Saturday Night Live - Revision history

Spider of Destiny: /* Background and backlash */

2026-07-19T17:24:35Z

Background and backlash

Spider of Destiny at 17:04, 26 June 2026

2026-06-26T17:04:27Z

Spider of Destiny at 17:03, 26 June 2026

2026-06-26T17:03:47Z

Spider of Destiny at 15:02, 26 June 2026

2026-06-26T15:02:58Z

Spider of Destiny at 19:18, 6 June 2026

2026-06-06T19:18:20Z

Jason.Kreitzer at 21:33, 16 December 2021

2021-12-16T21:33:53Z

Jason.Kreitzer at 13:43, 29 September 2021

2021-09-29T13:43:07Z

Jason.Kreitzer at 19:36, 10 August 2021

2021-08-10T19:36:31Z

Jason.Kreitzer at 05:30, 1 August 2021

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Spider of Destiny at 21:34, 15 November 2020

2020-11-15T21:34:09Z

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 <div align=right>— [[wikipedia:Dan Aykroyd|Dan Aykroyd]], interviewed by [[Playboy]], August 1993.</div>
 Interviewed by [[Frank Zappa, 82/06|Steven Rosen]] for Record Review (June 1982), Zappa reflected on ''Saturday Night Live'' that he used to be a fan: ''"The last time I did their show, the only thing they cared about was the ratings and not offending people. I actually sat there and heard a conversation in one of the planning rooms where they said 'We can't put this skit on because it's going to offend women's groups.' I mean if you have to worry about who you're going to offend when you're doing something funny, then . . . see what I mean? It's that same America"'' <ref>https://www.donlope.net/fz/videography/SNL_78.html/</ref>
 ==Records Of This Show==

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 [[File:Frank Zappa - Saturday Night Live - Title card.jpg|500px|thumb|right|Frank Zappa in a title card for ''Saturday Night Live'', during his second appearance, 1978.]]
-'''Saturday Night Live''' is an American TV comedy and variety show based in [[New York|New York City]] that has been broadcast by [[NBC]] on Saturday nights since October 11, 1975. It brought alternative comedy more into the mainstream on US television and launched the careers of several popular comedians. Various sketches on ''Saturday Night Live'' were also adapted into Hollywood comedy movies. Like the title implies, every sketch on ''Saturday Night Live'' is performed live, which gives the sketches a ''hit-or-miss'' atmosphere, with some being brilliant, with great improvisations, and others sometimes failing to amuse audiences because they don't get the laughs the writers or comedians expected.
+'''Saturday Night Live''' is an American TV comedy and variety show based in [[New York|New York City]] that has been broadcast by [[NBC]] on Saturday nights since October 11, 1975. It brought alternative comedy more into the mainstream on US television and launched the careers of several popular comedians. Various sketches on ''Saturday Night Live'' were also adapted into Hollywood comedy movies. Like the title implies, every sketch on ''Saturday Night Live'' is performed live, which gives the sketches a ''hit-or-miss'' atmosphere, with some being brilliant, with great improvisations, and others not getting the laughs the writers or comedians expected.
 ''Saturday Night Live'' also offers room for musical performances by many pop and rock artists. Frank Zappa appeared in ''Saturday Night Live'' on two occasions, He performed music with his band, but also participated in some of the sketches.

