Saturday Night Live/Trivia

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Actor Allusion / Celebrity Paradox / Hypocritical Humor / Take That Me: On the Season 22 episode hosted by Robert Downey Jr., there was a parody sketch of 1970s crime dramas where a detective (Norm MacDonald) finds a bag of heroin and asks "What kind of creep needs this junk to get through the day?" His partner (Downey, who at the time was notorious for his drug problems and missed a week of rehab just to come back and host) then goes on a tirade about how horrible drug abusers are, whether they're famous or not. Need we remind anyone that it's 1990s Downey saying this for laughs?
    • The monologue of this episode even had Downey show his vacation pictures, which included him accepting a package from a drug dealer, him getting arrested, him sharing a jail cell with a Scary Black Man who wants a kiss from him, him visiting Disneyland while in handcuffs, and a photo of a crashed car (which he identifies as a photo from Kelsey Grammer's summer vacation).
    • There was also the sketch where Justin Timberlake played his own Irish ancestor, talking about how some day, one of his descendants will be a big star.

Timberlake: I'd like to think that, at first, he'd date a popular female singer. Publically, they'll claim to be virgins, but privately... he hit it.

  • Media Research Failure: There is a common misconception that Steve Martin (one of SNL's most frequent hosts) was a cast member. He was on Lorne Michaels' failed ABC sketch show The New Show, but he was never an SNL cast member. The fact that he had a recurring character (one half of the "wild and crazy guys") doesn't help the misconception.
  • Dawson Casting: Many sketches in which the cast members play teens or even children. Obviously unavoidable, but it has become prevalent in more recent seasons where most of the cast members currently hired were born after SNL premiered in 1975 (starting with Kenan Thompson).
  • Dueling Shows: ABC's Fridays, SCTV Network 90, In Living Color, House of Buggin, WB's Hype, FOX's Saturday Night Special, and FOX's Mad TV, to name a few — all of which were canned for one reason or another
    • Fridays, despite being panned by critics for being the Cracked magazine to SNL's MAD, did manage to find some success with audiences when SNL was struggling with its 1980-81 cast. Unfortunately, Fridays ended up suffering from a timeslot change and a failed attempt at trying to beat Dallas in the ratings as a primetime sketch show and was cancelled after its second season.
    • SCTV Network 90 ended due to cast exhaustion.
    • In Living Color was Screwed by the Network from Executive Meddling over censorship and eventually died of seasonal rot when the Wayans siblings left and Jim Carrey pursued a movie career.
    • House of Buggin, Saturday Night Special, and Hype weren't received warmly by critics and ended up being canceled as quickly as they premiered.
    • Mad TV — serving 14 years as SNL's worthiest late-night sketch show rival — was canned in 2009 due to seasonal rot and low ratings. There was word of Mad TV coming back as a cable show, but apparently, the show is gone for good, unless one were to count the Cartoon Network sketch show MAD.
    • Almost Live lasted 15 years and kickstarted Bill Nye's television career, but got cancelled as ratings dropped heavily in later years.
  • Edited for Syndication: Sometimes the NBC reruns will either have sketches or segments edited out due to a current event that turned the sketch into a Funny Aneurysm Moment (a rerun of the episode hosted by Blake Lively cut the Weekend Update segment where Abby Elliot impersonates Brittany Murphy due to Murphy's sudden death fifteen days after the episode's premiere) or censorship complaints (i.e. the Sinead O'Connor incident on the Season 18 episode hosted by Tim Robbins; Martin Lawrence's raunchy monologue from Season 19 was shortened and replaced with a series of cards telling viewers that his monologue was so controversial that it almost got everyone on SNL fired and it can never air on TV again). Other times, parts will be edited (or replaced with dress rehearsal versions) because of miscues, accidental use of the F-(or S-)word, or just the simple fact that the dress rehearsal version was done better (and includes funnier jokes that were either botched on-camera or omitted due to time constraints).
    • SNL was shown on cable channels Comedy Central (from the early 1990s to 2003) and E! (from 2003-08) as 60-minute reruns (which filter out the weaker sketches and only air the best sketches and Weekend Update segments from that episode) Comedy Central dropped their reruns in favor of Mad TV (which was later dropped for more comedy specials, movies, and imports of failed animated sitcoms, such as Sit Down, Shut Up and The Goode Family), while E! dropped theirs in favor of more reality shows. As of September 2010, hour-long reruns now air on VH-1.
