Comedian Damon Wayans appears as a sort of ghost from Saturday Night Live’s past in the new Peacock docuseries SNL50: Beyond Saturday Night to explain why he “went rogue” and “wanted [Lorne Michaels] to fire me” after his brief stint during the show’s notoriously troubled 1985-1986 season of the show.
Wayans says in the doc, which began streaming on Thursday, that he was tired of his ideas being “shot down” as he chafed against racially insensitive sketches from the show’s writers. The comedian was trying to follow cast mate Eddie Murphy’s advice as a former Black cast member on the show.
“Eddie’s advice to me was, ‘Write your own sketches. Otherwise, they’re gonna give you some Black people s--t to do and you ain’t gonna like it,’” Wayans recalls. But getting his own ideas on the air proved difficult.