How ‘SNL’ nearly got canceled in Season 11: ‘The f–k up year’
Live from New York, it almost got canceled.
“Saturday Night Live” is a TV institution, currently in its landmark Season 50 – but the Peacock documentary “SNL50: Beyond Saturday Night” reveals how the show nearly died during its disastrous Season 11, which aired from 1985 to 1986.
“That eleventh year was probably the biggest risk,” Tom Hanks, who was a host that season, said onscreen in the documentary (which premieres Jan. 16).
Hanks is among the exclusive group of “SNL” hosts who have returned to the show 10 times or more. The “Forrest Gump” star’s inaugural “SNL” episode was Dec. 14, 1985, during the notorious Season 11.
“The division between what worked and what didn’t work – that was painfully obvious,” Hanks said of his first time hosting the show.
Why was Season 11 sometimes called “the weird year?”
After “SNL” mastermind Lorne Michaels created the show in 1975, he left in 1980 to pursue other opportunities – before returning five years later. Season 11 was his “clean slate,” when he got rid of the widely beloved Season 10 cast (which included Billy Crystal) and hired an entirely new young cast to mark his comeback.
Michaels filled the cast with several drama actors, including Randy Quaid, Robert Downey Jr., Anthony Michael Hall, and comedy actors such as Joan Cusack, Damon Wayans, Jon Lovitz, Danitra Vance, and first openly gay cast member Terry Sweeney.
Michaels recalled wanting a “young” cast, but conceded that he perhaps went “too young.”
“As a teenager, honestly I was very nervous,” said Hall. Only 17 at the time, the “Breakfast Club” star was the youngest cast member in the show’s history.
“[I was] very excited, but I don’t know if I felt like I knew how to fit in…It was like an out of body experience,” Hall said.
At the time, Michaels thought he had “something to prove.”
“I tried to find the people that I thought were the most talented, and I was starting from scratch.”
The cast members may have shined individually, but they didn’t gel into a group – and performers such as Oscar winner Downey Jr. weren’t playing to their strengths by doing ensemble sketch comedy.
The first episode (hosted by Madonna) got scathing reviews, and ratings dwindled.
“I learned so much in that year about what I wasn’t,” said Downey Jr, reflecting on his short-lived “SNL” stint.
The “Iron Man” star added, “But there’s not a more exciting 90 minutes you can have, whether you are any good or not.”
Carol Leifer, who was a writer that season, recalled that the stakes were high, since the cast was brand new and Michaels’ career would likely go in the toilet if he failed at his comeback.
“But I think it started to feel weird near the beginning” she noted. “It was not a cohesive kind of cast feel.”
Author James Andrew Miller said that he believes Season 11 was one of the most important inflection points in the show’s history.
“It occurred at the proverbial fork in the road. It was so bad that it could have been canceled.”
After each sketch that failed to get laughs from the live audience, there was a fraught air of nervousness.
“I just knew the sense was that it wasn’t good, because it was like a funeral,” Sweeney recalled.
Wayans chimed in: “We all knew [it wasn’t going well].”
John Lithgow, who hosted the Dec. 7, 1985 episode, said about his experience, “I remember having the feeling that everybody was trying out their own material. They were trying to make their own identity, rather than the identity of ‘SNL,’ I think that was the problem.”
Michaels’ late manager, Bernie Brillstein, who was also an “SNL” producer and appears in the doc in posthumous footage, recalled that towards the end of the season, he got a phone call from NBC’s then-president of entertainment, Brandon Tartikoff.
“They never call the manager with good news. Brandon told me that after 11 years, ‘SNL’ was over. There’s to be no ‘next year.’ I didn’t argue with him at that time. I’d like to say I did,” he said.
But, Brillstein recalled that after he told his then-wife, Deborah Ellen Koskoff, “she said, ‘how dare you let this happen. You can’t just let them do that, after 11 years and what Lorne has done!’”
Brillstein quipped, “I’m not married to her anymore, but that’s the best thing she ever did. I called Brandon back and said, ‘You have to give Lorne another year.’”
After that phone call, Michaels axed most of the Season 11 cast by ending the season with a sketch showing them burning in a fire onscreen. He kept a few cast members such as Lovitz.
“What have we done that’s so horrible? You can fire me, do you have to actually set fire to me?” Sweeney said.
Michaels then built a new cast for Season 12 around experienced sketch comedy performers whose main “focus was to be funny,” he explained.
Season 12 included Dana Carvey, Phil Hartman, and Kevin Nealon, who all became iconic cast members in “SNL” history, and the show bounced back. In Sept. 2024, Carvey even returned as President Joe Biden on the Season 50 premiere.
“There’d been a codification of the right way and the wrong way to do ‘Saturday Night Live,’ and I think it had to be blown up,” said Michaels.
Leifer said, “Season 11 was like the f–k up year you needed to get back on track.”
