History of Saturday Night Live (1985–1990)

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History of Saturday Night Live series:

1975–1980 (seasons 1, 2, 3, 4, 5) 1980–1985 (seasons 6, 7, 8, 9, 10) 1985–1990 (seasons 11, 12, 13, 14, 15) 1990–1995 (seasons 16, 17, 18, 19, 20) 1995–2000 (seasons 21, 22, 23, 24, 25) 2000–2005 (seasons 26, 27, 28, 29, 30) 2005–2010 (seasons 31, 32, 33, 34, 35) 2010–2015 (seasons 36, 37, 38, 39, 40) 2015–2020 (seasons 41, 42, 43, 44, 45) 2020–present (seasons 46) Weekend Update

Saturday Night Live is an American sketch comedy series created and produced by Lorne Michaels for most of the show's run. The show has aired on NBC since 1975.

After the success that was the 1984–85 season, then-producer Dick Ebersol attempted to orchestrate a major retool of the show that included placing an emphasis on taped material over live material, which NBC declined. Ebersol then left. The show was almost canceled until original producer Michaels was reinstated. Michaels hired a younger and "hipper" cast that was unpopular with audiences and resulted in a season widely considered abysmal, the 1985–86 season.

Learning his lesson from the previous season, Michaels fired most of the cast and assembled a cast of unknowns for the 1986–87 season that included greats such as Phil Hartman and Jon Lovitz. This cast, which would remain relatively stable until the 1990–91 season, would revive the show and make it once again relevant to American culture.

History[]

Dick Ebersol left the show after the 1984–85 season when the network refused his request to shut the program down entirely for six months and shift much of the material onto tape, not live broadcast. Once again, NBC briefly considered cancelling the show, but programming head Brandon Tartikoff (who was something of an SNL fan) decided to continue the show and re-hire former producer Lorne Michaels.

Lorne Michaels returns[]

In some ways, the job Michaels returned to was more challenging than the one he took on in 1975. His most recent effort, the previous season's The New Show, confused critics and was ignored by audiences. Also, the 1984–1985 season had been a critical and ratings hit, generating memorable characters and stand-out performers. Original writers Al Franken and Tom Davis returned as producers, and Jim Downey was appointed head writer. Fans and critics^[who?] welcomed Michaels and many of the original producers and writers back, calling it a return to the show's roots.

1985-1986 cast[]

Michaels wanted a younger cast for the show.^[1] He hired Academy Award nominee Randy Quaid, best known for his work in The Last Detail and National Lampoon's Vacation, as well as Joan Cusack and Robert Downey, Jr. Milestones included the first black female regular, Danitra Vance (while Yvonne Hudson was the first black female cast member, she was never promoted to repertory player) and, as of 2020, the first lesbian of color to be a cast member (another one wouldn't come until 35 years later with Punkie Johnson); Terry Sweeney (who previously worked as a writer for the show during its infamous sixth season), the first openly gay male actor on an American network television show, and Anthony Michael Hall, yet another fresh face from Hollywood (at 17, he is the show's youngest cast member, and the only one who, at the time of his hiring, was under the ages of 18 and 21 [SNL's younger cast members are usually over 18, but under 21, as seen with Robert Downey, Jr., Eddie Murphy, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, and, later, Pete Davidson]), who had appeared with Quaid in Vacation and starred in The Breakfast Club earlier that year. Rounding out the cast were unknowns: stand-up comedians Dennis Miller and Damon Wayans (the latter of which was fired in the middle of the season and went on to create yet another rival sketch show for Saturday Night Live: FOX's In Living Color) and improv comedians Nora Dunn and Jon Lovitz. Don Novello, another member of the old guard, would also return as his popular Father Guido Sarducci character. Miller, who performed in relatively few sketches (and even fewer as the years went by), became the anchor of "Weekend Update".