      • In addition to the hour long version mentioned above, there were reruns that were cut down to a half-hour and aired in syndication on local TV stations and on Nick at Nite in the 1980s, usually paired with reruns of SCTV.
    • The famous sketch in which Chris Farley and Patrick Swayze compete to become Chippendale's dancers originally featured the Loverboy song "Working for the Weekend." Any time you see it now - and it shows up on all the "best of SNL" retrospectives - it features generic instrumental rock, presumably due to music licensing issues.
    • While not really syndication, episodes availabe on NBC's On-demand service in cable markets have the musical guest performances and many of the bumpers removed.
  • Hey, It's That Guy! / Retroactive Recognition: Did you know that Gilbert Gottfried was a cast member? How about Anthony Michael Hall (SNL's youngest cast member at 17 years old), Harry Shearer, Randy Quaid, Robert Downey Jr., Joan Cusack, Sarah Silverman, Janeane Garofalo, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, and Damon Wayans?
    • Mad TV fans might be surprised to discover that Jeff Richards and Taran Killam (two feature players who only spent one year on MADtv before leaving) were/are on this show. Jeff Richards was on Mad TV from 2000-01 before crossing over to SNL, where he stayed from 2001 to the early half of 2004. Taran Killam also appeared on MADtv in 2001 (becoming the youngest cast member on that show at age 19) and was let go a year later. Nine years after appearing on MADtv, he became one of four new feature players for SNL.
      • Killam had started in sketch comedy even before that, appearing as Spalding in the The Amanda Show sketch Moody's Point.
    • Noah Segan (Henry from KaBlam!) was on a few episodes in the 1990s episodes when the sketch called for a real child and not a 20- or 30-something cast member dressed as a kid.
    • Maraka, the Dora the Explorer parody on the episode hosted by Peyton Manning, voiced Judy Funnie.
    • Stephen Colbert (yes, that one) wrote for the show and did voicework for The Ambiguously Gay Duo (and appeared as Brain-io on the live-action version of The Ambiguously Gay Duo).
    • Yes, 1980s-1990s kids' show lovers. The Kenan Thompson who is on SNL is the same Kenan Thompson who was on Nickelodeon's All That and Kenan and Kel.
    • New featured player Kate McKinnon, much like Erica Ash on Mad TV, used to be a cast member on Logo's The Big Gay Sketch Show.
  • Missing Episode: In its 37 years, there have been times where the show was put on hiatus due to the Writers' Guild of America going on strike (specifically in 1981, 1985, 1988, and 2007–08). Because of this, a lot of planned episodes were never written — or were written but never performed. One particularly sad example is a planned 1988 episode that was supposed to be hosted by Gilda Radner from the original "Not Ready for Primetime Players" cast. Sadly, because of the strike and Radner's death from ovarian cancer, this episode has never been made and never will be.
    • One 'missing episode' that was actually produced was Chevy Chase/Jr. Walker and the All-Stars, which aired in April 1981. Originally intended to start the revised second half of season 6 (after Jean Doumanian was replaced by Dick Ebersol, and a number of her cast members were fired), a writer's strike cut the season short. This episode has gone unseen in its original form since 1981 - its lone Comedy Central airing was heavily re-edited, and contained material from other season 6 episodes in place of a few original sketches.
    • For reasons unknown, the season 27 episode hosted by Alec Baldwin with musical guest P.O.D. only aired once. Some of the sketches from that episode were seen, however, on the SNL clip show episode, "The Best of Alec Baldwin."
  • Old Shame:
    • The 12 episodes produced by Jean Doumanian during the 1980-81 season has been barred from syndication in America due to how poorly it was received by... just about everyone (though Comedy Central did air the Bill Murray/Delbert McClinton episode as part of a "Best of Eddie Murphy" marathon, NBC aired a full 90-minute version of the episode hosted by Jamie Lee Curtis with musical guest James Brown and Ellen Shipley as part of their "NBC All Night" rerun block, and Canada's Comedy Network has aired all 12 episodes uncut — including one where Charles Rocket drops an F-bomb during the goodnights, which led to everyone in Doumanian's cast to be fired save Murphy and Joe Piscopo). Universal claims to have stopped production on SNL season DV Ds because of music licensing issues (which, of course, is the true reason why all seasons after five haven't been put on DVD), but most fans have assumed it's because of the backlash and poor sales that would have happened had the 1980-1981 season been released. If you have a Bile Fascination as to how bad Season 6 really is, then your best bet is to find a video collector who has this season or check out some video streaming or torrent sites.
