Saturday Night Live season 21

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Saturday Night Live aired its twenty-first season during the 1995-1996 television season on NBC. SNL once again dodged cancellation from season twenty's low ratings and scathing reviews about the show's decline in quality. Only four repertory cast members (Mark McKinney, David Spade [who wanted to stay until SNL's quality improved], Tim Meadows [who was almost fired when Lorne was building his season 21 cast, but was kept in order to make the cast diverse], and Norm Macdonald [whose turn as Weekend Update anchor was considered by many to be the only good aspect of season 20]) from the previous season returned along with Molly Shannon, who was promoted to the repertory cast, while the rest of the season 20 cast either left on their own terms (Kevin Nealon, Michael McKean, Jay Mohr, Chris Elliot, Laura Kightlinger and Ellen Cleghorne) or were let out of their contracts (Adam Sandler, Morwenna Banks and Chris Farley) to make room for new castmembers.

The new performers chosen where Darrell Hammond, Will Ferrell, David Koechner, Chris Kattan (who didn't appear until the middle of the season), Fred Wolf, Jim Breuer, Cheri Oteri, Colin Quinn, and Nancy Walls. Future SNL host Steve Carell auditioned to be in the cast, but was rejected, while Johnny Knoxville turned down the opportunity to feature what would later be his stunts for the MTV show Jackass in a series of short films.

The twenty-first season began September 30, 1995 and ended on May 18, 1996.

Contents

[edit] Cast

[edit] Repertory players

[edit] Featured players

[edit] Episodes

Episode # Air Date Host(s) Musical Guest(s) Remarks
387 (21.1) September 30, 1995 Mariel Hemingway Blues Traveler
  • Prince (back when he was known as "The Artist Formerly Known As Prince") was originally booked for this episode as the musical guest. David Spade, on his "Hollywood Minute" segment, mentioned this and referred to Prince as "The Artist Formerly Booked on This Show, But Flaked on Us".
  • Jim Breuer, Darrell Hammond, Will Ferrell, David Koechner, Cheri Oteri, Nancy Walls and Colin Quinn's first episode as cast members
388 (21.2) October 7, 1995 Chevy Chase Lisa Loeb
  • Chevy Chase's monologue (where he reminisces about being in the original cast of SNL while singing "When You Wish Upon A Star") is edited from the 60-minute syndicated rerun.
389 (21.3) October 21, 1995 David Schwimmer Natalie Merchant
  • David's Friends co-stars Lisa Kudrow and Jennifer Aniston (The latter of whom appears in a Spade in America sketch) appear in his opening monologue, along with Jimmie Walker, Gary Coleman and Barry Williams.
  • In the live show version of the "Rita Delvecchio" sketch, Cheri Oteri gets her housecoat stuck on a hockey net and mutters, "Look at this shit!" Nothing was made of the on-air cursing, except that Oteri had to put a dollar in a swear jar and all reruns of this episode (NBC, Comedy Central, and E!) muted out the word.
390 (21.4) October 28, 1995 Gabriel Byrne Alanis Morissette
  • Fred Wolf's first episode as a cat member
391 (21.5) November 11, 1995 Quentin Tarantino The Smashing Pumpkins
392 (21.6) November 18, 1995 Laura Leighton Rancid
393 (21.7) December 2, 1995 Anthony Edwards Foo Fighters
394 (21.8) December 9, 1995 David Alan Grier Silverchair
395 (21.9) December 16, 1995 Madeline Kahn Bush
396 (21.10) January 13, 1996 Christopher Walken Joan Osborne
  • The 60-minute syndicated version adds three commercial parodies: Old Glory Insurance (from the Laura Leighton/Rancid episode, the Madeline Kahn/Bush episode, and the Teri Hatcher/Dave Matthews Band episode), Gangsta Bitch Barbie (from the Chevy Chase/Lisa Loeb episode and the Madeline Kahn/Bush episode), and John-John Mackey's Storm-Tracker AccuCast (from the Madeline Kahn/Bush episode) to fill up time lost by cutting all of Weekend Update, the Connie Stintson talk show sketch, and the monologue.
  • For the original broadcast, Osborne rehearsed a second song, "Right Hand Man", but it was cut. However, the rehearsal taping of the song was included on the "Best of 1995-1996" episode.
397 (21.11) January 20, 1996 Alec Baldwin Tori Amos
  • Tori Amos performs "Caught A Lite Sneeze" and "Hey Jupiter".
398 (21.12) February 10, 1996 Danny Aiello Coolio
399 (21.13) February 17, 1996 Tom Arnold Tupac Shakur
400 (21.14) February 24, 1996 Elle MacPherson Sting
401 (21.15) March 16, 1996 John Goodman Everclear
  • Everclear rehearsed a second song, "Heartspark Dollarsign", but it was cut from the original broadcast.
  • Chris Kattan's first episode as a cast member
402 (21.16) March 23, 1996 Phil Hartman Gin Blossoms
  • This episode marked the first appearance of Will Ferrell and Chris Kattan's "Roxbury Guys" characters; however, their appearance differs greatly (notably lacking their "theme music" (Haddaway's What is Love? dance hit)) from all subsequent episodes and the film A Night at the Roxbury.
403 (21.17) April 13, 1996 Steve Forbes Rage Against the Machine
  • Rage Against the Machine wanted to protest to having presidential candidate Steve Forbes as guest host on the program that night. To make that statement, RATM hung two upside-down American flags from their amps. Seconds before they took the stage to perform "Bulls on Parade", SNL and NBC sent stagehands in to pull the flags down. The inverted flags, says guitarist Tom Morello, represented "our contention that American democracy is inverted when what passes for democracy is an electoral choice between two representatives of the privileged class. America's freedom of expression is inverted when you're free to say anything you want to say until it upsets a corporate sponsor. Finally, this was our way of expressing our opinion of the show's host, Steve Forbes. They said the sponsors would be upset, and that because Steve Forbes was on, they had to run a 'tighter' show." SNL also told the band it would mute objectionable lyrics in "Bullet In The Head" (which was supposed to be RATM's second song). SNL even insisted that the song be bleeped in the studio because Forbes had friends and family there.
404 (21.18) April 20, 1996 Teri Hatcher Dave Matthews Band
405 (21.19) May 11, 1996 Christine Baranski The Cure
406 (21.20) May 18, 1996 Jim Carrey Soundgarden
  • Carrey was asked to host when the original host backed out at the last minute.
  • Carrey performs an impersonation of Jimmy Stewart during The Joe Pesci Show sketch. Stewart was one of Carrey's better-known (and first-ever) impersonations he did at comedy clubs during his early days in stand-up comedy.
  • Chris Kattan has stated in an interview that Carrey was the best "third Roxbury Guy" character he and Ferrell had ever performed with.
  • Last episode for stage manager Joe Dicso (who had been in his position since the show's 1975 inception)
  • David Spade, Nancy Walls and David Koechner's final episode as cast members
Preceded by
Season 20		 Saturday Night Live
Season 21		 Succeeded by
Season 22