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Some of the most iconic hosts of “Saturday Night Live” have not held back their criticism of the show behind the scenes. From Chevy Chase to Tiffany Haddish and Donald Trump, these stars have spoken out about the struggles, politics, and creative challenges they faced while involved with SNL. Join us as we explore the moments when SNL’s biggest names publicly called out the show’s flaws and controversies.
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00:00How did I go in a year and a half from being not funny enough to be even allowed in
00:07the building
00:10to being so funny that I'm now hosting the show?
00:15Welcome to Ms. Mojo, and today we're counting down our picks for the most notable public critiques of Saturday Night
00:21Live
00:21by stars who hosted NBC's legendary sketch show.
00:25Why are you taking me?
00:26You're going to NBC. You're going to do your own special.
00:30Number 10, Donald Trump.
00:32It's wonderful to be here. I will tell you this is going to be something special.
00:37Many of the greats have hosted, as you know, this show, like me, in 2004.
00:43The tone was very different for celebrity businessman Donald Trump's second time hosting Saturday Night Live.
00:49It was an obvious ratings stunt as he was closing in on the Republican nomination for President of the United
00:55States in 2015.
00:56Well, you know what? I don't have to get specific. With me, it's just works. You know, it's magic.
01:02It's just magic. It's always been that way my whole life.
01:05So let's just see what happens over here. But I wasn't sure what's it all like.
01:09SNL has since ousted Trump as difficult to work with and relentlessly skewered his presidency.
01:15He has responded by regularly lambasting the show's quality and political bias, perhaps not unfairly.
01:22In a statement today, the Trump campaign called the sketch disgusting.
01:26There were two assassination attempts against President Trump within a span of seven weeks, and SNL apparently finds that funny.
01:34Critics from various perspectives observed that the show's modern incarnation usually spoofs liberal politics and bad faith,
01:41with mean-spiritedly superficial satire overall.
01:45Trump and sometimes ally Elon Musk do have two things consistently in common.
01:49They've both hosted SNL, and they've expressed on social media that it betrayed them.
01:54To anyone I've offended, I just want to say, I reinvented electric cars, and I'm sending people to Mars in
02:00a rocket ship.
02:06Did you think I was also going to be a chill, normal dude?
02:11Seth Meyers was eager to talk with Tiffany Haddish about hosting SNL during her 2018 appearance on Late Night.
02:18She was eager to talk about how she met Meyers during her first audition for the show in 2009.
02:23You know I auditioned for this show a couple of times.
02:28Thank you for not hiring me.
02:30Yeah, well, I will say anybody who can make it back to hosting without having to work there, that's the
02:37real accomplishment.
02:38Haddish brought a photo she took with him and a janitor, supposedly the only other black person she encountered at
02:4430 Rockefeller Plaza.
02:46When she met Lorne Michaels as host eight years later, she thanked him for not hiring her.
02:51I lived in a lot of group homes, and my favorite show growing up was SNL.
02:55That's my favorite show.
02:56And you'd have no idea how difficult it is to get a bunch of black and Hispanic kids to watch
03:02SNL over and live in color, okay?
03:04The rejection helped motivate Haddish to build a career on her own terms, with a platform to mock SNL's storied
03:11issues with diversity.
03:12She was the first black female comic to host the show 43 seasons in.
03:17I love Moonlight 2, the story of a young black man exploring his homosexuality in the inner city.
03:23His what?
03:25Homosexuality.
03:25The main character was gay girl.
03:29What the hell was you watching?
03:30Number 8, Patrick Stewart.
03:32February 1994 was many fans' introduction to the funny side of stage in Star Trek legend Patrick Stewart.
03:39This sexy cake might be more up your alley.
03:46This is exact same cake.
03:48No, no, no.
03:49This is chocolate.
03:52Yeah, but it's still a woman going to the bathroom.
03:55Exactly.
03:56He wrote in his 2023 autobiography, Making It So, that hosting SNL wasn't the honor he was expecting.
04:03The Shakespearean actor went so far as to call his opening monologue one of the worst in the show's history.
04:10Can you name to me the ship's other medical officer?
04:14Because, of course, there were two.
04:16You see, you're stumped.
04:18You are forgetting Dr. Spock.
04:22Now you remember, right?
04:24He partly blamed the pressures with trying to sell the lame Star Trek jokes and find chemistry with the comedic
04:29cast.
04:30Stewart knowingly exemplified SNL's cynical habit of forcing trendy hosts into the show's potentially alien dynamic.
04:38While Stewart has since proven himself to be as gifted in comedy as he is in drama, it was a
04:43trial by fire.
04:45Go sweet Lucifer!
04:46Do my ears deceive me?
04:48Or did you just question my word of choice?
04:51All right, sorry, go on.
04:54Go on!