    • Bootleg DVD's of this season are now fairly easy to find online; and its availability in this format has allowed many fans to discover the season for the first time. The general consensus seems to be that, yes, season six was bad, but it did have some bright spots that kept it from being entirely unwatchable (particularly when Eddie Murphy was incorporated into the show and, of course, the musical guest performance—one of which included Prince before he became famous for his albums 1999 and Purple Rain).
  • The Other Darrin: When cast members leave, they take their famous celebrity impersonations with them. When that happens, sometimes SNL will either find a replacement or just forget about it and move on. Some examples:
    • When Will Ferrell left the show in 2002, he took his George W. Bush impersonation with him. Because of this, four other cast members had to play Dubya (Darrell Hammond, Chris Parnell, Will Forte, and Jason Sudeikis).
    • When short-lived feature player Michaela Watkins left after Season 34, Jenny Slate (a then-newly-hired feature player) was chosen to play Hoda Kotb for the Today Show sketches. With Jenny Slate gone, Nasim Pedrad picked up the role.
    • When Ana Gasteyer left at the end of Season 27, her Martha Stewart impression was played by Amy Poehler, Rachel Dratch, and Kristen Wiig.
    • Recently, SNL had a sketch in which Chinese president Hu Jintao asks Barack Obama (Fred Armisen) to violate him to settle the nation's debt. Thing is, this was a retread from a similarly-plotted season 35 cold opening sketch. The actor who played Hu Jintao in the Season 35 version of the sketch (Will Forte) is no longer a cast member in Season 36. In the Season 36 version, Bill Hader is now Hu Jintao.
    • Phil Hartman and Darrell Hammond both played Bill Clinton and, while Hammond held onto the role longer than Hartman, both impersonations are remembered fondly.
      • This was even lampshaded by the show. The first sketch of the first post-Hartman SNL was a skitch where the various cast members tried out for the new Clinton role.
  • The Pete Best: Amy Poehler as Hillary Clinton. Hillary Clinton was previously played by Jan Hooks, Janeane Garafalo, and Ana Gasteyer (and now currently played by Vanessa Bayer), but Poehler gets the recognition. It didn't hurt that Poehler was the one who played her during the 2008 election.
  • Throw It In: Being always LIVE leaves a lot of things improvised on the set, often with the actors cracking up.
    • A famous one being a simple costume change for the "More Cowbell" sketch. During rehearsals the cast admitted it wasn't really working out, then for the live performance Will Ferrell changed his shirt to something about two sizes too small and everything just snowballed from there.
    • Another famous one from the 1970s — Gilda Radner and episode host Candice Bergen are in this sketch that's really a public service announcement for the Right to Stupidity. Bergen accidentally calls Radner "Fern", which is Bergen's character's name. After much cracking up, Gilda flips the sketch around so that way Bergen's character's the stupid one and not her.
    • On the episode hosted by Jason Lee, there was a "Falconer" sketch where a landowner (Lee) appears and calls Forte's character (the Falconer) a "dickhead" instead of a "dickweed". While Lee corrects himself, Forte ad-libs that he is neither a dickweed or a dickhead. The fact that this was done without anyone cracking up is nothing short of amazing.
    • In a sketch entitled Black History Minute, Eddie Murphy was playing an Angry Black Man giving a hectoring monologue to the camera. At one point he stumbled over some words, and a couple of audience members tittered. Without breaking character, he addressed the crowd: "So I messed up. Shut up!"
    • In the infamous first Matt Foley sketch with Chris Farley, near the end Matt tumbles over and breaks the table. This was purely accidental; Farley tripped and crashed into the table, and it went from there, thankfully managing to continue the sketch uninterrupted. The moment was so memorable though that most later Foley sketches had the character crashing into walls or furniture.
  • What Could Have Been: There are a handful of celebrities who have hosted SNL who originally auditioned to be cast members on the show, but never made it.
    • Jim Carrey: Auditioned for Season 6 (1980–81) headed by Jean Doumanian, but lost out to Charles Rocket and eventually found fame on In Living Color.
    • John Goodman: Also auditioned for Season 6, but lost out to Joe Piscopo.
    • Catherine O'Hara: Chosen to be Ann Risley's replacement when NBC was trying to fix SNL after Doumanian's tenure, but quit after Michael O'Donoghue yelled at everyone for running the show into the ground and was eventually replaced with Robin Duke (a feature player from SCTV) before the start of Season 7 (1981–82).
