Sunday Cinema | Frank Zappa On Saturday Night Live
By Scott Bernstein Nov 9, 2014 • 8:40 am PST
“It’s a very difficult thing to do; they never make it easy on anyone who hosts the show. All the direction and attention goes to the sketches. They’re not called skits–they become ‘incensed’ if you call them skits–and it’s all designed to accommodate the people who are regulars on the show, so anybody who goes on there to hosts is at a severe disadvantage. Because they never tell you what camera is on, and you’re not supposed to memorize your script because they’re rewriting right up to show time. And so you’re looking at the cue cards, and unless you’re used to acting live on TV, you haven’t got a prayer; you’ll be looking at the wrong camera. It was really hard,” Frank told Stereo Review in 1979 about his SNL hosting experience.
Zappa has been found on many “Worst SNL Hosts Ever” lists and detailed the backstory to Stereo Review, “And the other thing that happened was–and I didn’t find out about it until the day after the show–that the first day I went there for the meetings with them they didn’t like me and wanted to get rid of me. But no one said anything to my face while I was working on the thing. So they had written dialogue for me to say that I wouldn’t normally say; they wouldn’t let me write any of my own stuff.” For all the issues with Frank as an actor, there was no doubting his musical ability. We’ve compiled five clips from his 1976 and 1978 visits to SNL including a special guest spot from the one and only John Belushi.
Let’s take a look:
12/11/76:
10/21/78
