comedy business.
In 2016, rapper Kanye West almost walked out of “SNL” before performing on the show for his sixth appearance. Crew members made some changes to his stage due to shiny flooring reflecting stage lights and washing out the screen behind him, but West didn’t care. He went on a tirade that included insults toward Taylor Swift and claims that he is more influential than 50% of all people, dead or alive. Some other names he dropped were Stanley Kubrick, St. Paul, Pablo Picasso, and Pablo Escobar. Lorne Michaels had to calm him down before he finally went on stage to perform.
The Dark Stories Behind SNL
“SNL” is a well-loved sketch comedy show that’s been on air since 1975. Written mainly by the rotating members of the ensemble cast, each episode of each season greatly differs from every other. With so much change, it makes sense that there would be a lot of drama behind the scenes. In this video, we’ll be looking at the shocking, controversial, and generally dark stories of the variety show.
“Saturday Night Live” debuted on October 11, 1975, and it quickly developed a fanbase. Three women were in the original cast: Gilda Radner, Jane Curtin, and Laraine Newman. The group of original staff writers also had three women, and even more were behind the camera in other roles. However, breakout star John Belushi still believed that women were genuinely and fundamentally unable to do comedy. Over his four seasons on the show, he would not put effort into sketches written by his female colleagues, actively sabotaging their success. His wife, Judy Belushi-Pisano, argues against these claims, though.
Another original cast member, Chevy Chase, caused problems on the show. He was known to be hard to work with from the beginning, and his ego had apparently grown even larger since his departure during the second season. He returned as a host in the third season, the first former cast member to do so, and he was anything but cooperative. During the week leading up to the episode, Chase initially refused to do the “Weekend Update” segment with Jane Curtin, though he later relented, and he was generally abusive to the writers and cast. Tensions mounted, and just before he went on stage to give his monologue, he and Bill Murray got into a fistfight. Thankfully, Murray’s brother was there to break them up. During the monologue, Chase was clearly shaken up, frequently pausing and trailing off.
Lorne Michaels is a well-known name in “SNL” history, being the creator and first producer of the show and still producing it as of the 48th season. But did you know that he left in 1980, along with the whole cast and almost every writer? Michaels was replaced by Jean Doumanian for most of the sixth season. Viewership declined by 30% and critics panned the show, failing to find the old joy and humor in it. Maybe they were right because very few sketches from this time have made “Best Of” lists and compilations. The season started on the wrong foot, with the first cold open introducing the new cast members as mixes between old ones. Who thought that comparing new faces to well-worn, beloved talent would go over well? After two F-bombs slipped on air, Doumanian produced one more episode and was fired. Dick Ebersol took over for the rest of the season, which was cut short until Michaels returned in 1985. As a result of all the shake-ups and poor reception, Season 6 is often credited as the worst of the series.
In the eighth season, Nick Nolte was set to host “SNL” to promote his upcoming film “48 Hrs.” But when the time came, he was too hungover to go on stage, so his “48 Hrs.” co-star Eddie Murphy stepped up. Since Murphy was still part of the cast in 1982, this setup was already peculiar. As of Season 48, he is still the only person to host while being a cast member. During the eighth season, Eddie Murphy was one of the most featured performers of the cast, and hosting the show only gave him more screen time. To make matters worse, he ended his solo cold open by saying, “Live from New York, it’s the Eddie Murphy Show.” His castmates were not pleased, to say the least.
Eddie Murphy left the show just before the end of the ninth season, leaving big shoes to fill. Damon Wayans was hired for Season 11 but denied big parts, apparently because Lorne Michaels thought it would look racist to replace Murphy so quickly with another funny Black man. As you can guess, this didn’t sit well with Wayans. The breaking point came on March 15, 1986, when Wayans deviated from the script for a sketch parodying “Miami Vice.” Although he was supposed to play his role in a subdued manner, staying in the shadow of Jon Lovitz as Mr. Monopoly, he decided to play it as an effeminate, flamboyant gay man. Michaels was furious and fired Wayans right after the sketch before the show even ended.
In 1990, popular and controversial standup comedian Andrew Dice Clay hosted “SNL,” although not everyone was excited about his episode. Cast member Nora Dunn refused to participate, objecting to his sexist and homophobic jokes. Fellow castmate Jon Lovitz says that she refused to do the episode in order to get more publicity. Regardless of the reasoning, there were several jabs at Dunn’s boycott throughout the show. Planned musical guest Sinead O’Connor also pulled out due to the host, and people protested both outside the building and inside Studio 8H. However, the episode had the highest viewership of the season thus far.
