How One Failed Season Almost Canceled Saturday Night Live
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- Опубліковано 30 вер 2024
- Saturday Night Live is one of the longest running, most successful network TV shows in history. Looking at the juggernaut that is SNL today, it's hard to imagine a time that Saturday Night Live was so terrible, it was almost taken off the air completely. It wouldn't be until SNL's creator Lorne Michaels returned to right the sinking ship that it would go on a run not unlike anything people have seen before. Thankfully it wasn't cancelled, and Saturday Night Live is still going strong nearing it's 50th anniversary.
#snl #saturdaynightlive #eddiemurphy #weekendupdate
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SNL 81-84 was basically the Eddie Murphy show featuring Joe Piscapo
he singlehandedly saved SNL from cancellation.
@@stingrey1571Not true, but whatever…
In a book on the history of SNL it was said, Eddie Murphy's success went to Joe Piscopo's head.
Wow. Just gonna act like Tim Kazarinsky and Mary Gross didn't happen, eh?
@@ogami1972yeah, but. 👆👆
1:30 that’s still Dan Aykroyd, not Peter
That's FRED GARVIN, MALE PROSTITUTE!
That's Fred Garvin...Male Prostitute!
No it’s not. It’s Fred Garvin… Male prostitute!
Playing “Fred Garvin…Male Prostitute.”
AI videos still aren't perfect
The combination Crystal/Guest/Short, though a stopgap measure, was one of the greatest seasons with a ton of memorable classic sketches - not to be dismissed.
AGREE! Remember the Joe Franklin Show sketches ? Christopher Guest as the guy with the dummy ! LOL .
It's crazy to think that SNL was nearly canceled after one failed season. Modern SNL can survive repeated failed seasons.
I was at an SNL show during the Ebersol era, not live but just taping Eddie Murphy skits to include while he was off shooting movies. At the end Dick Ebersol was having obvious fun spoofing the leaving audience that they could “go downstairs to eat and come back to see more”. Eddie Murphy was having even more fun, still in the James Brown hot-tub yelling at the audience “gwan now get the f-k out! Get the f-k out!”
the most impressive part of snl to me is it’s consistency since it’s 11th season to push out stable careers for majority of its cast.
yeah! v impressive
Yeah. I think that consistency is because after the 1980’s there developed a “AAA minor leagues” feeder system: the improv troupes like the groundlings, second city, UCB etc.
These train and give
audience experience to really good talents and let them develop characters.
So by the time they get to snl they are already pretty good and snl takes them to the next level.
Give SNL credit. Their writers have had to write for some suspect hosts such as Nancy Kerrigan, Steve Forbes, Steven Segal, George Steinbrenner, Paris Hilton, and Kayne West to name a few. As Loren Michaels once said "SNL does not go because it's ready; it goes on because it's 11:30 pm."
I got to talk to Charlene Tilton about the infamous Saturday Night Live. She appeared with Charles Rockett where he cursed live on the air. She claimed to me that he was fired right from the stage by producer when the show ended
Acquired a certain notoriety for uttering the ultimate obscenity on live television during the final moments of the February 21, 1981, episode of Saturday Night Live (1975). Contrary to popular belief, Rocket was not immediately dismissed from the program but was fired with producer Jean Doumanian and all but four cast members (Denny Dillon, Gail Matthius, Eddie Murphy and Joe Piscopo were the exceptions) on March 10, 1981.
Looking back at the 84-85 season, I do appreciate that Dick Ebersol allowed Billy Crystal to do live improv in Fernando's Hideaway, which was an enormous gamble considering that it wasn't a scripted segment. And Crystal was so, so good in that segment.
Being I grew up watching and listening to Joe Franklin, I absolutely LOVED Billy Crystal's sketches of the Joe Franklin show. As outrageous as the bits were, it was still 90% spot on
I liked these Dark Years of SNL. Recently watched those seasons and there were some real hidden gems in there. Gilbert Gottfried was fun and his sketch about a man confessing but being directed by the detective like a diva really cracked me up. Also feel bad for that cast, especially Charles Rocket who really had what it took to be the new face and really was done in by backstage politics.
