Saturday Night Live’s Nightmare 1985 Season
Some argue that the 1985 season of Saturday Night Live is not the show’s worst season. They say it is a collection of episodes so chaotic and fundamentally weird that it is at least better than the many seasons of the show that felt like a great big nothing. These are not serious people.
From around 1980 to 1984, Saturday Night Live was in a nearly constant state of turmoil. The sheer talent of some of the cast members was able to buoy a ship rapidly taking on water thanks to backstage bickering, poor casting decisions, and the tragic realization that Eddie Murphy could not, in fact, be every character in every sketch.
NBC was considering canceling Saturday Night Live at that time unless series creator Lorne Micheals returned as a producer. So, Michaels walked back to SNL with the energy of Donald Glover walking into a fiery apartment with boxes of pizza in his hands.
Michaels decided to replace much of the old cast to give the show a fresh start. It was a good idea seemingly made better by the actual casting choices. Randy Quaid, Joan Cusack, Robert Downey Jr., Danitra Vance, Jon Lovitz, Damon Waynes, Dennis Miller, and Anthony Michael Hall formed what appeared to be the show’s most formidable cast since its inception. Even now, that feels like a pretty special collection of stars.
Soon, though, the name value of that cast proved to be one of its biggest problems. Performers like RDJ, Randy Quaid, and Joan Cusack were simply not ready/willing to be sketch comedians at that point in their careers. There was little chemistry between much of the cast, and the writers were constantly battling egos, insecurities, and the nearly impossible task of crafting sketches for such a strange collection of performers whose skills demanded such wildly different material.
The 1985 season of Saturday Night Live features comedians not only bombing in front of a live audience but being fully aware of just how hard they are bombing. At one point, Damon Wayans essentially quit the show in real-time during a painfully bad Mr. Monopoly sketch. I doubt you’ll make it much further than Waynes did if you try to watch this season filled with shockingly offensive material and actors failing so hard that they look like they’re about to cry.
