Scot Bertram

The Diceman Cometh

There was only one question coming in to Season Fifteen of Saturday Night Live: Could the show maintain the high quality that made Season Fourteen the best year in the show’s history to date?

The answer? Not quite.

With the entire cast back this year, the show brought back favorite characters like Hans and Franz, the Church Lady, Wayne and Garth, and Dieter from Sprockets. But through much of the season, the writing sagged, as it looked like the cast members were tiring of each other.

That doesn’t mean there weren’t highlights from the season. Writer Jack Handey contributed a number of classic off-kilter sketches and the season featured a murderer’s row of hosts, several of which would become SNL favorites through the years (Christopher Walken, John Goodman, Alec Baldwin, Rob Lowe, etc.)

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The show reached its unfortunate denouement in the second-to-last episode of the season, when Nora Dunn walked off the show to protest misogynistic comedian Andrew Dice Clay’s hosting gig. Dunn’s gambit angered the other cast members, most notably Jan Hooks, who thought it made her appearance on the show look like she was pro-misogyny. For her public display, Dunn was fired at the end of the season.

Nonetheless, the show was consistent throughout the season, devoid of both truly terrible and truly classic episodes. After five years together, producer Lorne Michaels would make significant changes to the cast in Season Sixteen. (Those changes begun at the end of Season Fifteen, with the addition of fresh faces David Spade and Rob Schneider.)

We discuss all these topics and much more on this week’s episode of “Wasn’t That Special.” Please subscribe and join us for a trip through every year of SNL. And consider joining at the Executive Producer level, where you get a whole load of extra commentary and clips that will help you become an SNL expert.

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