I watched all of this stuff live. I loved some of the cast in the Ebersole years.
Tim Kazurinski was unsung. I also liked Brad Hall. Julia Louis Dreyfus was awesome on SNL.
Brad married Julia and still are together.
The contrast between Eddie Murphy and the rest of the 80-81 cast can be summed up pretty well with Gail Matthius. While Murphy became a blockbuster actor, Matthius mostly focused on voicing a million cartoon valley girls (which itself is something she had done on SNL).
Not that there’s anything wrong with that - we all respect Shirley the Loon, don’t we? - but it’s still a world of a difference
Gilbert Gottfried was a member of the cast for just that one season, but he hadn't really found his comedic voice yet, literally and figuratively.
The irony of SNL is that its gimmick is that it's a live showcase of up-and-comers. Sometimes they'll flop, sometimes they won't. But for comedic purpose, it's more of a time capsule to future generations than it is something which is objectively the best in certain years. The "wild and crazy guys" don't age any better than the Roxbury guys. And the political humor? Forget about it.
What I find funny about it is that the stuff that transcend generation gaps is commonly pretaped and sometimes doesn't feature cast members. Fake commercials relate because we're aware of these products. Of all the Eddy Murphy bits, the one that seems to get the most laughs from people years later is the parody of "Black Like Me" for example, in which he disguises himself as a white guy and we see a minidocumentary showing people give him things for free just because he's white. Even when it comes to recurring characters, "Toonces, the Cat Who Could Drive a Car," a bit which features the players as straightmen, reaches its punchline with a cat puppet crashing a car, mainly because we've all seen dumb kids shows like that.
SCTV came on in 1981. I became a huge fan - great characters, sketches and especially because SNL sucked so badly at the time.
SNL was doing so badly even NBC was looking for a replacement. Picking up a show that had produced 3 seasons already was great. Dick Ebersol probably tried to get everyone from SCTV to join SNL. He did hire Catherine O'Hara. But he also got Michael O'Donoghue to return. That led her back to SCTV & Robin Duke to SNL along with Tony Rosato. They joined for episode 13 of season 6 & were both there through season 7. Tony was fired & Robin did 2 more seasons. Ebersol, of course, didn't get a big star from SCTV until after it ended its run on Cinemax when Martin Short joined.
Just happy we had Norm.
Up to a decade ago it had something still.
Now? From time to time a good host.
Norm forever
I liked Vanessa Bayer and Cecily Strong, I stopped watching when they left.
Franken was not funny and thankfully didn't take over. That year and the next few SNL almost dropped off the map. Can't remember much of it. Piscopo wasn't funny. When Lovitz Jackson, and Hartman, Carvey, etc. came along that was a great era.
Franken was/is hilarious. One of the best of his generation.
6:52-6:56 - Did you really say “Julia _Louise_ Dreyfus”? 🤦🏾♂️
You lost me at “embarrassingly all white.” Try not to pander so hard next time.
You showed Aykroyd as Fred Garvin in place of his brother LOL
Charles Rocket takes a lot of crap that is grossly unfair. He went on after SNL and had a fine movie career and passed away a few years ago. The actors were ok and the problem with the 1980 cast was that the change at the top was too much change with no continuity of cast or producers. These retrospectives on the 1980 cast always take a shot to the chestnuts at Charles Rocket and this nonsense post is no different. First clip was-surprise-go right at Charles Rocket! He deserves A LOT BETTER as he was a good comedy actor. Remember NBC put the show on hiatus in January of that “lost” year which was the kiss of death for developing the cast.
He was my neighbor, he actually killed himself sadly.
His story is really tragic. He had a career most actors would envy but worked with Eddie Murphy, Bruce Willis, and Jim Carrey and saw their careers skyrocket. And Rocket's stuff was ahead of its time and would have been ideal for the youtube/tiktok era. Still the man was in Hocus Pocus, Dances with Wolves and Dumb and Dumber. Small parts but he was there.
