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Chevy Chase is speaking out over what he says was an “upsetting” exclusion from SNL50: The Anniversary Special.
The actor and original Saturday Night Live cast member, 82, revealed in CNN Films’ forthcoming documentary, I’m Chevy Chase and You’re Not, that he was “hurt” over how little he was tapped to be involved in the milestone anniversary celebration.
“Well, it was kind of upsetting actually,” he said. “This is probably the first time I’m saying it. But I expected that I would’ve been on the stage too with all the other actors. When Garrett [Morris] and Laraine [Newman] went on the stage there, I was curious as to why I didn’t. No one asked me to. Why was I left aside?”
Later, while referring to the night’s “Weekend Update” segment, he asked, “Why was Bill Murray there and why was I not? I don’t have an answer for that.”
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“I did bring it up once in a text to Lorne and then took it back,” Chase said. “I said, ‘Okay, I take it back, silly.’ But it’s not that silly. Somebody’s made a bad mistake there. I don’t know who it was, but somebody made a mistake. They should’ve had me on that stage. It hurt.”
The special, which took place back in February and featured familiar faces from throughout the show’s half-century run, was initially going to include more of the actor, the doc reveals. Chase’s wife, Jayni Chase, shared in the film that people “told Chevy up until that day that there were two bits, they were going back and forth.”
“And then, all of the sudden, ‘No, there’s no bit,'” she recalled.
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“There were a couple versions of [‘Weekend Update’] and we went back and forth on that,” SNL creator Lorne Michaels said. “There was also a caution from somebody that I don’t want to name that Chevy, you know, wasn’t as focused.”
Martin Short also shared that after “50 years of casts,” the special didn’t include any speaking parts for some other staples of the show, including Billy Crystal, noting that there were “too many people to fill.”
Chase starred on SNL from its 1975 debut through the middle of its second season in 1976. During his run, he served as the first anchor of “Weekend Update.” The new documentary from CNN Films follows the actor’s “rise from breakout Saturday Night Live phenomenon to box-office royalty and his equally spectacular fall from grace,” per a description.
I’m Chevy Chase and You’re Not premieres on Jan. 1 at 8 p.m. ET/PT on CNN.
