10 ‘SNL’ sketches that have aged terribly
Saturday Night Live, better known as simply SNL, is one of America’s most-loved late-night television shows, even after almost a 50-year history. Created by Lorne Michaels and developed by Dick Ebersol in 1975, the topical sketch comedy and variety show has become a rite of passage for budding American comedians, much like how Live at the Apollo is for their British counterparts.
Playing host to some of the most iconic comedians in American history, including Jim Carrey, Steve Martin, Robin Williams and Will Ferrell, SNL usually sticks pretty close to the line of taste, lampooning modern politics and pop culture with sharp comedy and contemporary wit. Such hasn’t proven to be easy, however, with tastes and social attitudes having changed significantly across almost half a century of the show’s history.
The latest crop of cast members, including Marcello Hernandez, Molly Kearney, Michael Longfellow and Devon Walker, will be hoping to avoid the mistakes of their predecessors, and, if we were them, we would use these following ten sketches that have aged terribly as a handy guide. Take a look at ten of the most dated sketches in SNL history, below.
10 SNL sketches that have aged terribly
Blackface (2000)
Saturday Night Live has a chequered history when it comes to Blackface, and a couple of years ago, regrettable sketches re-emerged in the light of the Black Lives Matter movement. In 2000, Jimmy Fallon impersonated fellow SNL legend Chris Rock, and rather than parody his act, Fallon cosplayed the comedian by blacking up in racist make-up.
It didn’t cause outrage at the time, which speaks volumes about the political climate at the turn of the century. Following the online backlash, Fallon felt compelled to apologise for his historical actions.
“In 2000, while on SNL, I made a terrible decision to do an impersonation of Chris Rock while in blackface,” Fallon wrote on Twitter. “There is no excuse for this. I am very sorry for making this unquestionably offensive decision and thank all of you for holding me accountable.”
Canteen Boy (1994)
Adam Sandler has made a career out of playing characters with learning difficulties, but it’s never overtly spoken, and this began with SNL. In order to graduate from the programme onto bigger things, comics have got to take advantage of every second they get of screen time, which Sandler duly did, and ‘Canteen Boy’ was one of his most memorable creations.
The inarticulate character was still in the Boy Scouts despite being an adult. In one sketch, Alec Baldwin plays the scoutmaster, who makes sexual advances toward Sandler’s young character, which understandably triggered viewers, especially those who suffered sexual abuse.
Ching Chang in Love (1985)
In the early days, Saturday Night Live were free to act however they pleased, even if it upset minorities. Astonishingly, Dana Carvey, a white man, regularly starred in a sketch as a Chinese shopkeeper, which is wrong for various reasons, and to make matters worse, he was called Ching Chang.
In one skit titled ‘Ching Chang in Love’ from 1985, Carvey’s character keeps a pet chicken in a cage. “No, I tell you chicken make lousy house pet,” he says to a customer who attempts to buy the chicken. Things then get even worse when he starts speaking with his co-worker, played by Nora Dunn, in fake Chinese. Considering SNL sacked Shane Gillis after discovering him making similarly racist remarks on a podcast, they should perhaps check their own history too.
The sketch is so dated, that we struggled even to find a clip for it.
Christmas Past (2013)
In 2013, Jimmy Fallon guest hosted the Christmas special of Saturday Night Live and played Scrooge in a sketch. While this seemingly appears harmless, they added a twist to the skit with Fallon making Scrooge gay, which is absolutely fine, but it’s the way they did it which raised eyebrows with viewers.
Fallon played up to old-fashioned gay stereotypes when he played young Scrooge, and Taran Killam also played up to these tropes when he portrayed an older version of the character. Fans took to Twitter to share their frustration with how SNL represented the LGBTQ+ community, with one user writing: “Loved everything except ‘What if Scrooge was gay’ really #SNL? Your 12 year old is showing, and cliche-ing all over my TV.”
Directors On Directing (1995)
Their’ Directors On Directing’ skit from 1995 has aged horrifically, especially with the knowledge we all now have about the seediness of Hollywood. Quentin Tarantino hosted the episode following the success of Pulp Fiction, and this particular sketch was a lowlight from his debut appearance on Saturday Night Live.
In the skit, Tarantino appeared on a mock chat show, and it was full of awful jokes made in poor taste. He interviews other directors and asks them if they’ve “jammed” actresses who they’ve cast, which ends with them asking him about Uma Thurman and the Pulp Fiction set, with Tarantino boasting, “I jammed every chick on that set”. In the wake of the MeToo movement and the antics of Harvey Weinstein, this is a sketch that deserves to rot in history.
Rosetta Stone (2013)
Back in 2013, the likes of Bill Hader, Kate McKinnon and Kenan Thompson collaborated on the Rosetta Stone sketch, a parody of the learning tool Rosetta Stone and the people who used the platform. Explaining that they wanted to use the platform so that they could learn Thai and “can go to Thailand for… a thing,” the sketch came under fire from fans, critics and even the Thai government.
“The government will also inform the U.S. Embassy that the commercial spoof is tarnishing Thailand’s image, and will ask the Embassy to explain the situation to the producer of ‘Saturday Night Live,’” the culture minister Sonthaya Khunploem said at the time.
Tiger Woods’ accident (2013)
In 2009, it came to the surface that Tiger Woods wasn’t the family man he portrayed and was a serial adulterer with a dark past. The story was tailor-made for Saturday Night Live, and thankfully, Kenan Thompson portrayed him this time rather than the aforementioned Fallon-Rock incident.
Thompson played Woods as he gets interviewed on Wolf Blitzer’s The Situation Room. Throughout the sketch, the golfer keeps leaving the interview and returns with more injuries each time which they insinuated was at the hands of his wife, who Blake Lively portrayed. Domestic abuse charities slammed the skit.
Trump “never gonna be president now” (2016)
The clue is in the title for this mishap that is less controversial and more just cringe-inducing to watch back. The musical moment sees the host and melodic maestro Lin-Manuel Miranda perform a number in which he insinuates the 45th U.S President Donald Trump is a “piece of s**t” before adding “he’s never gonna be President now,” mere months before he was awarded the political title.
Safe to say, the moment Trump got into office, the sketch became pretty hard to get through.
Word Association – Chevy Chase / Richard Pryor (1975)
In a 1975 sketch, Chevy Chase interviewed Richard Pryor for a janitorial position. As part of the process, the pair played a word association game, with the punchline being Chase using the “N-word”. Astonishingly, this was praised at the time. However, to say it’s aged like a lump of blue cheese is a significant understatement, with the sketch being shocking by contemporary standards.
At the end of the skit, Chase apologises to Pryor for his character’s slip of the tongue by offering him a $15,000 annual salary. “You’ll be the highest-paid janitor in America. Just don’t hurt me, please,” the comic says.
Uncle Roy (1978)
Buck Henry was undoubtedly a special talent, being a significant performer and writer in the early stages of the show, helping it reach the levels of success that it is known for today. There is one sketch in which he stars, however, which has dated pretty poorly, appearing as a character named Uncle Roy who arrives at his relative’s home to babysit his young nieces.
An inherently creepy character, Roy begins photographing the girls whilst encouraging them to play some “games” with him. It’s a little too close to the bone for the topical comedy show that would undeniably never fly these days.
