History of Saturday Night Live (1990-1995)

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The period of 1990 to 1995 was a time of great transition for Saturday Night Live. It would see the series reach peaks and ebbs in terms of public popularity and critical acclaim. During this era, SNL would field its largest cast ever, see the departure of several of the show's most popular players as well as the arrival of many future stars, and draw more public controversy than perhaps any other period in the show's history.

Although many fans still hold the original cast to be the best, others feel that the early 1990s era provided some of the strongest and most consistently funny programs to date. It was a fruitful period that led to many film spin-offs, although late in the decade fans and cast alike were dismayed by the tragic deaths of former cast members Chris Farley on December 18, 1997 and Phil Hartman on May 28, 1998. Some were distressed by the sudden firing of popular "Weekend Update" host Norm Macdonald. Fans of the 1986-1991 seasons consider those years to include well-written sketches and sublime performances; they criticize the 1990s as being over-reliant on catch phrases and generic recurring characters, and for stooping in terms of intelligence and taste...

1994-1995 season

Similar to his decision in the mid-'80s to bring in established actors Randy Quaid, Joan Cusack and Robert Downey, Jr., Michaels added Michael McKean, and later Chris Elliott, to the cast. Unsurprisingly, neither McKean nor Elliott ever appeared to be comfortable on the show, and left at the end of the 1994-1995 season.

Later acquisitions were sketch veteran Mark McKinney of the recently-wrapped, Michaels-produced Canadian sketch comedy show Kids in the Hall, and stand-up comic Janeane Garofalo, both of whom joined at the beginning of the 1994-1995 season. However, the day that Garofalo arrived on the set, Adam Sandler started yelling at her because of remarks she'd made against him in her standup routine. Fellow female cast members (Ellen Cleghorne and Laura Kightlinger) banded against her immediately. Friends remark that Garafalo sank into a deep depression, and she continued her criticism of the show in the press, a tactic that did not improve her relationships at SNL. Shut out by all sides and uncomfortable with the writing, Garofalo left in mid-season, replaced by Molly Shannon. Myers also left in mid-season, and Nealon would do the same after season's end. Farley and Sandler were reportedly difficult to deal with backstage, and when their on-screen performances began to be hammy and inconsistent, NBC fired them at the end of the season. Longtime featured player Jay Mohr left after NBC refused to upgrade him to contract player. Al Franken, who had worked on the show as a writer and featured player on and off since 1977 quit at season's end as well, reportedly still unhappy about the decision at the beginning of the season to replace Nealon as anchor on Weekend Update with Norm Macdonald, and not himself.

Actress/comedian Janeane Garofalo succeeds without abandoning her principles (or her attitude).

Garofalo's frankness has backfired before. At Saturday Night Live, she got herself canned by marching into producer Lorne Michaels' office and challenging his dictum that actors must work from cue cards instead of memorizing lines - not to mention publicly decrying the humor of then-cast member Adam Sandler as childish.

Garofalo's wear-what-I-like, say-what-I-think attitude gets her branded as an outsider, a label she rejects. To her mind, she isn't an outsider. She simply refuses to, in her words, "suck it up." This is mostly done out of principle. In part, it's because she's tried playing the game, and it doesn't necessarily get you where you want to be.

-- Live by Your Own Rules and Succeed, USA Weekend Magazine, August 1, 1999