Michaels later said about the 1985-1986 cast that "[p]erhaps I went too young". Franken said that "[y]ou couldn't do a Senate hearing [sketch] with Anthony Michael Hall, Robert Downey Jr., [or] Terry Sweeney. I mean, those guys aren't senators."^[1] With the exceptions of Miller, Lovitz, and Dunn, the new cast failed to connect with audiences and, like season six, cited this season as one of the weakest and most humorless in the show's history.^{[citation needed]}

Ratings were weak and some cast members did not expect the show to be renewed. NBC did briefly cancel the show at the end of the 1985–1986 season, but Michaels asked for another season. He ended the last show of the season with a sketch in which the cast (playing themselves) get caught in a fire, and Michaels chooses to rescue only Lovitz. As the others try to escape the smoke and flames, the show asks "WHO WILL SURVIVE?" and "WHO WILL PERISH?", and advises viewers to "TUNE IN OCTOBER 11th" as a question mark appears next to each name in the closing credits. While the sketch satirized the common use in 1980s TV shows such as Dallas of cliffhanger season endings, it also permitted Michaels to make many changes to the cast. Show writer Robert Smigel later said, "Some of the cast members were kind of mad [about] that sketch. The ones who weren't Jon Lovitz."^[1]

Return to form[]

Of the entire cast, only Dunn, Lovitz, Miller, and featured player A. Whitney Brown returned when the 1986–1987 season rolled around. For his next crop of regulars, Michaels returned to his original tactic of assembling a strong ensemble of relative unknowns, led by Dana Carvey, Phil Hartman, Jan Hooks, Victoria Jackson and Kevin Nealon.^[2]

The first show of the 1986–1987 season opened with Madonna, host of the previous season opener, telling the audience that the entire 1985–1986 season had been a "horrible, horrible dream",^[1] just as Dallas had done a few weeks earlier. NBC gave SNL only thirteen shows to turn it around, but the show rebounded almost immediately.

With the new cast, SNL gained renewed popularity. The 1987–1988 season, was cut short by a writers' strike. Gilda Radner had been penciled in to host the season finale that spring, but by 1989, her cancer had returned. She died in May 1989. Steve Martin, Radner's close friend, was scheduled to host SNL that night. Instead of his planned monologue, he presented a sketch from the 1970s featuring himself and Radner dancing (Martin visibly teared up during the tribute).^[3]

Phil Hartman[]

The urbane, smooth-voiced Hartman became one of the show's longest-serving cast members. He had previously co-written Reubens' 1985 film Pee-wee's Big Adventure and appeared on his popular Saturday morning show Pee-wee's Playhouse. He left SNL in 1994.

Dana Carvey[]

Bolstered by strong scripts penned by the writing team, Carvey's impression of George H. W. Bush was a notable advance on earlier ventures in this vein, and helped set a new benchmark for this aspect of the show's political satire. SNL's strongest period of political parody before this was the 1976-1979 era, when Dan Aykroyd appeared frequently as both former U.S. President Richard Nixon (alongside John Belushi as Henry Kissinger), and then current President Jimmy Carter. While Aykroyd's impersonations marked successful efforts to bring well-known political figures to life on the show, the only other well-remembered political impersonation from SNL's 1970s period (or any other period before the 1986–1987 season) was Chevy Chase's slapstick parody of President Gerald Ford.

Carvey's Bush impersonation was SNL's most sophisticated yet, and together with Hartman's send-up of President Ronald Reagan, they allowed for the most fruitful and successful period of political parody on SNL.^{[citation needed]} Aykroyd returned in guest appearances on the show throughout the late 1980s and early 1990s to impersonate Republican primary candidate Bob Dole, while Jon Lovitz appeared in late 1980s episodes as Democratic presidential candidate Michael Dukakis. Carvey's appearances as President Bush grew so popular that the former President himself made a cameo appearance in 1994 when Carvey hosted the show.

Mike Myers[]

A major cast development came in 1988–1989, with the mid-season recruitment of young Canadian comic Mike Myers, who, like many cast members ever since 1975, had been recruited from The Second City stage show. A versatile and inventive comedian with a gift for accents and a lifelong love of Monty Python and British comedy, he introduced several classic characters during this era, including "Lothar of the Hill People" and ultra-pretentious German arts show host "Dieter". He also formed a strong partnership with Carvey. Myers, together with Carvey, created and performed one of SNL's most popular recurring sketches, Wayne's World. The sketch would inspire two successful spin-off movies in 1992 and 1993, which in turn led to a plethora of screen comedies inspired by or based on SNL sketches throughout the 1990s.

