![]() Shearer had quit the show in January citing creative differences (“I was creative and they were different,” he said later). NBC was unhappy with spiraling production costs and Ebersol was unhappy with his creative staff. The abbreviated season ended after just 17 episodes. When an industry-wide writers’ strike halted production in early March 1985, the show didn’t return from the forced hiatus. In stark contrast to the hosts, the seasons musical guests were a who’s who of mid-80s pop, with acts like The Thompson Twins, Billy Ocean, Bryan Adams, and super-groups The Honey Drippers (featuring Robert Plant), and Power Station (featuring Robert Palmer) all making appearances. The first show of the season didn’t even have a host.Īdditionally, there was little continuity with the show’s fake news segment - called “Saturday Night News” instead of “Weekend Update” - with the show’s host sometimes doing the anchoring and real newscaster Edwin Newman sitting in once before Guest finally took over midway through the season. While Murphy returned to host and the Beatles’ Ringo Starr took a turn, the other hosts included figures like Jesse Jackson, Howard Cosell, and Bob Uecker. In the most famous segment, the pair appears with Crystal on his “Fernando Hideaway” sketch and can’t keep a straight face. Perhaps the best remembered episode of the season is the one hosted by wrestler Hulk Hogan and Mr. While it went against the grain of SNL, some of the short films, particularly Shearer and Short playing aspiring male synchronized swimmers and Guest and Crystal portraying aged Negro League baseball stars were as good as anything that the show had produced. More than any season before or since, the show relied on pre-taped segments, with Guest, Shearer, and Short preferring to work that way. The show never missed a chance to exploit the new popular sketches - a hallmark of the Ebersol era - with Crystal doing his Fernando so frequently that the character almost deserved a separate credit in the opening theme. By the third show, Crystal and Guest had worked up a breakout routine with their characters Willie and Frankie, who would continuously one-up each other with pain-inducing practices (“I hate it when that happens”). By the season opener, Crystal was already doing his Fernando Lamas impression (“You look mah-velous!”) and Short had brought his Ed Grimley character with him from SCTV. Ebersol was by all accounts a very good network executive, but he was not a comedian and didn’t come from a creative background. It was an odd turn of events considering that Crystal hosted SNL twice the season before he joined the cast, while Guest and Shearer had made a guest appearance as part of Spinal Tap.Ĭrystal, Short, and Guest wasted little time putting their stamp on the creative vacuum that they walked into. Rich Hall, who had been part of an ensemble HBO comedy show called Not Necessarily the News, and Pamela Stephenson, who had been on the British precursor ( Not the Nine O’clock News) of Hall’s HBO show rounded out the new cast members. Ten years later, Crystal was finally being given the chance to right what he considered a wrong.Īlong with Crystal, Ebersol brought in Martin Short, who had already been a cast member of Canada’s SCTV (which launched the careers of John Candy, Rick Moranis, and Catherine O’Hara), as well as Christopher Guest and Harry Shearer, fresh off their success in This Is Spinal Tap. ![]() ![]() Nor was he offered the spot that went to Bill Murray when Chase left after the first season. Why that happened depends largely on who tells the story, but whatever the case, when Chevy Chase, Gilda Radner, John Belushi, and Dan Aykroyd rocketed to fame, Crystal wasn’t with them. ![]() By 1984, Billy Crystal was already a well known entertainer after his stint on the sitcom Soap and his numerous talk show appearances where he imitated celebrities like boxer Mohammed Ali, but in 1974 Crystal had been cut from the original Not Ready for Prime Time Players on the eve of the show’s debut. Instead of trying to develop another young talent like Murphy, Ebersol turned to more established comedians, including one who had almost been part of the original SNL cast.
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