| Saturday Night Live | |
|---|---|
| Season 21 | |
 | |
| No. of episodes | 20 |
| Release | |
| Original network | NBC |
| Original release | September 30, 1995 (1995-09-30) – May 18, 1996 (1996-05-18) |
| Season chronology | |
← Previous season 20 Next → season 22 | |
| List of episodes | |
Thetwenty-first season ofSaturday Night Live, an Americansketch comedy series, originally aired in the United States onNBC between September 30, 1995, and May 18, 1996.
After the low ratings and negative reviews of theprevious season,NBC executives necessitated significant changes for the show, including a major cast overhaul.[1][2] Only five cast members from the previous season remained. New hires includedWill Ferrell,Cheri Oteri,Darrell Hammond,Jim Breuer,David Koechner, andNancy Walls.Chris Kattan andColin Quinn joined as featured players.
The season was infamous for theRage Against the Machine incident. On April 13, 1996, the band was the musical guest, and was scheduled to perform two songs. The show was hosted that night by ex-Republican presidential candidate and billionaireSteve Forbes. According to RATM guitaristTom Morello, "RATM wanted to stand in sharp juxtaposition to a billionaire telling jokes and promoting hisflat tax by making our own statement."[3] To this end, the band hung two upside-downAmerican flags from their amplifiers. Seconds before they took the stage to perform "Bulls on Parade",SNL and NBC sent stagehands in to pull the flags down.[4] Following the removal of the flags during the first performance, the band was approached bySNL and NBC officials and ordered to immediately leave the building. Upon hearing this, bassistTim Commerford reportedly stormed Forbes' dressing room, throwing shreds from one of the torn down flags.
Morello noted that members of theSaturday Night Live cast and crew, whom he declined to name, "expressed solidarity with our actions, and a sense of shame that their show had censored the performance."[3]
SNL faced new competition in the form ofFox's sketch comedy showMADtv, which aired a half hour earlier thanSNL[5] and featured a more diverse cast.[6] ThoughMADtv never posed a serious ratings threat toSNL, it did at times beat the NBC show in the key demographic of twenty-and thirtysomething male audiences, and, to this day, online comments have been made aboutMADtv being a better sketch series thanSaturday Night Live.[7][8]
Before the start of the season, most of the cast had left or been fired from the show. NBC West Coast PresidentDon Ohlmeyer said, "If you look at the past several seasons, we haven't had breakout performers likeDana Carvey orBilly Crystal. In the writing, we haven't had many of the great characters that people have enjoyed seeing in sketches in the past. The cast had gotten too large and, frankly, some of them seemed to regardSaturday Night Live as what they did between theatrical films. The energy was off. Sometimes people seemed to be reading cue cards rather than doing a live show."[2]
Only five cast members returned from theprevious season:Norm Macdonald,Mark McKinney,Tim Meadows,Molly Shannon, andDavid Spade.[1] Although Spade returned to the show, he had a diminished role, very rarely appearing in sketches except forSpade in America, aWeekend Update segment hosted by Spade that debuted at the start of the season and was featured in all but five episodes. Shannon was upgraded to repertory status for this season.
Lenny Pickett also took over forG. E. Smith as leader of theSaturday Night Live Band.[9]
Aside from Macdonald, McKinney, Meadows, Shannon, and Spade, the rest of the cast hired prior to the start of the season was entirely new. These includedstand-up comediansJim Breuer andDarrell Hammond;[10]Groundlings alumniWill Ferrell[11] andCheri Oteri;[1] and Chicago-based comediansDavid Koechner andNancy Walls.[12] Breuer, Hammond, Ferrell, Oteri, Koechner, and Walls were all promoted to repertory status upon being hired.
Ferrell and Oteri's fellow GroundlingChris Kattan,[13] along with newly hired staff writerColin Quinn,[14] also joined as featured players for the final six episodes of the season. In April, Quinn's fellowSNL writerFred Wolf was hired to join the cast as a featured player for the last four episodes.[15] Kattan was credited for all six of the final episodes, while Quinn was credited for four, and Wolf was credited for three episodes. Newer cast members were restricted from filming movies during the season.[2]
This would be the final season for longtime cast member Spade, who had been on the show since1990, a total of six seasons.[16] Spade had agreed to stay only a year so he could be a bridge between the old and new casts. Newcomers Koechner and Walls were also let go after this season. McKinney was also on the chopping block, but was ultimately retained for the next season.[17][18]
Repertory players | Featured players
|
bold denotes "Weekend Update" anchor
Chris Kattan was credited for all six episodes after he joined the cast, Colin Quinn was credited for five of the last six shows of the season (including the season finale, despite not appearing in the episode), and Fred Wolf was credited for three of the last four episodes of the season.
Jim Downey was removed as head writer as part of NBC executives' changes,[19] but remained on the writing staff, now producingWeekend Update withNorm Macdonald.
Steve Higgins (who was made head writer withFred Wolf),[2]Adam McKay,[20]Paula Pell,[21] Frank Sebastiano, Hugh Fink, Dennis McNicholas,Harper Steele andColin Quinn joined the staff.
The only returning writers from the previous season were Downey, Wolf,Tim Herlihy,Norm Hiscock, andSteve Koren.[22] Koren (who would be promoted to writing supervisor midway through the season) would leave the show at the end of the season, after 4½ years.[23]
| No. overall | No. in season | Host | Musical guest | Original release date | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 387 | 1 | Mariel Hemingway | Blues Traveler | September 30, 1995 (1995-09-30) | |
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| 388 | 2 | Chevy Chase | Lisa Loeb & Nine Stories | October 7, 1995 (1995-10-07) | |
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| 389 | 3 | David Schwimmer | Natalie Merchant | October 21, 1995 (1995-10-21) | |
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| 390 | 4 | Gabriel Byrne | Alanis Morissette | October 28, 1995 (1995-10-28) | |
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| 391 | 5 | Quentin Tarantino | The Smashing Pumpkins | November 11, 1995 (1995-11-11) | |
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| 392 | 6 | Laura Leighton | Rancid | November 18, 1995 (1995-11-18) | |
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| 393 | 7 | Anthony Edwards | Foo Fighters | December 2, 1995 (1995-12-02) | |
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| 394 | 8 | David Alan Grier | Silverchair | December 9, 1995 (1995-12-09) | |
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| 395 | 9 | Madeline Kahn | Bush | December 16, 1995 (1995-12-16) | |
| 396 | 10 | Christopher Walken | Joan Osborne | January 13, 1996 (1996-01-13) | |
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| 397 | 11 | Alec Baldwin | Tori Amos | January 20, 1996 (1996-01-20) | |
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| 398 | 12 | Danny Aiello | Coolio | February 10, 1996 (1996-02-10) | |
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| 399 | 13 | Tom Arnold | Tupac Shakur | February 17, 1996 (1996-02-17) | |
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| 400 | 14 | Elle Macpherson | Sting | February 24, 1996 (1996-02-24) | |
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| 401 | 15 | John Goodman | Everclear | March 16, 1996 (1996-03-16) | |
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| 402 | 16 | Phil Hartman | Gin Blossoms | March 23, 1996 (1996-03-23) | |
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| 403 | 17 | Steve Forbes | Rage Against the Machine | April 13, 1996 (1996-04-13) | |
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| 404 | 18 | Teri Hatcher | Dave Matthews Band | April 20, 1996 (1996-04-20) | |
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| 405 | 19 | Christine Baranski | The Cure | May 11, 1996 (1996-05-11) | |
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| 406 | 20 | Jim Carrey | Soundgarden | May 18, 1996 (1996-05-18) | |
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