5 Times Chevy Chase Pissed Off ‘SNL’ Cast Members Before the Show Even Started

1 John Belushi

According to Saturday Night: A Backstage History of Saturday Night Live, one of the show’s writers noticed that “within two-thirds of the first year, it began to seem that Chevy was more worried about his next cold opening than about being part of the team.”

John Belushi also noticed. He had been the breakout star when the two comics starred in National Lampoon stage shows, and he fumed when Chase got all of SNL’s early attention. “I go where I’m kicked,” Belushi groused about his status on the show. “They throw me bones dogs wouldn’t chew on.”

The rivalry played out in a sketch where Belushi welcomes back all the cast members from the summer break while ignoring Chase. Finally, Belushi turns to him and says, “Listen, Chevy, I’ve been thinking about what I said. We’ve been together a long time, friends a long time, and I don’t think that should stop us from being friends.”

Chase and Belushi then exchange a series of complicated high-fives until Belushi punches Chase in the face, sending him tumbling off the stage. It was all a joke — but everyone on the show knew how real it was. 

2 Will Ferrell

Worst SNL host ever? That’s easy, explained Will Ferrell in the oral history Live From New York: It was Chase, and it wasn’t even close. Maybe Chase swallowed too many back pills that week he returned to host, Ferrell said, but that was no excuse for Chevy to suggest to a female writer, “Maybe you can give me a hand job later.”

“In hindsight, I wish we’d all gotten up and walked out of the room,” Ferrell said. “He’d yell at someone down the hallway — scream and yell — and you would look at him, and he’d see you were looking at him and he would smile like, ‘I’m just joking.’ We’d be like, ‘No, I don’t think you are.’”

3 Terry Sweeney

Sweeney was the show’s first openly gay cast member, making him a target for Chase’s brand of homophobic humor. “Oh, you’re the gay guy, right?” Chase said upon meeting Sweeney. “I’ve got an idea for a sketch for you. How about we say you have AIDS, and we weigh you every week?”

Jon Lovitz remembers Sweeney asking Chase if he could do anything for him. “Well,” Chase replied, “you can start by licking my balls.”

Lorne Michaels made Chase apologize, which made him “really furious. He was just beside himself,” Sweeney remembered. “It was just awful. He acted horribly to me. He acted horribly to everyone.” 

4 Jane Curtin

After Chase ditched the show to become a movie star, Curtin took over as host of Weekend Update. It was a star turn for Curtin, at least until Chase came back to host. Michaels and Chase called her to the 30 Rock offices while she was on her way to the ballet — Chase was kicking her off the segment that week because “his fans wanted to see him.”

“You sit there, and you have pieces of your arm bitten off and then you leave,” she remembered. “But it heals. It grows back.”

5 Bill Murray

Chase’s treatment of Curtin was just one of the reasons Murray decided Chase had gotten too big for his britches. Different storytellers have different versions of the fight— including, improbably, musical guest Billy Joel — but some things are consistent:

• The two men bickered throughout the week, with their arguments intensifying on the Saturday of the show.
• Both got off nasty insults, with Chase comparing Murray’s pockmarked complexion to the rough surface of the moon, and Murray suggesting that Chase “go fuck your wife, she needs it.”
• An actual fistfight broke out just moments before Chase had to deliver his opening monologue. Both men landed blows before Belushi (who helped instigate the brawl) got between them.

“It was ugly,” said Laraine Newman. “I’d never seen guys fighting like that, let alone people I knew.”

“We’re like, ‘These guys are crazy,” Joel told Howard Stern of his and his band’s reaction. “‘We think we’re crazy? These people are nuts.’”