If John Lennon Was Such a Fan of ‘SNL,’ Why Did He Never Appear on the Show?
We’re less than a week away from Saturday Night Live’s highly-publicized 50th anniversary celebration, and a lot of major media organizations have been conducting interviews with pretty much every former cast member not named “Joe Piscopo.”
Today just spoke with one of the original Not Ready for Prime Time Players, Laraine Newman, who shared a number of behind-the-scenes details about her time on the show, including that the wardrobe area was just “one room with a bedsheet that separated the women from the men.” She also confirmed that there was indeed a “must wear underwear” sign backstage, but claimed that it was intended for Dan Aykroyd, not John Belushi, as costume designer Franne Lee had previously stated.
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Newman noted that she “had no idea who was watching” the show at the time, and was shocked when a former Beatle recognized her while she was crossing through the lobby of 30 Rock on her way to read-through. “Out of my peripheral vision I see these forms, and they come into focus and it’s John (Lennon) and Yoko (Ono),” Newman recalled. “And as John’s passing he goes, ‘Hi, Laraine.’ Not ‘hi,’ ‘Hi, Laraine.’”
Newman compared her reaction to the Lennon shout-out to Lou Costello’s stunned speechlessness in Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein.
This isn’t the first time that we’ve heard talk of Lennon’s Saturday Night Live fandom. Famously, Lennon was watching SNL when Lorne Michaels made his $3,000 offer to the Beatles to reunite, and suggested heading down to studio 8H with Paul McCartney “as a gag.”
And in 2020, the John Lennon Twitter account shared an apparent quote from Lennon praising a “hysterical” sketch parodying his domestic life with Ono. The 1980 Weekend Update segment, featuring host Malcolm McDowell as Lennon, aired just a few weeks before the singer was assassinated.
Oddly enough, despite the fact that Lennon was clearly a viewer of SNL and a New Yorker, he never appeared on the show. In fact, he’s the only member of the Beatles that never showed up on SNL. Paul McCartney has obviously become a semi-regular SNL fixture over the years, George Harrison was the musical guest in a 1976 episode and Ringo Starr hosted in 1984, but wasn’t the musical guest.
Lennon never appeared on SNL because he had stopped making live appearances by that point. His final concert appearance was in 1974, the year before SNL premiered; Lennon made a surprise guest appearance at Elton John’s Madison Square Concert gig.
Perhaps in an alternate timeline, Paul Simon retired from performing and John Lennon sang “Jealous Guy” while dressed as a giant turkey.
