"(Hey,) Jesus"--- the sketch that (I think) wasn't

[fflo]

In the featurette (that was almost as long as the feature) on this Saturday Night Live disc houseguest & I watched, one of the writers speaks briefly about the hot water they got in over religious things (more than over stuff about sex or drugs). They'd had a hard time, for instance, with Lisa Looper, as Mary, getting noogies from Todd/Joseph in a "Nerds Nativity" Xmas pageant sketch.

I think the story was that they weren't allowed to execute an idea they'd had that was basically What if Christ hadn't been executed but had instead gotten 5-to-10? Then, when he got out after doing his time, somebody who'd known him before was going to run into him and say, "Jesus---you look great! God, I thought you were dead."

I laughed and laughed and laughed....

Comments

[disclaimerwill.livejournal.com]

Hee! I wish they'd gotten away with that too. From what I've read, their problems with NBC about religion started with the very first show, after they got complaints about George Carlin saying, "God is only a semi-supreme being because everything He ever made has died!"

There was a great quote from Anne Beatts, writer of that Lisa Loopner sketch, in an SNL book I read. She was talking about how NBC didn't want there to be a run where Lisa and Todd are making a lot of "ass" puns about a donkey in the pageant because they said, "You can't say 'ass' in front of the Virgin Mary!" Beatts responded, "Luckily, it's not the Virgin Mary. It's Gilda Radner playing Lisa Loopner playing the Virgin Mary with a paper plate on her head."

Man, there was some good stuff in those first five years...

[scrawlspace.livejournal.com]

That would have been excellent!!