The 1995 ‘Saturday Night Live’ star who hated every minute: “Literally the worst year of my life”
It’s a lot easier to become a Saturday Night Live star than it is to become a successful one, with the long-running series chewing up and spitting out plenty of one-season wonders over the last half-century.
Robert Downey Jr was one of them, and as SNL‘s only Academy Award-winning alum, he’s set a benchmark for every other performer who doesn’t make it beyond their first run that’s as close to unattainable as it gets. Not everybody gets to be Kenan Thompson, not that everybody wants to.
In the mid-1990s, the show was in the midst of yet another overhaul, with Chris Farley, David Spade, and Adam Sandler emerging as the most prominent focal points of the next generation. Their comedy wasn’t to everyone’s taste, and the ratings reflected that, with the 1994-1995 season remembered as one of the worst ever.
To try and stop the bleeding, Lorne Michaels completely overhauled the roster the following year, with Will Ferrell the most notable new addition. That meant that some of the lingering deadwood had to be jettisoned, and few were happier to be given their marching orders after the May 1995 finale than Chris Elliot.
“It literally was the worst year of my life,” he reflected. “I went there too late after I had a career.” Elliott, who you probably know best as the guy with the weird hand from Scary Movie 2, had spent eight seasons working on Late Night with David Letterman, winning four Primetime Emmys for ‘Outstanding Writing for a Variety Series.’
That made him one of, if not the most qualified comic on SNL during his short-lived tenure in terms of experience, acclaim, and awards season recognition, and he blew it. “I kept thinking every show, ‘OK, I’ll do something next week that’s better,'” Elliott added. “And I never did. And the year got away from me.”
At no point was he ever satisfied with what he was doing, which had a damaging effect. “It was devastating,” he admitted. “Because I think for everybody who’s like my age and in comedy, SNL was probably the reason that we tried to get into it.” He’d more than proved himself with Letterman, and had the trophies to show for it, but he quickly discovered that Saturday Night Live was a different beast.
If anything, it was a mercy killing for Elliott to be kicked off the cast after a season, with audiences having made it perfectly clear by tuning out in their droves that the ’94-’95 run wasn’t what they wanted to see from SNL. It was a dream for him to get there, but when he did, it wasn’t long before he realised that some dreams are better off not coming true.
He eventually bounced back, but as you’d expect, enduring such a miserable year on SNL wasn’t the most memorable experience of Elliott’s career: “To fail that miserably there for me was a big deal,” he confessed, but since it was an altogether shit season, at least he wasn’t the only one.