04:57Go on as if I were some prattling schoolboy!
05:00Number 7, Larry David.
05:03This comedy mastermind worked his way up to hosting SNL from the writer's room in the mid-1980s.
05:09Did she just count to five in Mandarin?
05:12No, to four. She doesn't know five.
05:14Why did she have five tickets for the train then?
05:17Because her squad has four queens.
05:19Plus her makes five.
05:25Larry David has mentioned in several interviews that it was no dream job behind the scenes.
05:31He hated the backstage politics, graveyard hours, and cutthroat competitiveness among writers.
05:37And all he had to show for it was one sketch making it to air.
05:41I had like a hissy fit.
05:42I went up to Dick Ebersole and I said, this show stinks!
05:46This is right before air.
05:50This is like week number six and I had been cut every week.
05:54The biggest highlight of David's one season was him quitting after a fight with producer Dick Ebersole, then quietly returned
06:01after the weekend.
06:02This would be the inspiration for George Costanza's storyline in the Seinfeld season 2 episode, The Revenge.
06:08What are you doing here?
06:11What?
06:12Am I crazy?
06:13Or didn't you quit?
06:16When?
06:17What?
06:19That?
06:19Are you kidding?
06:21I didn't quit?
06:22Why?
06:23You took that seriously.
06:24Great things can come from great hardship, but David will tell you that Triumph is sometimes more trouble than it's
06:31worth.
06:31Yeah, no, I came back and I pretended it never happened.
06:34Yeah.
06:37And it worked.
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06:46I can't believe how many people are here.
06:50It's a revolution, Jane.
06:52Millions of people.
06:52If we have a good turnout, we can win Iowa.
06:55Number 6, Eddie Murphy.
06:57It was fun working with these kids this week.
06:58I had a great time.
07:00I really can't believe how hard they work here on this show.
07:03It was like watching the process, seeing them pull together was a lot of fun for me and a nice
07:07experience.
07:07The only active cast member ever to host SNL ended up avoiding the show for nearly 35 years.
07:14Eddie Murphy has said in several interviews that he had his personal reasons.
07:18In a 1995 edition of Hollywood Minute, David Spade displayed a photo of the then-professionally-struggling Murphy and quipped,
07:26Look, children, it's a falling star.
07:29Make a wish.
07:31Yeah, yes, that's right.
07:33It took decades for him to reconcile with Murphy, but the cruel jab wasn't really Spade's fault.
07:39Murphy explained in the Netflix documentary, Being Eddie, that his intimate knowledge of how SNL approves jokes made this betrayal
07:47feel systematic.
07:48So, the joke had went through all of those channels that the joke has to go through, and then he
07:54was on the air saying, you know, catch a falling star.
07:57So, I wasn't like, f*** David Spade.
07:59I was like, oh, f*** SNL.
08:01The cast and crew can sometimes push the envelope too far, even with one of their own.
08:06Number 5, Norm MacDonald.
08:09A lot of viewers were heartbroken when Norm MacDonald was fired from Weekend Update in early 1998.
08:15That was ugly.
08:18It was ugly. It's an ugly year.
08:21Well, that has to be the most unprincipled ad in the country.
08:24You know, that's what I thought, Norm.
08:27This was apparently contrary to the perspective of NBC West Coast president Don Olmeyer.
08:33As MacDonald explained it in his host monologue on October 23rd, 1999,
08:38Olmeyer told him that he just wasn't funny enough to be part of Saturday Night Live.
08:42The superstar comedian ironically returned a year and a half later with a theory.
08:47I haven't gotten funnier.
08:49The show has gotten really bad.
08:59So, yeah, I'm funny compared to, you know, well, you'll see later.
09:04MacDonald got the last laugh by weaponizing NBC's own logic against them.
09:08And considering that it was the biggest laugh from the audience that night,
09:12his theory might have held some merit.
09:15The bad news is, I'm still not funny.
09:20The good news is, the show blows.
09:25Alright, folks, we got a bad show for you tonight.
09:28Dr. Dre.
09:29Number 4, Charles Grodin.
09:30I haven't been around too much this week, but I think they've got me in some crazy skits.
09:37And while I've been here doing some promos for the show, I've seen the kids rehearsing.
09:43And it looks like a really cute show.
09:46Just the myth of being banned from Saturday Night Live can follow someone throughout their career.
09:51Charles Grodin was actually invited back to the show after his disastrous 1977 appearance.
09:57It wasn't until a 2009 interview with the A.V. Club that he explained why he declined.
10:03He was overwhelmed by the pressure of having to work with scripts and teleprompters that were subject to frequent changes,
10:10yet being forbidden from improvisation.
10:12That was prearranged, wasn't it?
10:14Shh.
10:15No, I mean, it had to, but you had to have a prop down there.
10:17Because it's a great gag that had to be placed down there and then brought up to it, right?