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-__NOTOC__
+[[File:Frank Zappa - Saturday Night Live - Title card.jpg|500px|thumb|right|Frank Zappa in a title card for ''Saturday Night Live'', during his second appearance, 1978.]]
 [[File:Frank Zappa Saturday Night Live.jpg|500px|thumb|right|Frank Zappa on ''Saturday Night Live'', during ''[[A Night On Freak Mountain]]'' sketch, with Laraine Newman and Dan Aykroyd.]]
-'''Saturday Night Live''' is an American TV comedy and variety show based in [[wikipedia:New York City|New York City]] that has been broadcast by [[NBC]] on Saturday nights since October 11, 1975. It brought alternative comedy more into the mainstream on US television and launched the careers of several popular comedians. Various sketches on ''Saturday Night Live'' were also adapted into Hollywood comedy movies. Like the title implies, every sketch on ''Saturday Night Live'' is performed live, which gives the sketches a ''hit-or-miss'' atmosphere, with some being brilliant, with great improvisations, and others sometimes failing to amuse audiences because they don't get the laughs the writers or comedians expected.
+Zappa's third appearance during this episode is ''[[A Night On Freak Mountain]]'', a sketch where he meets some [[Hippies]] (Dan Aykroyd and Laraine Newman), after his car gets stuck in a mud slide. Paul Schaffer also turns up, playing the character Don Kirshner. <ref>https://www.onesnladay.com/2018/10/08/october-21-1978-frank-zappa-s4-e3//</ref>
-==Zappa's guest appearances==
+[[File:John Belushi and Frank Zappa.jpg|500px|thumb|right|Frank Zappa and John Belushi.]]
-[[File:I'm The Slime.jpg|500px|thumb|right|Zappa during a performance of ''I'm The Slime'' in ''[[Saturday Night Live]]''.]]
-Frank Zappa appeared in ''Saturday Night Live'' on two occasions, both with comedian [[John Belushi]]. He performed music with his band, but also participated in some of the sketches.
+==Background and backlash==
-*[[76/12/11 Saturday Night Live NBC|December 11th 1976]]
+During his second appearance on ''Saturday Night Live'', Frank Zappa broke an unwritten rule on the show by breaking character. It started during his performance of ''[[Dancin' Fool]]'', when he mentioned he was reading cue cards. In the other sketches, he also frequently mugged the camera. This was not appreciated by the show's creators. <ref>https://www.onesnladay.com/2018/10/08/october-21-1978-frank-zappa-s4-e3//</ref> They and Zappa also had creative differences, with Zappa trying to dictate the comedy and the style. He also had no appreciation for the actors easy-going approach in terms of [[drugs]].<ref>https://ultimateclassicrock.com/frank-zappa-saturday-night-live-banned/</ref> It resulted in him being banned from ever reappearing again:
 <blockquote><p> ''"It's a very difficult thing to do; they never make it easy on anyone who hosts the show. All the direction and attention goes to the sketches. They're not called skits--they become 'incensed' if you call them skits--and it's all designed to accommodate the people who are regulars on the show, so anybody who goes on there to hosts is at a severe disadvantage. Because they never tell you what camera is on, and you're not supposed to memorize your script because they're rewriting right up to show time. And so you're looking at the cue cards, and unless you're used to acting live on TV, you haven't got a prayer; you'll be looking at the wrong camera. It was really hard. And the other thing that happened was--and I didn't find out about it until the day after the show--that the first day I went there for the meetings with them they didn't like me and wanted to get rid of me. But no one said anything to my face while I was working on the thing. So they had written dialogue for me to say that I wouldn't normally say; they wouldn't let me write any of my own stuff. I think I'd be a fantastic television personality. I think I'd be a real good interviewer if I had a talk show, or a variety show. I'd be really good at it. But just to get up there and be the dumbbell in '[[A Night On Freak Mountain]]'... I mean, sure, I'll do that for a laugh, but I'm not gonna build a life on it."''</p></blockquote>
 <div align=right>— [[Biography|Frank Zappa]], [[Stereo Review Interviews FZ|interviewed]] by [[Stereo Review]], April 1979.</div>
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 <blockquote><p>''"(...) We were doing the Coneheads scene, which Frank loved. We were all in position to do it when Frank, said, 'What am I supposed to do? Read these cards?' It totally broke the reality; it was awful. (...) Maybe he thought he was above the whole thing or he was nervous or he didn't like the script. Maybe he thought he was being funny. But in fact the audience sort of gasped."''</p></blockquote>
 <div align=right>— [[wikipedia:Dan Aykroyd|Dan Aykroyd]], interviewed by [[Playboy]], August 1993.</div>
 ==Records Of This Show==
 *DVD [[Frank Zappa At SNL 1976–78]]
-[[wikipedia:Dana Carvey|Dana Carvey]] appeared as Zappa in a sketch on the May 12, 1990 edition. (This was the episode hosted by then-controversial comedian [[Wikipedia:Andrew Dice Clay|Andrew Dice Clay]]. The cold open was a parody of ''[https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0038650/reference It's A Wonderful Life]'', with Dice looking to jump off a bridge and his guardian devil {played by [[Wikipedia:Jon Lovitz|Jon Lovitz]]} shows Dice what happened because he didn't host,  which included Frank Zappa hosting instead and him going on a long rant about censorship, and [[Wikipedia:Nora Dunn|Nora Dunn]] being crushed by one of [[Wikipedia:Sinéad O'Connor|Sinéad O'Connor]]'s amplifiers. [Dunn and O'Connor, the originally scheduled musical guest, both refused to appear on the show because of Clay.])
+==Legacy==
-==Musical references by Zappa to ''"Saturday Night Live"''==
+[[Gary Panter]] (who illustrated the cover of ''[[Studio Tan]]'' without Warners executives telling him that they released the record without Zappa's permission) remebered feeling quite ashamed when he saw Zappa in the ''Coneheads'' sketch destroy a copy of ''Studio Tan'' on the air, making a statement against Warners.<ref>https://www.lambiek.net/artists/p/panter.htm/</ref>
-One of the regular skits on ''"Saturday Night Live"'' were the Coneheads, a family of extraterrestrial aliens from the planet Remulak stuck on planet Earth, whose heads were all cone shaped. Later Zappa wrote a song called ''[[Conehead]]''. The Coneheads were also the subject of a 1993 live action comedy film called ''"Coneheads"''.
+==References==
-==See Also==
+==External links==
 *[[wikipedia:Saturday Night Live|Wikipedia Article]]
 [[category:Acting Performances]]
 [[Category:Favorite TV shows]]
 [[Category:1976]]
 [[Category:1978]]

