The 10 most controversial sketches in ‘Saturday Night Live’ history
Since launching in 1975, Saturday Night Live has been the home of satire in the United States. Its role in society is to point at the flaws in society through the vehicle of comedy, and they’ve overstepped the mark countless times.
The show is the brainchild of Lorne Michaels, who has been at the programme’s helm since the beginning. Although Saturday Night Live features a weekly musical guest, it’s the sketches that made the show its name. They poke fun at contemporary culture and politics, its main focus and occasionally get cast members in trouble.
In the age of social media, it’s become more challenging for Saturday Night Live to stay relevant as comedians can instantly make content about current events. They don’t need to wait until Saturday evening to have their say on the latest fall-out from the White House. However, for decades, Saturday Night Live was the premier source for satire.
Although its relevancy has undoubtedly waned, it still draws a giant audience and continues to be a launching pad for stars like Pete Davidson. As the programme is broadcast live, the element of danger is still there, and below, we remember the most controversial sketches in SNL history.
The most controversial sketches in ‘Saturday Night Live’ history
Nude Beach
In 1988, Matthew Broderick starred in the infamous ‘Nude Beach’ sketch where his character visits a nudist beach for the first time. In the clip, he tries to integrate with the rest of the guys who hang out there and get to grips with the rules.
Although their private parts were disguised in the sketch, they did use the word “penis” 40 times which was too much for thousands of viewers who felt compelled to write in and complain. Astonishingly, they received 46,000 furious letters after airing the segment as viewers let their feelings known about Broderick’s skit.
Louis C.K.’s opening monologue
Before the comedy industry blacklisted him, Louis C.K. was revered as a comic who pushed the boundaries, and everybody accepted his jokes were in character. However, when his inappropriate actions came to light in the #MeToo movement, his act seemed much darker.
Even before his cancellation, C.K. angered many with his boundary-pushing jokes, which dealt with taboo subjects. His 2015 monologue on Saturday Night Live caused a media storm for many reasons, including his comments about child molestation. “From their point of view, it must be amazing, for them to risk so much,” Louis said about the motives behind child molesters, which was met with disgust by viewers.
ISIS
In 2015, Saturday Night Live aired a sketch framed as an advert for ISIS. Taran Killam plays a loving father who is dropping his daughter, Dakota Johnson, at the airport ahead of her flight to the Middle East to join the terrorist group. “You be careful, OK?” Killam asks, to which Dakota replies, “Dad, it’s just ISIS.”
The skit was a parody of a recent Toyota advert and caused hysteria across social media. Some of the critiques thrown at the programme on Twitter included words such as “unfunny,” “vile,” and “horrible taste.” However, it also caused a broader debate, with many defending their right to joke about any subject.
President Trump
Throughout Trump’s presidency, writing for SNL became impossible. When a figure of amusement is so absurd; how do you successfully parody him? Although Alec Baldwin gave it his best shot, it was hard to be more ludicrous than the real thing.
The most controversial SNL segment from the Trump era was before he got the keys to the Oval Office and hosted the show in 2015. While his contribution to the show was outrageous, the outrage had begun even before it aired, and hundreds of protestors gathered outside 30 Rock to try to stop it from going ahead. The show stuck to its guns, and it was the series’ highest-rated episode.
Pete Davidson vs. Dan Crenshaw
Texas Republican Dan Crenshaw is a former Navy Seal who lost an eye serving his country in Afghanistan. After Crenshaw hit the headlines, Pete Davidson couldn’t resist ridiculing his undeniably comedic eye patch during a ‘Weekend Update’ segment.
After it caused an uproar from right-wing supporters of Crenshaw, Davidson was forced to apologise. They even invited the politician onto the programme to get his own back on the comedian, and the pair called it a truce. However, in his Netflix special, Davidson said: “I didn’t think I did anything wrong. It was like words that were twisted so that a guy could be famous. So I made fun of this guy with an eye patch and then, like, I kind of got forced to apologize.”
Chevy Chase and Richard Pryor
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 badly is a significant understatement.
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.
Canteen Boy
Adam Sandler is one of the many stars made by Saturday Night Live and went on to bigger things afterwards. In order to graduate from SNL, 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 character, which understandably triggered viewers, especially those who suffered sexual abuse.
Jimmy Fallon uses blackface
In 2000, Jimmy Fallon impersonated fellow SNL legend Chris Rock, and rather than parody his act, Fallon cosplayed as the comedian by blacking up. Although it didn’t cause outrage at the time when it resurfaced in 2020, 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.”
Tiger Woods
In 2009, it came to surface that Tiger Woods wasn’t the family man he portrayed and was a serial adulterer with a dark past. The story was tailormade for Saturday Night Live, and thankfully, Kenan Thompson portrayed him this time rather than another 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.
Adele’s Africa tourism
In 2020, Adele made her grand televised comeback on Saturday Night Live, which proved the programme still had immense pull and could get anyone they wanted to appear. However, after the episode aired, the main talking point was a sketch promoting tourism to Africa for divorcees.
The skit was done in poor taste and dehumanised Black men by playing up to offensive stereotypes. In the sketch, Adele and castmember Kate McKinnon sexualise “tribesmen”, who they say have “massive bamboos”. Social media heavily criticised the segment, and the programme was on the receiving end of a massive backlash.