SNL is awesome. SNL is trash. SNL hasn't been funny since the original cast left. SNL hasn't been funny since Eddie Murphy left. SNL hasn't been funny since the mid-1990's. SNL hasn't been funny since Will Ferrell, Jimmy Fallon, and Tina Fey left. Ever since Aidy Bryant, Kate MacKinnon, and Cecily Strong left, SNL has gone downhill. The reality is...SNL has always been up and down. That's the nature of sketch comedy. Some skits are awesome, but not every skit is going to hit; in fact, most of them don't. Someone said the best analogy of SNL is that it's like baseball. You step up to the plate each time and more often than not you're going to strike out, hit a ground ball and get thrown out, or hit a pop up or fly ball for an out. Occasionally you will hit a few singles and doubles, and every so often you'll hit a home run. Likewise, not every season will be remembered. Most will be just mediocre, but sometimes you will be good enough to make the playoffs and if you're lucky you'll win the championship. About half of the SNL skits flame out. A few are mildly amusing but are quickly forgotten, but only a few of them become so good that they are remembered years later. Whether it's two wild and crazy guys, the Bass-o-matic, Larry the lounge singer, Mister Robinson's Neighborhood, Gumby, the Church Lady, Wayne's World, Phil Hartman's impressions of Frank Sinatra and Bill Clinton, Chris Farley auditioning to be a Chippendales dancer, Matt Foley, the motivational speaker who lived in a van down by the river, the two cheerleaders, more cowbell, Tina Fey as Sarah Palin, MacGruber, Celebrity Jeopardy with Sean Connery, Black Jeopardy, or any of the better Weekend Update segments with Chevy Chase, Jane Curtain and Dan Aykroyd, Dennis Miller, Norm MacDonald, Tina Fey and Amy Poehler, or even Colin Jost and Michael Che, those are the skits that have hit the big one and stood the test of time.
Oh Nooo Mr. Bill !!
"embarisingly still the norm?" check out some demographics
In the opening for Season 12 (1986-1987), Madonna reads an "official" statement from NBC that says the prior season was "only a dream, just a horrible dream", or something like that, lol. I've watched every single season since 1975, and, yeah, those years without Lorne were ROUGH...really rough. His return in 1980 was like when Steve Jobs came back to run Apple after years of floundering.
I always thought it was strange when i started seeing retrospectives of the 1985-86 season as some failure. It wasn’t one of the best, but had some very funny sketches. it was very experimental. It had a lot of odd pieces that didn’t fit together so well, but it did launch Lovitz, Dennis Miller, Damon Wayans, Joan Cusack, and helped Downey and Hall into adult roles. I personally thought it was better than all but maybe one Dick Ebersol season.
Nah. The Eddy Murphy show was genuinely clever.
Watched them all since I was a kid. And worst seasons were the last couple of years ever since TIna Fey left.
SNL was almost cancelled twice..early 80’s and 94-95 and 95-96 seasons. Those were the worst years. Early 80’s was just Eddie Murphy as the only star and 94-95 saw the last years of many Greats who just didn’t seem to care as much as they had movie careers (Sandler, Farley, Myers, etc) and 95-96 was a completely new cast minus a handful of actors but it was terrible. 95-96 was the first season of Will Ferrel but rookies only do so much
Still time to axe the show.
I grew up with the 84 (Billy Crystal, Christopher Guest, Harry Shearer, etc) cast and I think it was one of the best seasons. Those guys are comedy geniuses.
To go from that to Robert Downey Jr, Anthony Michael Hall, Randy Quaid the next year, that’s what had the show on thin ice. You can tell the people making the decisions weren’t comedy writers at their core. Fixing that revived the show
That said I stopped watching around 2000, but my parents have been watching for all 50 years!
I’d like to see you dedicate an entire video essay to Charles Rocket alone, that guys career was pretty tragic really…
That picture you identify as Peter Ackroyd is in fact Dan Ackroyd
I actually prefer SCTV. The show didn't overstay it's welcome and a lot of those sketches still hold up. decades later.
So Harry Shearer was both added by Micheals’ immediate replacement AND Ebersol? Huh? So he was added to the cast, then fired when they cleaned house, then added again?