There are plenty of one-time hosts in the show’s history, like Andrew Dice Clay, but few have made as negative an impression as Steven Seagal. The week leading up to his Season 16 episode was difficult for the cast, as Seagal was rude, unprofessional, and generally disliked. His ideas for sketches were also not popular with the writers or the audience, and his comedic chops were clearly lacking. Lorne Michaels has even named this episode as the worst in “Saturday Night Live” history, mainly because of the host, who has been banned from returning.
Sometimes people other than the host can make life behind the scenes difficult. During her stay from Season 12 to Season 17, cast member Victoria Jackson didn’t mesh well with her coworkers. Part of this could be because she was a Christian right-wing conservative on a very liberal show. Apparently, she could change her lines if they included offensive words and was allowed to drop out of a sketch because it went against her religious beliefs. She has said that she felt it was her duty to tell the cast about Jesus, even if that didn’t make her popular. In fact, Jackson once gave her castmates audiocassettes of the Bible for Christmas. The gifts were promptly and angrily returned. Jackson was so disliked by her castmates that one person, Al Franken, never spoke to her again. After her time on “SNL,” she got involved in politics and even ran for a Tennessee county commissioner’s seat in 2014.
In the mid-1990s, the O.J. Simpson trial produced a lot of material for comedy. One comedian who took full advantage of the situation was Norm Macdonald, who frequently joked about Simpson on “Weekend Update.” Macdonald’s dry wit was very popular with audiences, but not so much with Don Ohlmeyer, an NBC president who was also friends with Simpson. Ohlmeyer didn’t appreciate the constant jokes about his pal and he was likely responsible for Macdonald’s firing from “Weekend Update” in the middle of Season 23.
Another successful comedian who lasted one season on “SNL” is Sarah Silverman. She was hired as a writer and featured player for the nineteenth season, though none of her sketches ever made it to air and she never acted as anything larger than a bit part. During one rewrite session with the cast, she was fixating on castmate Al Franken’s hair when got the idea for a strange prank. The joke was to put her pencil through a lock of his hair, but she missed the mark and ended up stabbing him in the temple. Silverman now jokes that this assault was why she didn’t last longer than a season.
Season 20, from 1994 to 1995, was a time of great change for “SNL.” Ratings and viewer numbers were declining, gossip was spreading, and Lorne Michaels later said it was the time he was closest to being fired. The members of the cast fluctuated over the year, with Mike Myers leaving mid-season and three people added at various points throughout the season. Janeane Garofalo was a new player from the first episode and Morwenna Banks was added mid-season, but both of them left before the finale. Someone was bound to notice all these changes and make fun of them. The joke came in the last sketch of the last episode, which featured several cast members playing themselves and jumping into the polar bear cage at the Central Park Zoo. It worked to give the message that no one on the cast was safe. “SNL” performer Jay Mohr even wrote a book about the overcrowded year, titled “Gasping for Airtime.”
John Belushi wasn’t the only well-known “SNL” cast member with substance use disorder, but he was the first to overdose. After his death from cocaine and heroin in 1982, friends came out to say that he had been spiraling downward for months, doing more and more drugs and being less and less cognizant. He was just 33 years old. Fifteen years later, in 1997, another breakout “SNL” star died of an overdose at the age of 33. This star was Chris Farley, who just so happened to idolize Belushi. Both men used comedy and drugs to cope with insecurity and ignored the multiple warnings from their friends.
In 1999, just before Season 25 started, a new contract was made and given to new hires. It states that if a performer wants to be a regular on the show, NBC has the right to remove them after their second year and put them in a sitcom. The small leeway allowed is the opportunity to turn down two sitcom offers, but the third has to be accepted. As if this creative control isn’t enough, another part dictates how much the performer would make for three movies with Paramount Pictures, all the rates of which are much lower than they had been before the contract. Although talent managers and agents usually advise against signing the contract, they are often ignored because “SNL” is such a giant in the comedy business.
In 2016, rapper Kanye West almost walked out of “SNL” before performing on the show for his sixth appearance. Crew members made some changes to his stage due to shiny flooring reflecting stage lights and washing out the screen behind him, but West didn’t care. He went on a tirade that included insults toward Taylor Swift and claims that he is more influential than 50% of all people, dead or alive. Some other names he dropped were Stanley Kubrick, St. Paul, Pablo Picasso, and Pablo Escobar. Lorne Michaels had to calm him down before he finally went on stage to perform.
