‘Saturday Night Live’: Adam Sandler Almost Lost His Chance When Audience Ratings ‘Didn’t Like Him’
Actor Adam Sandler is one of the biggest names to come from the Saturday Night Live cast in the 1990s. However, audiences tend to like consistency in familiar faces, so they didn’t necessarily warm up to the comedian very quickly. Sandler’s Saturday Night Live audience ratings weren’t very high, so NBC pressured creator Lorne Michaels to stop putting the actor on the show. However, he had other plans.
Adam Sandler joined ‘Saturday Night Live’ for 5 years
Sandler first joined Saturday Night Live at 24 years old in 1990 and he stayed for five years until 1995. NBC wanted to increase the show’s profitability and ratings, so they started to flood the cast with more talent, including Sandler, Mike Myers, and Chris Farley. The production feared that the cast would continue to leave their positions for a shot at the movie industry.
Saturday Night Love became increasingly well-known for bringing in a new haul of comedy talent, but it created some fuss behind the scenes. Some of the veteran cast members weren’t happy that the production kept growing the talent. The Saturday Night Live audiences initially felt the same, but they would later grow to like Sandler much more over time.
Adam Sandler’s ‘Saturday Night Live’ ratings were initially so low, he almost lost his chance at stardom
According to James Andrew Miller and Tom Shales’ Live From New York, the Saturday Night Live audiences didn’t initially care much for Sandler. As a result, he almost lost his chance at stardom in a knee-jerk reaction from the network. Nevertheless, Michaels still saw promise in him and decided to keep him on regardless.
Sandler told Miller and Shales that he recalled his early Saturday Night Live on-camera days resulted in Lorne hearing complaints about him. They asked him why they were using him for the show becasue of his “Q rating,” which is a measurement conducted across the United States to measure audience appeal surrounding a show, celebrity, or product.
NBC was using this score to determine which cast members on Saturday Night Live were most likable, and Sandler was not one of them. Viewers said he “sucked” and was “not fun to watch,” which is why the network told Michaels to stop using him. However, the co-creator had some words for the actor.
“When you first get on the show, it’s going to take time for the audience to like you, because they’re used to seeing Dana and Nealon and Hartman and guys that they’re comfortable laughing with,” Michaels said.
However, Sandler explained that after he was on Saturday Night Live a few more times, the audience grew to like him a little bit more and became comfortable with his sense of humor. As a result, he explained that he gained more confidence after audiences accepted him as a part of the show.
NBC fired him because they didn’t like his ‘gang’
Sandler’s sense of comfort on Saturday Night Live wouldn’t last forever. NBC executives didn’t particularly care for his “gang,” which also included Farley. Nevertheless, Sandler would surprise many folks around the world with his post-Saturday Night Live success in the entertainment industry.
The actor continues to show a range that goes from Grown Ups to the more serious Punch-Drunk Love and Uncut Gems. Aside from five Primetime Emmy nominations, the actor hasn’t earned as much praise during awards season for his film performances. However, that doesn’t stop critics from praising his dramatic turns in movies that call for him to pull from somewhere a bit deeper.
Similarly, audiences loved him in comedic roles such as Billy Madson, Happy Gilmore, Mr. Deeds, and 50 First Dates. The list goes on, which proves why he’s such an unstopppable force in the industry that all started with his work on Saturday Night Live.