No. Harry Shearer was added by Michaels in the final season of his first tenure, 79-80, the fifth season. He volunteered to stay after everyone else walked, but they didn't want him. He had absolutely nothing to do with SNL '80 or Jean Doumanian. Four years later, Ebersol hired him alongside Billy Crystal and Christopher Guest. And then he left halfway through the season.
Victoria Jackson was terrible, Who thought she should be on the list of up and comers. She's a clown compared to the others.
Its pretty awesome that this show is turning 50. So many ups and downs. Everyone has their fave cast era..... mine is Nora Dunn/phil hartmen 80s seasons. But i also have like some of the more current people like Mikey Day.
Eddie Murphy saves the show.😀👍
Peak SNL was early 2000s and now it’s hit or miss with 60 percent being miss.
I do like some of the modern cast, Heidi Gardner, Sarah Sherman, Michael Che and Colin Jost are pretty good, everyone else feels very replaceable to me though
Most people think the peak was when they were in high school or young adults, myself included. So late 80's and 90's for me. Phil Hartman was just huge for me for his versatility, but also loved Carvey, Sandler, McDonald, Miller, Myers, Jackson etc. But early 2000's was also very solid with Farrell and Tina Fey. Since then, however, I haven't kept up with it.
@@jimmym3352late '80's & early '90's was definitely the peak era of SNL, even better than the original cast.
@@johnbrennan4449 I agree totally, having watched SNL from the start. Like any other era, the one you cite didn’t hit a home run every time. But damn, it was awfully good on a consistent basis.
The original years in the ‘70s were great at the time, because it was different and fairly bold. But in all honesty, most of it doesn’t hold up well today. I would guess a lot of younger people today would watch the original show and wonder what the big deal was and how it even succeeded.
Totally WRONG! Best "era" was 1989-1999. Or thereabouts.
Something I noticed about TV in general and SNL in particular is the only way you can succeed is if you have a combination of good writers and good actors. Any season of SNL that stinks is usually lacking one or both. Gilbert Gottfried is hilarious and the staff didnt know how to use him.
I watched SNL from the second episode on. I never missed it. It was so popular, that an episode in July 1976, coincided with San Diego Comic Con. They were going to show a movie at midnight, and then delayed it till after 1:00 am so that people could watch SNL. I gave up a number of years ago since I just didn't find it funny anymore.
THINGS SEEMED FUNNIER IN 75. IF YOU GO BACK AND WATCH NOW NOT THAT FUNNY
The reality is that Eddie Murphy was the breakout start of the 1981-1984 cast.. however.. the reality was that most of the cast were far too used to prerecorded segments. Eddie, Joe Piscapo, and Julia Louis-Dreyfus were the three best at live comedy at the time.
Sadly.. nowadays.. *_SNL_* beyond needs cancelling.
Dana Carvey was great on SNL and has no career. Robert Downey Jr was terrible on SNL and has a great career.
Charles moved two houses down from me years back, he ended up killing himself in the woods behind his house.
" embarrassingly still the norm" ? get a grip ! ridiculous thing to say !
SCTV > SNL
SCTV is great :)
This explains how Animalympics got the voice talent it did.
Charles Rocket is the most deadly thing out of Fall River since Lizzie Borden. He almost killed SNL.
After every season being garbage since 2015 i was konda hoping theyd cancel it already
here we areeeeeee
@@Nerdstalgic worst timeline.
Nora Dunn and Victoria Jackson were never funny
Still better than modern day SNL.
Pretty solid '86 through '16 seasons.. for some reason, when this show is popular for the stars instead of the ensemble, the creativity seems like it's trying to prove something or convince you of how great they are.. as opposed to having fun making a great show. The best casts were when ratings were middling & general opinion was that the show had endured way past it's expiration.. current production had that '84, '85 vibe. Few moments here & there, but since I have been born in '78, long as I remember, I'm catching Saturday Night. Even those early, mid '80s.. a kids could count on Mr. Bill & Toonces the driving cat.. moments.. late 80s & 90s redeemed a lot.. want cool to admit you watched it but it was funny than a muhfuh in that era, just in time for high school in
Am I the only one who thinks SNL was never really that great even in its golden age, it did have its moments though
Idk, SNL has some funny stuff
It's a crap chute.
