The Biggest 'SNL' Controversies

Original Air Date: October 31, 1981

The main reason the punk band Fear even appeared on SNL was because John Belushi was a big fan; so much so, he pulled some strings to make them the musical guests for the 1981 Halloween episode.

Fear was known for their wild, unpredictable live shows, and this performance was no exception. They began their set by saying, “It’s great to be in New Jersey,” which naturally upset the New York crowd. They then started an on-stage mosh pit and later began to yell, “New York sucks!”

SNL ultimately cut the band's set early, preventing them from playing a fourth song.

The real damage, however, came after the cameras shut off, when Fear and their fans reportedly caused $200,000 worth of damage to the green room, a viewing room, and the cameras.

Following this, Fear was permanently banned from Saturday Night Live.

Original Air Date: October 7, 2018

Many TV viewers are familiar with Safelite commercials, which use the company's real technicians to show how they fix windshields.

In 2018, SNL decided to poke fun at these commercials by having Beck Bennett impersonate a Safelite technicians, then purposefully break a customer's windshield in order to get close to her teenage daughter.

Many audiences were disgusted by the joke, and Safelite was livid that their brand was portrayed in such a twisted way.

NBC quickly realized their mistake and began scrubbing the video from the internet, making the clip difficult to find nowadays. When the episode re-aired, SNL switched out the fake commercial with a previously un-aired sketch.

Original Air Date: February 19, 1994

Known for his pushing-the-limits style of comedy, Martin Lawrence decided last-minute that he was going to try out some new jokes during the live taping of his SNL monologue. These included a joke about the Lorena Bobbitt news story, which then transitioned into jokes about women's hygiene (or lack thereof, according to Lawrence).

While footage of these jokes has been nearly erased from the internet, the transcript still survives.

Even with the live studio audience, this segment didn't land. The reception was so bad, Lawrence has never been invited back to SNL, and that isn't likely to change anytime soon.

Original Air Date: October 23, 2004

Ashlee Simpson's 2004 musical guest appearance on SNL will no doubt go down as one of the worst lip-syncing fails in TV history. When Simpson appeared on the show to promote her new album and reality show, her first song, “Pieces of Me,” went well. Her second song, however, went a bit off the rails.

Simpson was supposed to perform her song ‘"Autobiography," but soon enough, the music for “Pieces of Me” came over the speakers once again. Her band tried to recover by quickly shifting to "Pieces of Me," but before long, Simpson's pre-recorded voice also came through the speakers - and she wasn't singing.

Simpson, clearly embarrassed about being caught lip-syncing, does a strange jig, then walks off stage. The moment received huge press coverage, and Simpson's musical career took a substantial hit from the incident.

Since then, Simpson has revealed she was having medical issues with her throat, and a doctor advised her not to sing, but despite this setback, she didn't want to cancel her big appearance on SNL.

Original Air Date: February 24, 2007

General tastefulness within the comedy world has thankfully improved in recent years; in particular, jokes at the expense of people with disabilities no longer receive the laughs they used to. SNL writers seemingly hadn't yet learned this lesson in 2007, however, when they aired a skit about four friends reminiscing in a bar over “Danny's Song.”

Bill Hader relayed the off-color joke, saying, “He loved this song. I remember we had this one great day at the park. We just had so much fun. He was running in the grass and chasing squirrels. They had this fountain, and we threw pennies in it for hours. So great. It was the first day that I ever thought to myself, ‘I have a dad,' and not, 'I have a dad with Down syndrome.'”

While the in-house audience laughed, viewers at home quickly took issue with the insensitive joke. The CEO and chair of the National Down Syndrome Society even drafted a letter to producer Lorne Michaels about the skit, which he argued only added to harmful stereotypes that follow people with Down syndrome.

Original Air Date: November 3, 2018

During one “Weekend Update” segment, Pete Davidson appeared on the show to play someone who was very uninformed about the then-upcoming election.

After discussing candidates Davidson had never heard of, the screen showed a photo of Dan Crenshaw, a congressional candidate from Texas. In response to his photo, Davidson said, “This guy is kind of cool, Dan Crenshaw. You may be surprised to hear that he's a congressional candidate from Texas and not a hitman in a porno movie. I'm sorry. I know he lost his eye in war or whatever.”

The “lost his eye in war or whatever” is what some viewers found troubling about the skit. Crenshaw is a Navy veteran who lost his eye in an explosion while serving in Afghanistan; he now wears an eye patch.

Poking fun at a disabled veteran didn't sit well with many, and SNL quickly ran damage control by inviting Crenshaw on the show the following week to poke fun at Davidson.