On October 18, 1986, Sam Kinison made his final appearance as a recurring special guest on Saturday Night Live. After being introduced by Malcolm-Jamal Warner from The Cosby Show (oddly enough), Kinison performed a six-minute stand-up set that touched on everything from the war on drugs to television evangelists. Because Kinison decided to include material that he hadn’t done during the dress rehearsal, NBC censors were unprepared and ended up cutting a couple of portions of his act from the West Coast broadcast of the episode. Lorne Michaels later blamed the edits on Kinison not playing by the rules.
“The drug war is on. They’ve got the pot. There’s no more pot,” Kinison joked in one bit. “And now they want everybody to stop smoking crack,” he continued. “Alright, we’ll make you a deal: We’ll stop smoking crack if you give us the pot back.” It was at that point that viewers on the West Coast were treated to a slide of the previous year’s SNL cast without explanation. The reason for this, according to Michaels, was that NBC had a policy at the time preventing any positive drug references from being made on the network.
Sam Kinison’s Final ‘SNL’ Guest Set Got Censored After He Broke Lorne Michaels’ Rules
A section of Kinison’s hunk about televangelist Pat Robertson talking to Jesus, which ended with a joke where the comic imagines what Jesus’s last words were, also got the axe. Michaels had reportedly forbidden him from doing it on the air, but Kinison threw it in anyway. When all was said and done, a total of 13 seconds worth of footage was clipped from the rerun. Though it might not sound like much, it was enough to get Kinison to complain to his fans about being censored by NBC.
In his 1994 book Brother Sam: The Short, Spectacular Life of Sam Kinison, Kinison’s brother, Bill, revealed that the pushback from Kinison’s fans got so bad that Michaels felt the need to call Kinison’s manager, Elliott Abbott, while the comedian was on the road. As Bill explained, Michaels told Abbott that not only were they receiving angry letters, but some people were “just sending s—t into NBC.” When Bill asked if Michaels meant they were mailing in garbage, Abbott responded by saying, “No! They’re sending s—t! Human s—t, in envelopes!”
To rectify the situation, Kinison was asked back to host SNL for the one and only time on November 15. You can check out his full, uncensored set from the October 18 episode below.
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