You'll find a gem here and there.
No, you're not the only one. 🙂
It's mass appeal comedy. The sometimes have great jokes and even rarer a fully great sketch, but most of their stuff is mid or straight bad.
Then why are you even wasting your time watching/ commenting thinking and obsessing with its quality? Seriously I want to understand you people! If I don’t like something I don’t spend ANY time watching or even thinking about it! Do you have to watch it for work or something?
"..replaced with now iconic stars: Dana Carvey, Phil Hartman and Victoria Jackson."
One of those is not considered iconic in any stretch of thd imagination.
Most people consider Jackson a complete loon these days
The video lost me with that line. She was never even a top 2 female cast member.
Memories...this part of SNL was during my senior year in high school, and I remember talking about it with friends.
I'm early 30s, and have never found SNL to be entertaining. Some good skits, but never a whole episode.
Charles Rocket's life was the stuff of Greek tragedy. NPR's Media Matters took a shot at him and the infamous f-bomb the day he took his own life. It's not known if he heard, but there you are. He was talented but outshone by legends like Murphy, Bruce Willis and Jim Carrey. He was also friends with David Byrne in college. It really seems he couldn't handle being a working actor when he wanted to be a genius.
All White casts were the norm because White people are more talented. I don't make the rules, I just enjoy them.
😂😂. If you believe in that nonsense, then you believe in the tooth fairy. A 20 year old Eddie Murphy saved that show
White people aren't more talented. They are more relatable to other whites. Relatability doesn't equal talented.
I always thought for young people (pre-streaming and
DVR) that Saturday night was a night to go out, so the ratings wouldn't be as high if it were on a different night or make it this long lasting cultural thing.
I watch every week. Might as well be called sunday morning on youtube
Yeah, is funny because usually in the intro the cast is hanging around clubs, chatting and drinking while you are at home watching this
I think there was some really good stuff around 83-85. It was more 80-81 where SNL really fell out of the cultural conscience. Fridays also came out, and wasn't that funny, around that time as well.
SNL is all about writing, and most of the time, they seem to have missed it!
They do spray and pray. If you write a thousand sketches some of them will be good 🤷♂️
Its definitely a difficult task, that's for sure.
You think the Louis in Julia Louis-Dreyfus is pronounced Louise? How old are you, son? 😅
You are grossly understating Eddie Murphy's impact on throwing that show a lifeline. Especially when you mention him in the same breath with relative nobody Joe Piscopo. You've got work to do, likely on your implicit biases.
Thumbs down.
Charles Rocket's problem was that he thought he had much more talent than he did. He fancied himself as some sort of intellectual comic, but that wasn't the cas
And the only reason Eddie Murphy got on the show was that Charlie Barnett didn't show up for his final audition. Barnett had the part, but was functionally illiterate and was afraid they would fire him once the producers found out he couldn't read the cue cards.
And it just goes to show you what kind of a person Al Franken is.
Cost himself the top job because he was mad about someone riding in s limo and he couldn't.
When the rest of the original cast left with Lorne to be replaced by a new group, I thought it must be a joke at first. That first season afterwards was so much of a letdown that I thought it wasn't really worth watching. By the last of the Ebersol years, it was back to being really funny.
So wrong. The Ebersol cast was NOT forgotten. The Ebersol years are when Murphy blew up as a star. Billy Crystal was a relatively minor talent but after his time on SNL he got movie gigs. Same with Martin Short, and Jim Belushi. Even Dreyfus pre-Seinfeld was getting roles in movies and TV shows after her SNL time. This guy didn’t live through the 80’s do he has no clue how popular that cast was. Compared with the cast members over the last 8 years or so who can’t seem to do anything after SNL, they’re megastars. Kenan Thompson has been on the show for more than 2 decades, way past his sell- your date. The truth is, SNL rating have hovered around a 6.5-6.9 for decades, regardless of cast.
