Saturday Night Live: 30 scandals and secrets you didn’t know
By Jeremy Dick
Saturday Night Live is best known for its comedy, but sometimes things happen both onstage and backstage which aren’t so funny
When we think of Saturday Night Live, it’s generally good thoughts. Old school fans might think of some of the skits stars like Will Ferrell and Adam Sandler brought to the table. Newer fans may recall the latest sketch featuring new stars like Pete Davidson.
But the series isn’t immune to its own controversies and scandals in its decades-long run. Let’s take a moment to look at the 30 most interesting scandals and secrets of SNL, starting with…
30. NBC censors Sam Kinison’s pot joke
NBC surely knew what they were in for when the raunchy comic Sam Kinison guest-hosted the show. Perhaps that’s why censors were standing by, ready to act on a moment’s notice. But maybe they were a little too eager to censor him.
During his monologue, Kinison cracked a joke about the government’s “war on drugs”. He expressed his irritation that the government “took all the pot.” In response, Kinison joked, “If you give us back the pot, we’ll forget about the crack.”
While Lorne Michaels personally enjoyed the comment, NBC did not. The network had a policy that all references to drugs must be very negative. This joke was deemed too pro-marijuana to air, and NBC snipped the joke from subsequent broadcasts.