"Saturday Night Live" isn't just about goofy sketches and crazy afterparties. Plenty of cast members disliked each other in the show's first few decades — but who was universally hated by pretty much everyone?
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00:00Saturday Night Live isn't just about goofy sketches and crazy after-parties.
00:05Plenty of cast members disliked each other in the show's first few decades, but who was
00:09universally hated by pretty much everyone?
00:12Chevy Chase and John Belushi were both tapped for the cast of Saturday Night Live for the
00:17show's inaugural season back in 1975, but the two had actually known each other long
00:21before that.
00:22They had previously appeared together in National Lampoon's off-Broadway Woodstock spoof Lemmings,
00:28but that didn't mean that they got along like old friends when they started at SNL.
00:32As authors Doug Hill and Jeff Weingrad detailed in their book Saturday Night, A Backstage
00:36History of Saturday Night Live, the two had a tendency to clash.
00:41Chase would jokingly claim that he was responsible for making Belushi palatable to television
00:45viewers by teaching him how to use a fork when eating and shaving the hair from his
00:49back.
00:50Chase and Belushi's rivalry grew even stronger during the first season of SNL, when Chase
00:54immediately became the show's breakout star.
00:57But as his fame grew, so too did his arrogance.
01:00This rankled the rest of the cast, but absolutely infuriated Belushi, who felt that Chase was
01:05receiving all the best material and the majority of the screen time.
01:09As Belushi put it,
01:10"...I go where I'm kicked.
01:12They throw me bones dogs wouldn't chew on."
01:14When Chase exited SNL partway through the second season, there were fears that the show
01:25would bleed viewers without its star attraction.
01:28Belushi, on the other hand, was thrilled to see him go, and eventually went on to become
01:32a star in his own right until his untimely death in 1982.
01:37After quitting SNL, Chevy Chase became a movie star, which he never let his former co-stars
01:42forget when he returned to host.
01:44He'd been replaced by Bill Murray, who was predisposed to loathe him, something Chase
01:48made easy due to his escalating arrogance.
01:51Tensions grew when Murray made a crude joke about Chase's troubled marriage.
01:55Chase responded by referencing Murray's pockmarked face, joking that astronaut Neil Armstrong
02:00had landed his spacecraft upon it.
02:03Five minutes before the live show was about to start, Chase found Murray in John Belushi's
02:07dressing room.
02:08The two exchanged both verbal and physical blows, with Belushi and Murray's brother Brian
02:12stepping in to keep the men apart.
02:14Chase later claimed that Belushi had been poisoning Murray against him, telling Howard
02:18Stern about a conversation he'd had with SNL creator Lorne Michaels.
02:22I found out later from Lorne that John had been quite kind of jealous about My Rise to
02:27Fame.
02:28Meanwhile, Murray opened up about the conflict in a 2012 interview with Empire, saying,
02:33"'It was really a Hollywood fight, a don't-touch-my-face kind of thing, so it was kind of a non-event.'"
02:38According to Murray, they later buried the hatchet, and all was fine between them.
02:44According to his SNL co-star Jane Curtin, John Belushi regularly declared his belief
02:49that women weren't funny.
02:50As Curtin said during an interview with The Ringer,
02:53"...John absolutely didn't like being in sketches with women."
02:56Lorne Michaels confirmed this, telling the outlet there were two lines that Belushi wouldn't
03:01cross, dressing in drag and appearing in a sketch that had been written by a woman.
03:06He seemed to be a bit more flexible about the former rule than the latter, though.
03:10Curtin also claimed that Belushi made it his mission to sabotage sketches written by women
03:14at table reads by giving lackluster performances.
03:17As Curtin revealed to Oprah, they were working against John, who said women are just fundamentally
03:22not funny.
03:24Curtin made another allusion to Belushi's bigoted side while talking to Andy Cohen on
03:28Watch What Happens Live.
03:29"...There were a few people that just out and out believed that women should not have
03:35been there."
03:36Belushi's widow, Judy Belushi-Pisano, however, has said that he was misunderstood and blamed
03:41his views on his upbringing.
03:44She explained,
03:45"...I think John actually was a woman's liver before I was.
03:48Sometimes contrary to some things you might hear, John was very good with women in general."
03:54After the original not-ready-for-prime-time players exited the show, Saturday Night Live
03:58returned in the fall of 1980 with a new cast and a new producer, Gene Dumanian, taking
04:03over for Lorne Michaels.
04:05The season was a disaster, and at the center was square-jawed Charles Rockett.
04:10Tall, lanky, and handsome, the new Weekend Update anchor was positioned as the next Chevy
04:15Chase.
04:16But Rockett didn't become the breakout star as had been anticipated.
04:20Instead, it was Joe Piscopo and 19-year-old Eddie Murphy who began garnering all the attention.
04:26Interviewed for Saturday Night, a backstage history of Saturday Night Live, Piscopo recalled
04:31the arrogance of some members of the cast, who assumed the show would propel them to
04:35instant stardom despite the awful material they were producing.
