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This year marks the 50th anniversary of Saturday Night Live, and to commemorate, fans are getting an exclusive behind-the-scenes look through a new docuseries on Peacock, SNL50: Beyond Saturday Night.
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The four-part series brings together many current and former cast members, writers, and celebrity hosts to reflect on the groundbreaking history of SNL and their unique experiences within the show.
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Along with sharing the stories behind the most iconic sketches, many returning cast members were asked to reflect on their auditions and early experiences on the show, revealing what it's truly like to secure a coveted spot on the cast roster.
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While joining SNL was a dream come true, Tracy Morgan opened up about his experience feeling 'culturally isolated' as one of the few people of color on the predominantly white cast during the ‘90s.
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"I wanted to show them my world, how funny it was. But the first three years, I felt like I was being culturally isolated sometimes," he shared in the docuseries. "Coming from a Black, inner-city background, being on the whitest show in America, I felt alone."
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During his early years on the show, Tracy reached a pivotal moment when he confided in SNL creator Lorne Michaels about his true feelings.
"Lorne Michaels had that conversation with me. He said, 'Tracy, I hired you because you're funny, not because you're Black. So just do your thing,'" Tracy recalled. "And that’s when I began to truly embrace my style."
Tracy isn’t the only Black cast member who has spoken out about the cultural challenges on SNL in its early years. In the docuseries, Damon Wayans also shared how he 'purposefully' got himself fired from the show in 1985, frustrated by the restrictive material the writers provided each week.
Damon recalled Eddie Murphy advising him before joining the cast to write his own sketches, warning, 'Otherwise, they're going to give you some Black people stuff to do, and you won’t like it.'
Damon shared how his own sketch ideas were ignored by the writers, while he was instead asked to perform characters rooted in offensive stereotypes, often based on scripts not his own.
Damon’s decision to go off-script and parody a different stereotype led to Lorne firing him when he walked off stage. Reflecting on his firing, Damon said: "I just did not care... I purposely did that because I wanted him to fire me."