Other events[]

Nora Dunn made headlines in 1990 when she, along with original musical guest Sinéad O'Connor, boycotted an episode which was hosted by comedian Andrew Dice Clay because they found his misogynistic humor offensive. Then-cast member Jon Lovitz discussed Dunn's boycott of the show in detail during an episode of “The ABC’s of SNL” with director Kevin Smith:^[4]

Anyway, it’s the [second to last episode of the season], and Nora, uh, you know, she caused a lot of trouble and she was very hard to get along with, so [SNL] wasn’t going to ask her back, anyway. And it’s the [second to] last show, and she goes to the press and says, I’m not doing this show. He’s against women, and I’m not doing it. And this is how the press works, and I’m telling you, I’m on the inside of this. They don’t know this story. They don’t know she’s just doing it to get press. It’s her last hurrah. They’re not asking her back on the show.^[4]

After this incident, Dunn was fired from the show.^[5] The incident led to a series of ugly charges and counter-charges being lobbed between Lorne Michaels and Dunn. Many supported Michaels, feeling that Dunn cared more about garnering publicity rather than standing up for women's rights, but others took Dunn's side and viewed Clay's appearance as an all-time low.

After the 1989–1990 season, Jon Lovitz left the show amicably with the intent of focusing on a film career. These departures marked the first incidents of turnover on the show in nearly half a decade. While Lovitz's departure happened more quietly and without controversy, the Dunn/Clay incident seemed to be a sad forerunner for the turmoil which would dominate the show for much of the 1990s.

Season breakdown[]

1985–1986 season[]

Opening montage[]

This season also had two opening montages. The first lasted only four episodes, and—like the 1984 season—opened with a picture of the Statue of Liberty covered in scaffolding (the statue was under renovation that year in preparation for its centennial celebration). It then showed various still images of New York bordered with several triangular lines and post-card like decorations. Starting with the Tom Hanks/Sade episode on December 14, 1985, a new opening montage seemed to tell a story of sorts of a limo driving through New York, and eventually passing each cast member. At the end, the limo would approach 30 Rockefeller Plaza, and that particular weeks' guest stars would then emerge from the backseat. Another version of the second montage exists that shows a plane landing just before the limo leaves the airport. The music during this opener would be used for almost a decade, with a slight change in 1994, and finally being replaced entirely for the 1995–1996 season.

Cast[]

• Joan Cusack
• Robert Downey, Jr.
• Nora Dunn
• Anthony Michael Hall
• Jon Lovitz
• Dennis Miller
• Randy Quaid
• Terry Sweeney
• Danitra Vance

Featuring

• A. Whitney Brown (debut: March 25, 1986)
• Al Franken (return: May 24, 1986)
• Don Novello
• Dan Vitale (final: February 8, 1986)
• Damon Wayans (final: March 15, 1986)

Notes[]