One? Try dozens? SNL sucks!
It’s pretty interesting how this thumbnail changed like 5 times 😂
Snl sucks
yeah, it comes in waves. Sometimes its great. sometimes not so much.
Legendary
yessssss
This feels like it was put together through ChatGPT. So much wrong in this analysis.
I feel like SNL now is archaic all they do now is political, sports and pop culture sketches at least back then they had original ideas
I stopped watching a while ago I think the writing and performances took a dip. But the last one I've seen was the Beavis and Butthead skit that was good though.
rarely funny, just a launching pad and more evidence the public will drink shit if the TV sells it
SNL proves sometimes these needs a break or to burn to be brought back or be born again. Never retool you need to rebuild.
The Ebersol years were interesting but it was the Shatner episode that truly brought the show back.
Who cares about the colour of the actors skin. Funny is coloublind
If funny was "colorblind" the show would have been more diverse. An all white cast is not natural. It is forced by excluding non whites.
0:22 bro looks like max headroom in business school
the show, snl is unwatchable now, not funny poor writing.
The way the early 80s era is hated upon it's almost political.
It should be canceled. It hasn't been funny since 13
Charles Rocket was a better Chevy Chase than Chevy Chase.
Holy shit, I never realized how much Gaten Matarazzo looks like a young Al Franken until seeing some of these clips.
It wasn't funny for the past 45 years
A lot of the best skits died in dress. Writers like Jim Downey made sure a lot of skits that writers thought were great in the writer’s room but sucked as actual sketches saw the light of day. I think you said something very interesting which I hadn’t considered: it was novel for *1975-80*. They really have just been trying to recreate counter culture ever since but everything is mainstream. Even alt media is mainstream. It was the hippest show for its time. Now it’s like old Chinaware.
In truth, SNL was never that good
All white cast is "embarrassing"
Cool...
I found myself chuckling at just snippets of the ‘bad season’ whereas I find SNL in general to be painful to watch. 🤷🏻♂️
I thought 85-86 was the end 😅
4:48 Ohhh. THAT sketch.
Yikes. 🙄
I discovered these early years in the 90's when Comedy Central aired reruns and since 1991 I've always watched SNL even through the turbulent cast turnovers, currently I don't bother watching them live I just stream them on Peacock that way I can fast forward the crap musical acts.
The Eddie Murphy sketches are really hilarious and show how much of a generational talent he is. Everything else is unwatchable.
Love your content
this show should be csncelled
Victoria Jackson is iconic?
They already changed the thumbnail?
You are engaging now so it looks like it worked. *edited spelling
Who cares?
@@gnosticmind Literally many people who care about SEO and engagement.
If you only plan on commenting and never creating anything, you don't need to worry about it.
@@mmmFreshBrew I just wanted to know if they changed it or if it was just me, idk what you mean it "worked"
what's really sad is how many people over the age of 63 or 64 will tell me they quit watching the show once the original cast was done after season 5. they never wanted to give any new cast members a chance. i don't watch it much any more, mostly because i have no idea who the hosts and musical guests are, but come on. lots of talented performers over the years. i watch micheal che and colin jost doing the news on youtube, lord are they hilarious. and keenan thompson is a gem too. i remember when he and kel mitchell did a kids' show that my son absolutely loved. give credit where it's due.
It's always fascinating to me when something so successful in one decade IMMEDIATELY falls off a cliff at the beginning of the next decade.
what about the last 6 years? SNL is nothing like it was with Ferrell, Falon, Kattan, Tina Fey, etc.
Brian doyle-murray was a member of the original cast he was there at the beginning believe he was a writer as well as appearing
Loki amazing Robert Townsend was part of the SNL cast. Would have been pretty sick
I didn't remember that Damon Wayans was part of the cast.
Ebersol sucked
Didn’t watch. But appreciate the honest thumbnail change.
Well, have you seen it last 5 years or so?
Lamest thing out there.
Let me guess, you voted trump lmao
I bet you voted for traitor trump
Cope harder GOP-traitor.
@@spacemanx9595What the fuck
@spacemanx9595 it's not a bad thing.