{"id":541972,"date":"2026-06-18T17:13:17","date_gmt":"2026-06-18T17:13:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/541972\/"},"modified":"2026-06-18T17:13:17","modified_gmt":"2026-06-18T17:13:17","slug":"50-years-ago-snl-aired-a-sketch-so-controversial-it-forced-the-shows-first-ever-on-air-apology","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/541972\/","title":{"rendered":"50 Years Ago, \u2018SNL\u2019 Aired a Sketch So Controversial It Forced the Show\u2019s First-Ever On-Air Apology"},"content":{"rendered":"

On April 24, 1976, Saturday Night Live ran a sketch entitled \u201cThe Claudine Longet Invitational,\u201d featuring Chevy Chase<\/a> and Jane Curtin. For those who don\u2019t know, Longet was a popular French actress and singer who fatally shot her boyfriend, Olympic skier Vladimir \u201cSpider\u201d Sabich, a month earlier in what she claimed was an accident. <\/p>\n

The SNL sketch made light of the incident by having Longet accidentally shoot the contestants of a freestyle skiing competition while Chase and Curtin comment on it. \u201cThat looked almost like skeet shooting,\u201d says Curtin at one point, to which Chase responds, \u201cYou must mean ski shooting.\u201d<\/p>\n

Neither Longet nor her lawyers found the above sketch amusing and made their feelings clear to the show\u2019s producers. This resulted in SNL announcer Don Pardo delivering the first-ever on-air apology in the history of the series during the following week\u2019s broadcast. \u201cIt is desirable to correct any misunderstanding that a suggestion was made that, in fact, a crime had been committed,\u201d the statement began<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe satire was fictitious and its intent only humorous. This is a statement of apology if the material was misinterpreted.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Dark \u2018SNL\u2019 Sketch That Led to the Show\u2019s First-Ever On-Air Apology<\/p>\n

But even though SNL has stirred up its fair share of controversy, there weren\u2019t a ton of apologies issued over the air after that. In fact, the only comparable apology occurred more than 40 years later, when Pete Davidson apologized<\/a> for making a joke at former Navy SEAL Dan Crenshaw\u2019s expense. On the previous week\u2019s show, Davidson compared Crenshaw\u2014who wears an eyepatch\u2014to a \u201chitman in a porno movie.\u201d Davidson eventually revealed that he was forced<\/a> to apologize.<\/p>\n

As for Longet, she was found guilty<\/a> of negligent homicide in 1977. According to her, she\u2019d found a pistol in Sabich\u2019s house and asked him how to use it just before it unexpectedly went off. However, a detective who\u2019d spoken to her about it testified that Longet told him she\u2019d pretended to fire the gun just prior to Sabich being shot. Longet received a 30-day jail sentence<\/a>, which the judge allowed her to serve at a time of her own choosing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On April 24, 1976, Saturday Night Live ran a sketch entitled \u201cThe Claudine Longet Invitational,\u201d featuring Chevy Chase…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":541973,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[265],"tags":[18,117,19,17,3605,15460,1238,128],"class_list":["post-541972","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-eire","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-saturday-night-live","tag-snl","tag-television","tag-tv"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116772235317841798","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/541972","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=541972"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/541972\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/541973"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=541972"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=541972"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=541972"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}