Frank Zappa: Why Saturday Night Live Banned The Musician Forever

Frank Zappa: Why Saturday Night Live Banned Frank Zappa from hosting or appearing as the musical guest.

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Eclectic Musician Frank Zappa would first appear on NBC’s variety sketch show Saturday Night Live in 1976 as the musical guest. Two years later he’d appear as the host and musical guest and it would result in him getting banned. Let’s take a look at what happened.
On October 21, 1978 Frank Zappa was tapped to host saturday night live and appear as the musical guest. It was a rare occurrence back in the day for the show to have the same host and musical guest. It feels more common nowadays. Unfortunately for the show and Zappa it didn’t go well.. Looking uncomfortable during the beginning of the show Zappa would start things off by reminding the audience that he was reading off of cue cards.
Each episode of SNL involves a week of brainstorming ideas for sketches, writing the sketches and then rehearsing. It was during the run up to his hosting date that Zappa didn’t appear to get along with the cast of the show. So much so, that some of the cast members refused to even appear onstage with the musician during the final segment of the show known as the ‘goodnight segment’. Perhaps part of the reason Zappa didn’t gel with the cast was because it was the 70’s and drug use was pretty rampant amongst the SNL staff, something Zappa disapproved of.
After a poorly received dress rehearsal Zappa adopted an attitude of indifference, and it was obvious to those watching at home.
A year after his appearance Zappa would be interviewed by Stereo Review and look back at his appearance hosting SNL Saying “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.” Adding They [SNL] had written dialogue for me to say that I wouldn’t normally say; they wouldn’t let me write any of my own stuff.”
In 1990 comedian and cast member Dana Carvey would end up immitating Frank Zappa on the show during an episode that comedian andrew dice clay hosted.