Comedy icon Chevy Chase has publicly revealed his disappointment and hurt feelings after being left out of the landmark television celebration for Saturday Night Live's 50th anniversary earlier this year. The original cast member, who helped launch the iconic show in 1975, was notably absent from the stage during NBC's SNL50: The Anniversary Special broadcast in February.
A Painful Omission for an Original Star
In the forthcoming CNN documentary I'm Chevy Chase and You're Not, set to premiere on January 1, Chase opens up about the snub. "Well, it was kind of upsetting actually," Chase admits, according to reports from Deadline and PEOPLE. "This is probably the first time I'm saying it. But I expected that I would've been on the stage too with all the other actors."
Chase, who was the first-ever host of the show's Weekend Update segment, specifically questioned why he wasn't invited to participate in that iconic part of the special, especially when fellow original cast member Bill Murray was included. "Why was Bill Murray there and why was I not? I don't have an answer for that," he said.
The actor attended the special as an audience member. He revealed he sent a text message to longtime SNL producer Lorne Michaels expressing his hurt, but later retracted it. "I said, 'Okay, I take it back, silly.' But it's not that silly. Somebody's made a bad mistake there... They should've had me on that stage. It hurt," Chase stated.
Behind the Scenes of the Snub
Chase's wife, Jayni, provided further context in the documentary, noting that her husband believed until the day of the show that he might appear in "two bits." "They were going back and forth," she explained. "And then, all of the sudden, 'No, there's no bit.'"
According to PEOPLE, Michaels indicated there were multiple versions of the Weekend Update segment considered and suggested there were concerns Chase "wasn't as focused." Fellow SNL alumnus Martin Short offered a simpler explanation, stating there were simply "too many people" to include everyone from the show's vast 50-year history.
The documentary, directed by Emmy winner Marina Zenovich, aims to explore the complex legacy of the comedian. Zenovich said she wanted to understand "the real person behind the guarded, conflicted man we've often seen on camera."
A Legacy Marred by Controversy
Despite his fame from the National Lampoon's Vacation series, Fletch, and Three Amigos, Chase's career has been punctuated by a reputation for difficult behaviour and public controversies.
He has acknowledged past physical altercations with castmate Bill Murray during the early SNL days. In 2012, he was fired from the TV show Community by creator Dan Harmon after reportedly using a racial slur aimed at co-star Donald Glover. Glover later reflected that he saw Chase as "fighting time."
Chase has also been publicly critical of SNL in recent years. In a 2018 interview with the Washington Post, he lambasted the show's modern humour as "the worst f***ing humour in the world." Furthermore, when director Jason Reitman screened his film about SNL's debut for Chase, the comedian told Reitman he "should be embarrassed" by the final product.
I'm Chevy Chase and You're Not airs on CNN on January 1 at 8 p.m. Eastern Time.