10:20Grodin's attempt to compromise with the running gag of deliberately flubbing his lines was slammed by critics as a masterclass
10:27in self-sabotage.
10:29The comedy legend may have survived SNL, but he knew very well how risky its process can be.
10:35Look, could we take it again?
10:37I just, could we take those little things off your head?
10:39There is no again, Chuck.
10:41There's no again.
10:42This is live television.
10:43It's not the movies.
10:44Well, I realize we're doing it live, but, uh, you know, there's good live and there's bad live, and, uh,
10:49maybe we should try to do, uh, some good live.
10:52Number three, Frank Zappa.
10:54SNL's experimental early years seemed well-suited to rock provocateur Frank Zappa,
10:59but Lorne Michaels wasn't very amused by him deliberately mentioning the cue cards, breaking character, and facing the wrong cameras.
11:07Your name?
11:08Frank Zappa.
11:09What is your function on this planet?
11:11I am a musician.
11:14And I'm giving a concert.
11:16No, that should be out there.
11:17That should be in there.
11:18Oh, yeah, and, uh, Connie is my special guest.
11:20Zapper later told interviewers how little he was bothered by his 1978 ban from the show.
11:26The notorious perfectionist skipped rehearsals out of frustration with the set's chaotic work environment.
11:32His antics during the final show were in protest of the demoralizing writing and hectic production process.
11:39Well, Connie told me where you're coming from.
11:44I realize that as French people, you must be very wary of Americans.
11:49Don't worry.
11:50I used to have a French person in the band and I know I can take good care of her.
11:53His reports of hostility toward true experimentalism align with accusations of the show becoming less daring over time.
12:00SNL did become more reluctant to take on mavericks like Zappa, though it could have had something to do with
12:06their propensity for sabotage.
12:09Frank, like, you really don't get high, do you?
12:13No, I don't do drugs.
12:15I just don't like the effects it has on some people.
12:19Number 2.
12:20Richard Pryor
12:20SNL changed television with its seventh episode, but not in the way Richard Pryor had hoped.
12:27His episode was famously broadcast with a tape delay in case the censors needed to cut obscene language.
12:33How about a starting salary of $5,000?
12:35Your mama.
12:38Uh, $7,500 a year.
12:41Your mama.
12:45$15,000, Mr. Wilson.
12:47You'll be the highest paid janitor in America.
12:48Just don't hurt me, please.
12:50The 1995 autobiography Pryor Convictions not only lamented that this was done without the edgy Pryor's knowledge, but that it
12:58was not done for his white predecessors.
13:01He had already alluded to his resentment in 1977 with the first sketch of the Richard Pryor show, in which
13:08John Belushi captains a ship carrying Pryor to enslavement under NBC.
13:13Hold it, hold it.
13:14Oh!
13:14What is it?
13:15What is it?
13:15Captain, the men, they're dropping like flies up there.
13:18All right.
13:20It's time for another one.
13:22Another one, huh?
13:23All right.
13:25Eenie, meenie, miney.
13:27Yo!
13:28As if that wasn't a blunt enough indictment of the network's exploitative practices, Pryor Convictions airs the legendary comedian's thoughts
13:36on its hypocrisy completely uncensored.
13:39Get back or there'll be no dessert.
13:41Oh.
13:44Why are you taking me?
13:45You're going to NBC.
13:46You're going to do your own special.
13:48Oh, no!
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14:14Number 1, Chevy Chase.
14:17Saturday Night Live's first breakout star didn't completely leave Studio 8H until he was banned in 1997.
14:24They've been through my notorious periods.
14:27They've been through just about everything with me and they've sustained me and supported me and they've remained young and
14:33spirited.
14:33Chevy Chase carrying backstage hostilities from the show's inaugural cast to eight hosting stints alluded to his feelings about the
14:41production.
14:41Then, in a candid Washington Post interview in 2018, he remarked that SNL's humor had regressed into the worst in
14:49the world.
14:50I didn't care that it was a hit show or not.
14:53My efforts to become part of that cast were eschewed consistently, partly because I didn't know what the f*** they
15:04had and partly because I wasn't happy.
15:07He observed that Lorne Michaels' pandering is a sad reflection of the current generation's taste overall.
15:13Granted, Chase's open disdain for his old colleagues tends to be mutual.
15:18But after decades on the air, if Saturday Night Live hasn't plummeted in quality, it's definitely collected critics on both
15:26sides of the screen.
15:27Look, you've shown me what other people have written over the years.
15:30It ain't too good.
15:32But look, I still did a lot of movies and I still could star in a show if I want.
15:37I still, you know, I've gotten to a place where it doesn't really matter what people write or say.
15:43Do these people on the inside have strong points about SNL's weaknesses?
15:47Take your jabs in the comments below.
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