Adam Sandler was a main cast member on Saturday Night Live, Adam Sandler was actually fired from the show following the 1994-1995 season – here’s why. Saturday Night Live has produced some of the greatest comedy names of all time since its premiere season in 1975, including names like Bill Murray, Eddie Murphy, Will Ferrell, and Tina Fey, though most non-Adam Sandler SNL cast members exit on their own accord.
As the cast enjoys a significant level of fame from being the center of television once a week for a few years, the bigger stars tend to branch out on their own and begin successful movie careers.
Adam Sandler began his stint on SNL in 1990 after mostly taking small roles in TV shows and movies as well as performing stand-up in comedy clubs. Sandler was originally hired as a writer but was brought on as a featured cast member the next season.
Sandler was notable on SNL for his original musical skits, memorably his Thanksgiving and Hannakuh songs. He also enjoyed starring as the recurring Weekend Update character, Opera Man.
While most fans believed the exit simply allowed Adam Sandler movies to enter the public consciousness with Billy Madison in 1995, in reality, he was fired from Saturday Night Live by NBC.
Sandler claimed that the NBC executives didn’t like him and his crew of guys, particularly for some of the distracting antics he would pull behind the scenes at the behest of the writers. Sandler kept a good working relationship with showrunner Lorne Michaels, who likely couldn’t save him and fellow cast-member Chris Farley because he was already in hot water himself just like Adam Sandler.
SNL had received extremely poor ratings the past couple of seasons, so NBC was ready to go into a new direction to revamp viewership, which meant shuffling in new talent and kicking out old names like Sandler and possibly even Michaels himself.