04:38Apparently, that was particularly true of Rockett.
04:42Murphy and Piscopo consciously dissociated themselves from the rest of the cast, with
04:46their sketches standing out by being far funnier.
04:49When Rockett later complained about Piscopo's Weekend Update bit getting more laughs than
04:53he did, a shouting match erupted.
04:56Rockett yelled,
04:57"'You're not part of this cast at all!'
04:58To which Piscopo responded,
05:00"'You're one-dimensional!'
05:03Rockett followed that up by threatening to rip out Piscopo's throat.
05:06Not long after that, Rockett was fired after dropping an F-bomb during a sketch.
05:11Norm Macdonald was reportedly no fan of his co-star Chris Kattan when the two were members
05:15of the Saturday Night Live cast.
05:18Macdonald said of Kattan in a 1997 interview with Rolling Stone,
05:21"'I don't find him funny.
05:23What can I say?
05:24Never made me laugh.'"
05:25An anonymous insider told the New York Observer there was indeed bad blood between the two
05:30comedians.
05:31The source told the outlet,
05:32They had a very acrimonious relationship.
05:35Norm would rip Kattan to his face.
05:37Norm's a weird guy.
05:38If he doesn't like someone, he'll say it to his face.
05:41"'Johnny!'
05:42Oh no, that's not good."
05:48Will Ferrell recalled one instance of conflict when Kattan and Macdonald were taking a flight
05:52together.
05:53Kattan took off his shoes and took a nap, and when he awoke, his shoes were gone.
05:58Kattan accused Macdonald of stealing them, but he insisted he hadn't.
06:02Ferrell recalled on the Fly on the Wall podcast,
06:04"'An entire season goes by, and then Kattan and Norm are jousting back and forth, and
06:09then Norm finally goes, "'Oh yeah, one other thing.
06:12I did take your shoes.
06:13I threw them in the trash can.'"
06:15In 2015, long after both comedians had left the show, Kattan insisted in a tweet that
06:20their feud was make-believe.
06:22He wrote,
06:23"'Norm Macdonald is one of the funniest guys I know, and our SNL feud was only for comedic
06:28purposes and was never anything other than satiric.'"
06:33Janine Garofalo got off to a rocky start after joining the cast of Saturday Night Live in
06:371994.
06:38According to a now-infamous piece for New York Magazine, she'd previously trashed the
06:42show in interviews, claiming that SNL had become unwatchable and singling out Adam Sandler's
06:48comedy as childish.
06:50Garofalo's co-stars did not take kindly to her critiques, as she admitted that her experience
06:54on the show had been akin to hazing at a fraternity.
06:56A friend of hers said she was miserable and depressed, revealing,
07:00"'She's absolutely destroyed as a person.
07:02The show has beaten the s— out of her.'"
07:04The article noted that Adam Sandler refused to speak with Garofalo, but eventually broke
07:09his silence toward her just to tell her off.
07:12Sandler wasn't the only person on the show who disliked Garofalo.
07:15When she hesitated while trying to remember a line, because of her insistence on learning
07:19her lines instead of just reading off cue cards, which is the show's norm, producer
07:23Al Franken exploded.
07:25Anyone who'd witnessed the incident recalled,
07:27"'Al went f— house.
07:29Read the f— cue cards.'"
07:30Despite all of the hostility, Garofalo insisted that her time on the show had been a learning
07:35experience that sharpened her as a comedian.
07:38Nevertheless, she wound up quitting the show a few months before the end of the season.
07:43When Tracy Morgan joined the cast of Saturday Night Live in 1996, he wasn't greeted warmly
07:48by two other members of the cast.
07:50In his memoir, I Am the New Black, Morgan went off on Chris Kattan and Sherry Oteri,
07:55claiming that both treated him disrespectfully when he arrived.
07:59He wrote,
08:00"'All I have to say about that is, where's Chris Kattan now?
08:04Where's Sherry Oteri now?
08:06That b— can't even get arrested.'"
08:08Morgan added even more fuel to the fire while recording the audiobook version.
08:12Gawker was the first to report that he went off script and added a few choice comments
08:16about the pair, saying that they would never come back to host the show like he had.
08:21That didn't mean that Morgan's SNL experience was totally toxic, though.
08:24He continued,
08:25"'There were people that treated me beautifully, like Will Ferrell and Colin Quinn and Molly
08:30Shannon.
08:31I loved them.
08:32But Sherry Oteri and Chris Kattan?
08:34I never cared for them either.
08:36F— them.'"
08:37During his tenure with Saturday Night Live, Tracy Morgan also took issue with fellow SNL
08:42member Jimmy Fallon's chronic laughter.
08:44In an interview with Penthouse, Morgan admitted that he really disliked Fallon's habit of
08:48cracking up during sketches and breaking character.
08:51He didn't appreciate that it detracted from sketches that took effort to write, saying,
08:56"'That's taking all the attention off of everybody else and putting it on you like,
09:00oh look at me, I'm the cute one.'"