• Wayans was fired on March 15, 1986. He was sick of the way the show treated him and camped up a "straight" character so that Lorne Michaels would fire him.^[6] However, he was invited to perform a stand-up routine in the season finale episode later that May. Vitale, a little-used featured player who also served as a staff writer, is also let go at mid-season, though Vitale's firing was due to drug and alcohol addiction.
• Terry Sweeney is the first openly homosexual male cast member. Sweeney is also the first openly gay actor ever to appear on an American television show and the second of two SNL writers from Jean Doumanian's 1980–1981 season to be hired as a cast member in a later season (Brian Doyle-Murray was a feature player for Lorne Michaels who became a writer for Jean Doumanian, then was rehired as a Dick Ebersol cast member).^[7]
• Danitra Vance is the first African-American female to be hired as a repertory player (as opposed to season six's Yvonne Hudson, who was hired as a feature player and never progressed beyond that). Vance is also the first (and so far only) SNL cast member to have a learning disability (according to the SNL 30th Anniversary edition of Trivial Pursuit, Vance had dyslexia, which made it hard for her to memorize lines and read from cue cards, though it wasn't made apparent in some cases) the only black, female cast member who is now dead (Vance died of breast cancer in 1994), was the show's second lesbian cast member, after Denny Dillon (who was a cast member during the 1980-81 season, but, like Vance, was not openly out), the first lesbian cast member to work for Lorne Michaels, and the first lesbian of color.^[8] Nearly 27 years later, SNL would hire another lesbian cast member -- Kate McKinnon, who, like Denny Dillon, is a Caucasian woman, and, like Terry Sweeney, is openly gay. Another gay male cast member wouldn't be hired until 2013 with John Milhiser (and, like Terry Sweeney, Milhiser was only hired for a season) and again in 2019 with Bowen Yang (who, like Terry Sweeney, wrote for SNL before becoming a cast member and, like Danitra Vance, is a gay minority [Vance was an African-American lesbian while Yang is a gay male Chinese-Australian-American]). An African-American lesbian cast member wouldn't be hired again until late 2020, with Punkie Johnson joining the season 46 cast.

1986–1987 season[]

Opening montage[]

This montage was used for two seasons, and is basically just video footage of each cast member racing the clock to get to what appears to be a casual night club.

Cast[]

• Dana Carvey
• Nora Dunn
• Phil Hartman
• Jan Hooks
• Victoria Jackson
• Jon Lovitz
• Dennis Miller

Featuring

• A. Whitney Brown
• Kevin Nealon

1987–1988 season[]

Opening montage[]

Same montage as the 1986 season with only two noticeable changes: 1) Kevin Nealon is added to full-fledged cast member status in the credits and 2) The host/musical guest photos shown during the montage and bumpers are now in black and white.

Cast[]

• Dana Carvey
• Nora Dunn
• Phil Hartman
• Jan Hooks
• Victoria Jackson
• Jon Lovitz
• Dennis Miller
• Kevin Nealon

Featuring

• A. Whitney Brown

1988–1989 season[]

Opening montage[]

This montage was also used for two seasons, and is just video footage with a light greenish-blue tint, of the cast members "caught" engaging in different tasks around areas of New York, intermingled with various footage of the city. During this season, the now-familiar Saturday Night Live circular logo appears for the first time.

Cast[]

• Dana Carvey
• Nora Dunn
• Phil Hartman
• Jan Hooks
• Victoria Jackson
• Jon Lovitz
• Dennis Miller
• Kevin Nealon

Featuring

• A. Whitney Brown
• Al Franken
• Mike Myers (debut: January 21, 1989)
• Ben Stiller (debut: March 25, 1989)

1989–1990 season[]

This season included SNL's 15th anniversary special. Highly self-referential, this special was introduced by a sketch in which Garrett Morris tries to convince Chevy Chase not to introduce the show with one of his trademarked pratfalls, which he had done regularly in the show's first season. (Chase does the fall, but with a helmet.) Tom Hanks' opening monologue poked fun at opening monologues (hinting at a future change in the trend, as the monologue would more and more often be less of a monologue and more of a sketch), while Buck Henry performed a monologue dealing with Steve Martin's inability to perform live (as Martin wailed uncontrollably in the background). The special also poked fun at the publicized fact that Eddie Murphy had refused to appear; he was instead represented by "Eddie Murphy's Entourage." And a tribute to Gilda Radner was edited to make it appear as if Radner was watching from the audience.

Opening montage[]

Same montage as the 1988 season with little notable changes, except that every episode in 1990 has a '15' in the center of the circle logo, commemorating the 15th anniversary of the show, and the final shot of a glam woman before crossfading to the establishing shot on home base was trimmed.

Cast[]

• Dana Carvey
• Nora Dunn
• Phil Hartman
• Jan Hooks
• Victoria Jackson
• Jon Lovitz
• Dennis Miller
• Mike Myers
• Kevin Nealon

Featuring

• A. Whitney Brown
• Al Franken

References[]