The One Time SNL Almost Had To Fire The Host

Here's you, here's Matt, there's you, there

This is Saturday Night Live, and it has a reputation for being hit and miss

When SNL misses, it isn't always because the cast is just having an off night

The writing process of Saturday Night Live is largely centered around whomever is hosting

They work alongside the writers to deliver content that is reflective of who they are

This is great when someone like John Mulaney or a comedic-minded actor like Tom Hanks hosts the show

but when a host is selected that doesn't really have comedic chops, things get a little weird

This is exactly what happened in 1991 when Steven Seagal hosted the show

I hope you'll forgive me for being a little bit serious, but it's important to me to let you know

that there's a lot more to Steven Seagal than the martial arts

Saturday Night Live is America's longest-running sketch comedy series. It began production in 1975

and has been a proving ground for some of the funniest people in the world

Legendary names like Bill Murray, Eddie Murphy, Tina Fey, Kristen Wiig, and Will Ferrell

among a laundry list of others, all got their start screaming, Live for New York

It's Saturday Night Live! In 1991, Saturday Night Live was at the top of its game

The cast was filled with not only talent, but outright comedy legends

Chris Farley, Mike Myers, Chris Rock, Dana Carvey, Phil Hartman rounded out the performing cast

while the writers' room was filled with names like Conan O'Brien, Bob Odenkirk, and Robert Smigel

It was truly a renaissance era for the show, and audiences were tuning in en masses to watch the hilarious antics and colorful characters created by the ensemble

Making copies for McStingster, Stingatola, Sting. Also reaching the top of his game was rising action star Steven Seagal, who is currently on track to rival Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone at the box office with hits like Marked for Death and Out for Justice

Saturday Night Live is constantly on the lookout for rising stars to host their shows

It's what drives the ratings. They look for notable people of fame from almost every realm imaginable

This is all part of what piques the audience interest and generates ratings for the show Political candidates like Al Gore and John McCain sports stars like Charles Barkley and Lance Armstrong even public figures like Howard Cosell and Steve Forbes

have all hosted the show to varying degrees of success. In 1991, Steven Seagal was rapidly gaining a reputation

for being a box office drawl. So, of course, it made sense for Saturday Night Live

to invite him to host. This turned out to be a colossal mistake

Man, your daughter sure does take her time. What? Does that bother you

No, no. On Saturday Night Live, the host is completely enmeshed with the creative process every step of the way

Writers work tirelessly to pitch their sketches and ideas in hopes of getting them onto the show

It's an incredibly competitive process, as some of the writers are trying to become performers themselves, or at the very least

advance their careers as comedy writers. The quota varies, but basically, each writer

is required to pitch dozens of ideas to the host and cast

The host then decides which sketches are best suited for them. And those are the sketches that end up on the show

From that point on, the host works with the writers and cast leading up to the dress rehearsals

and inevitable airing of the show. Sometimes this creative process works incredibly well

Sometimes great SNL hosts can even feel like they're part of the ensemble. Steve Martin has been invited back to host so many times

most people have no idea that he was never even a cast member. We are two wild and crazy guys

Many celebrities have had such a positive experience working on SNL that they have created reoccurring characters for themselves

and have even received best of DVD compilations. However, when a host shows up that doesn't understand comedy

the show can feel a little too flat. Or when they have a young host with a carefully manicured career trajectory

the show ends up playing things a little too safe. The end result is that these episodes can feel boring

and lackluster in comparison to others. The Steven Seagal episode was a disaster

for the entire Saturday Night Live creative process. From start to finish, Steven Seagal

was a hindrance to pretty much everyone he came into contact with. One of the main reasons for this is that Steven Seagal had never even seen an episode of SNL before arriving to host the show During the writing process he would pitch extremely problematic and insane ideas

David Spade recounted in an interview that this was actually the first time in his career

that SNL thought about replacing the host in favor of just doing an all-cast show

Julia Sweeney said that one of Seagal's ideas involved a sexual assault survivor getting sexually

assaulted by the therapist. Tim Meadows described the creative process of working with Seagal quite concisely when he said

you can't explain something to someone in German if they don't speak German

When the person you are writing material for cannot comprehend what you're going for

you have to boil things down until you come up with something that they can actually follow

In the case of Steven Seagal, the only thing he understood was his pseudo-tough-guy persona

Oh, I know what you're thinking. Mine's bigger than yours, right? It's not fair

Throw it away. And a smattering of abrupt violence. and this episode is a direct reflection of that

The cold open features Hans and Franz, played by Dana Carvey and Kevin Nealon, respectively

The sketch seems like it would be a home run with the involvement of Steven Seagal

playing against their obsession with Arnold Schwarzenegger. However, unlike many successful performers

Seagal just refused to poke fun at himself. Bob Odenkirk recently recounted in an interview with Howard Stern

that he demanded to beat up Hans and Franz if the sketch was going to air

He goes, if I do it, I have to beat them up

Dana Carvey said that they actually had to stop rehearsal for the sketch because Steven Seagal was upset that he couldn't beat up Arnold Schwarzenegger in real life

His opening monologue wasn't even a monologue. He just sort of talk sings his way through Carl Douglas's kung fu fighting with Chris Rock and Tim Meadows singing backup for him

From that point on, every sketch involves Steven Seagal taking himself way too seriously, and almost all of them involve violence

Throughout the entire process, Steven Seagal would complain about jokes that didn't make sense to him

and refuse to take part in anything that came remotely close to satirizing who he was

Many of the cast members said that Seagal just didn't want to be there. Even beloved characters like the Rich Meister wasn safe from Steven Seagal assault on the comedic arts Instead of playing along with the actual premise of the sketch Seagal just abruptly begins beating up Rob Schneider and hanging him out of the window for seemingly no reason whatsoever

The final sketch of this infamous episode of Saturday Night Live isn't even really a sketch

It's just Steven Seagal fighting ExxonMobil executives, the majority of whom weren't even played by cast members

SNL hired stuntmen for Seagal to fight for almost seven minutes before screaming

This is what happens when you pollute the planets. There isn't even a premise to this sketch

It's just a weird lesson about environmentalism told through insanity and hip-tossing people through tables

A good SNL host will have, at the very least, some degree of self-awareness and be able to roll with the playful punches that Saturday Night Live dishes out

Plenty of hosts have prodded themselves during the opening monologue, and even more have created farcical sketches about their own existence

When SNL runs into hosts like these, the content reflects the host's willingness to play with the cast, and the episodes can be pretty funny

Some of the funniest SNL sketches have come from having hosts like Peyton Manning or Wayne Gretzky on the show

And those are two names that are about as far removed from comedy as you can get

When Saturday Night Live is firing on all cylinders, it is a force to be reckoned with

When the hosts, writers, and performers are all working in harmony to deliver the best possible product

there aren't many sketch comedy shows that can contend. But when Saturday Night Live fails, it very rarely falls squarely on the shoulders of the performers and writers

More often than not, it's due to the person who those people are writing and performing with being either unable to grasp the material or being unwilling to play along

So what's up next for the Dice Man? You got a movie coming out this summer? No

Comedy is fun to produce. There's actually a saying in sketch comedy and improv that goes something to the effect of

if you aren't having fun, then you're an a**. Sure, comedy is grueling work that requires laser focus, sleepless nights, and a ton of effort

But at the end of the day, it's very fun to execute. But when you have someone that isn't willing to play along, it doesn't feel like fun anymore

It feels like the comedy itself is sort of marked for death before the show even airs

I don't want you to talk about anything to me anymore. I don't want you to say my name anymore

You hear me? Everything's upside down