    • Paul Reubens aka "Pee Wee Herman": Auditioned for Season 10 (1984–85), but lost to Billy Crystal.
    • Geena Davis: Also auditioned for Season 10, but lost to Pamela Stephenson.
    • Lisa Kudrow: Auditioned for Season 16 (1990–91), but lost to Julia Sweeney.
    • Steve Carrell: Auditioned for Season 21 (1995–96), but lost to Will Ferrell. Despite this, he became a voice actor for the TV Funhouse series "The Ambiguously Gay Duo".
    • Johnny Knoxville: Was offered the chance to do his Jackass stunts as part of a short film series for Season 21, but rejected the offer.
    • Dane Cook: Auditioned for Season 28 (2002–03), but lost to Will Forte.
      • In addition to the hosts who auditioned and never made it, there are also comedians who never hosted but did audition to be in the cast, only to be turned down.
        • Dom Irrera: Auditioned for Season 6, but lost to Gilbert Gottfried.
        • Robert Townsend: Also auditioned for Season 6 and was chosen to be a cast member, but an agent named Neil Levy was gunning for Eddie Murphy instead and Townsend forgot to sign his contract.
        • Stephnie Weir: Auditioned for Season 25 (1999-2000), but lost to Rachel Dratch and ended up on Mad TV.
        • Maria Bamford: Auditioned for Season 29 (2003–04), but lost to Finesse Mitchell and Kenan Thompson.
        • Rob Huebel: Auditioned for Season 30 (2004–05) along with comedy partner Rob Riggle; Huebel lost to Riggle, who lasted just that one season.
        • Donald Glover: Auditioned for Season 33 (2007–08) when Lorne was looking for a cast member to play Barack Obama.
        • Mad TV's Jordan Peele (known for his dead-on impersonations of Ja Rule, Morgan Freeman, Big Bird, Montel Williams, Flava Flav, and Forest Whitaker): Also auditioned for Season 33 when Lorne was looking for a cast member to play Barack Obama.
        • Mindy Kaling: Auditioned for Season 32 (2006–07) and was offered a job as a writer, but wasn't allowed to break her contract at The Office to take it.
    • Also, Saturday Night Live was originally supposed to have one person act as a permanent host (Albert Brooks was chosen), but NBC and Lorne Michaels thought the show would be better if it were a little less like Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In (which Lorne wrote for before creating SNL) and had a celebrity host every week.
    • Burt Reynolds himself once talked with Norm MacDonald about a Celebrity Jeopardy! sketch where the real Burt would come out and punch Norm in the face, then the real Burt would take over and be worse than the fake one. This ended up not happening when Norm got fired.
    • Season six was originally supposed to be headed by Al Franken following Lorne Michaels' departure. However, Franken wrote a Weekend Update segment called "A Limo for the Lame-O," which made fun of Fred Silverman. As a result, Franken left along with Lorne Michaels, the writers, and the remnants of the Not Ready for Primetime cast and NBC hired Jean Doumanian in his place. Things didn't go well.
    • Seasons 6, 11, and 20 were all slated to be the final seasons for the show due to how disastrous they were and how much they were hated by fans and critics for being weak and humorless. All three of these seasons were saved from the chopping block by cast and crew overhauls and, for better or worse, SNL is still on the air.
    • According to a later interview with Paul McCartney, the famous skit where Lorne Michaels offered the bare minimum amount for a musical act if The Beatles would reunite and play on the show was actually watched by him and John Lennon who almost talked themselves into doing it For the Lulz...but then decided not to bother.
  • Write Who You Know: A lot of SNL's recurring characters are actually based on people that either the writers or the cast members have encountered in life:
    • Jay Pharoah's Principal Frye, a senile, wheezing high school principal who constantly interrupts assemblies with news of some kind of disaster happening at the school, is actually based on the principal from Pharoah's high school in Chesapeake, Virginia. The only thing that's changed is the name: the principal's name in real life is James while the character Jay Pharoah plays is named Daniel.
    • Bill Hader's Stefon character is actually based on two people: a club promoter John Mulaney (the writer behind the Stefon segments on Weekend Update) met while in New York, and a barista Bill Hader met who actually looked, dressed, and spoke like Stefon.
    • Julia Sweeney's adrogynous Pat character was actually based on a woman Julia saw who looked so much like a man that Sweeney questioned her gender.
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