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 __NOTOC__
-[[File:Frank Zappa Saturday Night Live.jpg|500px|thumb|right|Frank Zappa on ''Saturday Night Live'' with Laraine Newman and Dan Aykroyd.]]
+[[File:Frank Zappa Saturday Night Live.jpg|500px|thumb|right|Frank Zappa on ''Saturday Night Live'', during ''[[A Night On Freak Mountain]]'' sketch, with Laraine Newman and Dan Aykroyd.]]
-'''Saturday Night Live''' is an American TV comedy and variety show based in [[wikipedia:New York City|New York City]] that has been broadcast by [[NBC]] on Saturday nights since October 11, 1975.
+'''Saturday Night Live''' is an American TV comedy and variety show based in [[wikipedia:New York City|New York City]] that has been broadcast by [[NBC]] on Saturday nights since October 11, 1975. It brought alternative comedy more into the mainstream on US television and launched the careers of several popular comedians. Various sketches on ''Saturday Night Live'' were also adapted into Hollywood comedy movies. Like the title implies, every sketch on ''Saturday Night Live'' is performed live, which gives the sketches a ''hit-or-miss'' atmosphere, with some being brilliant, with great improvisations, and others sometimes failing to amuse audiences because they don't get the laughs the writers or comedians expected.
 ==Zappa's guest appearances==
 [[File:I'm The Slime.jpg|500px|thumb|right|Zappa during a performance of ''I'm The Slime'' in ''[[Saturday Night Live]]''.]]
-Frank Zappa appeared on two occasions, both with comedian [[John Belushi]].
+Frank Zappa appeared in ''Saturday Night Live'' on two occasions, both with comedian [[John Belushi]]. He performed music with his band, but also participated in some of the sketches.
 *[[76/12/11 Saturday Night Live NBC|December 11th 1976]]

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 *[[wikipedia:Saturday Night Live|Wikipedia Article]]
-[[category:Videography]]
+[[category:Acting Performances]]
 [[Category:Favorite TV shows]]
 [[Category:1976]]
 [[Category:1978]]

← Older revision		Revision as of 21:33, 16 December 2021
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	[[File:Frank Zappa Saturday Night Live.jpg\|500px\|thumb\|right\|Frank Zappa on ''Saturday Night Live'' with Laraine Newman and Dan Aykroyd.]]		[[File:Frank Zappa Saturday Night Live.jpg\|500px\|thumb\|right\|Frank Zappa on ''Saturday Night Live'' with Laraine Newman and Dan Aykroyd.]]

← Older revision		Revision as of 21:34, 15 November 2020
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	==Zappa's guest appearances==		==Zappa's guest appearances==
		+	[[File:I'm The Slime.jpg\|500px\|thumb\|right\|Zappa during a performance of ''I'm The Slime'' in ''[[Saturday Night Live]]''.]]

	Frank Zappa appeared on two occasions, both with comedian [[John Belushi]].		Frank Zappa appeared on two occasions, both with comedian [[John Belushi]].