09:03Morgan gave Fallon a stern warning, which he apparently heeded.
09:06Morgan recalled,
09:07"'I told him not to do that s— in my sketches, so he never did.'"
09:11Morgan fired further shots at Fallon during his time as Tracy Jordan on 30 Rock, with
09:15the help of his fellow SNL alum Tina Fey.
09:18Several episodes feature Tracy purposefully derailing sketches in Fallon-esque fashion,
09:23while several others feature Fallon himself as a punchline.
09:26"'You a celebrity?'
09:27"'I have my own show on NBC.'
09:30"'No.
09:31Celebrity.'"
09:32Morgan has since appeared many times on Fallon's Tonight Show, so it's reasonably safe to assume
09:36that this particular hatchet has long been buried.
09:41After movie star Will Ferrell teamed up with Chris Kattan for a series of popular Saturday
09:45Night Live sketches, playing two guys in a nightclub who dance their butts off to Hathaway's
09:49What Is Love?, those characters were fleshed out to become the Butabe brothers in the big-screen
09:54spinoff A Night at the Roxbury.
09:57In his memoir, Baby Don't Hurt Me, Kattan claimed that Lorne Michaels, who was producing
10:01the film, encouraged him to hook up with director Amy Heckerling, whom Michaels feared was looking
10:06to exit the project.
10:08Kattan called Ferrell several times but never received a response.
10:12When they finally returned for the 23rd season of SNL, Kattan asked what was up, with Ferrell
10:17revealing he'd found out about the secret relationship and felt betrayed.
10:22Kattan claimed Ferrell told him,
10:24"'So, I got all your messages, but I didn't call you back because I didn't want to talk
10:28to you.
10:29I don't want to be your friend anymore.'"
10:32Heckerling's daughter Molly issued a since-deleted tweet confirming that her mother and Kattan
10:36had a brief affair, but that it happened well after production was underway.
10:41Heckerling herself dismissed all of Kattan's claims, telling the Daily Beast,
10:44"'He's a nut.
10:45I don't even want to know or hear the dumb s— he came up with.'"
10:50Nora Dunn had a tendency to clash with other members of the SNL cast during her time on
10:54the show, but particularly with Jon Lovitz.
10:57As she revealed in a 2015 interview with Salon,
10:59"...I think we were a dysfunctional family.
11:02He and I had a love-hate relationship."
11:04According to Dunn, her background in theater didn't gel with Lovitz' more chaotic approach,
11:09which often led him to disrupt her attempts to rehearse.
11:12She further recalled,
11:13"...so I would get very irritated with Jon and we'd have arguments."
11:17Dunn, of course, is remembered for her well-publicized decision to boycott an episode hosted by controversial
11:22comic Andrew Dice Clay due to criticisms that his material was homophobic and sexist.
11:28Lovitz shared his recollection of that incident in an episode of the ABC's of SNL podcast,
11:33saying,
11:34"...anyway, it's the second-to-last episode of the season, and Nora caused a lot of trouble
11:38and she was very hard to get along with, so SNL wasn't going to ask her back anyway."
11:43Lovitz argued that Dunn's principled stance was just a publicity stunt that left the rest
11:47of the cast feeling betrayed because she made them look bad for not joining her boycott.
11:52Lovitz continued,
11:53"...anyway, the next week was our last show, and Nora was back, and everyone was like,
11:58they just wouldn't speak to her."
12:01Victoria Jackson spent six seasons in the Saturday Night Live cast, known for her high-pitched
12:06voice, ukulele-fueled songs, and gymnastic handstands.
12:10Speaking with Salon, Nora Dunn admitted that she didn't get along with Jackson at all,
12:14saying,
12:15"...I couldn't work with her because we weren't on the same page.
12:17Ever.
12:18We weren't even in the same book.
12:20We happened to be on the same show."
12:21Jackson, however, remembers Dunn and their fellow cast member Jan Hooks ostracizing her.
12:27As she asserted on the Wasn't That Special podcast,
12:29"...her and Nora were very mean to me.
12:32For the whole time we were there."
12:33"...let me ask you, that dumb thing you do on that show, is that just an act?"
12:38"...as far as I know."
12:41"...okay."
12:42Jackson claimed that the women were jealous because she was landing movie roles and they
12:46were not.
12:47However, it was Jackson's religious fervor that really wound up irking the other members
12:51of the cast.
12:52Feeling that it was her duty to share her beliefs with her co-stars, Jackson regularly
12:56proselytized to them throughout her tenure.
12:58One Christmas, she gave her co-stars audiobook versions of the Bible that were not well-received
13:03and returned to her.
13:05When producer and performer Al Franken confronted her, she responded,
13:09"...maybe I'm overcompensating because everybody here is dying and going to hell, and I'm supposed
13:14to tell them about Jesus."
13:15She added,
13:16"...he never talked to me again."