View source for Saturday Night Live/Trivia

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* [[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 [[Prison Rape|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.
{{quote|'''Timberlake''': I'd like to think that, at first, he'd date a [[Britney Spears|popular female singer]]. Publically, they'll claim to be virgins, but privately... he hit it.}}
* [[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).
** One of Amy Poehler's recurring characters was Kaitlin, who is supposed to be ten years old ([[Not Allowed to Grow Up|and remained that age for several years]]).
* [[Dueling Shows]]: ABC's ''Fridays'', ''[[SCTV]] Network 90'', ''[[In Living Color]]'', ''House of Buggin'', ''[[The WB|WB]]'s Hype'', FOX's ''Saturday Night Special'', and FOX's ''[[Mad TV]]'', to name a few — all of whom 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), [[The Simpsons|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''.
** [[Ka Blam!|Noah Segan]] (Henry from ''[[Ka Blam!]]'') was on a few episodes in the 1990s episodes when the sketch called for a real child and not a [[Dawson Casting|20- or 30-something cast member dressed as a kid]].
** Maraka, the ''[[Dora the Explorer]]'' parody on the episode hosted by Peyton Manning, voiced [[Doug|Judy Funnie]].
** [[Stephen Colbert]] ([[The Colbert Report|yes]], [[The Daily Show|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''.
*  [[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 [[The Daily Show|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]], [[Sesame Street|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, [[Love It or Hate It|for better or worse]], ''SNL'' is still on the air.

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[[Category:Saturday Night Live]]
[[Category:Trivia]]