The True Story of SNL’s Infamous 1981 ‘Riot’

Saturday Night Live has had its share of scandalous music performances over the past 50 years, but one punk band’s 1981 appearance remains unforgettable.

Los Angeles hardcore band Fear’s raucous musical performance has reached nearly mythic proportions among SNL fans over the past three decades, but NBC and Peacock’s new documentary Ladies & Gentlemen … 50 Years of SNL Music seeks to separate fact from fiction about a supposed riot in the studio.

In co-directors Questlove and Oz Rodriguez’s doc, which premiered on Monday, January 27, Fear singer Lee Ving and SNL staff recounted how legendary cast member John Belushi engineered one of the show’s most controversial moments of the 1980s.

Belushi had left SNL in 1979, but executive producer Dick Ebersol wanted the comedian to cameo in order to establish a link between the original cast and his revamped era. Belushi agreed to make a silent appearance opposite then-cast member Eddie Murphy, but only if Ebersol would book his favorite punk band in return.

“John Belushi found out about us. He liked our music. He became a fan of ours,” Lee Ving, 74, explained in the documentary. “Good lord, here we are, this riff-raff, rag-tag bunch… we don’t have [a record] distribution [deal].”

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Murphy, 63, recalled how the SNL cast and crew were utterly baffled by Ebersol allowing hardcore punk rock on air simply to secure a Belushi cameo.

“We thought it was crazy s— that John Belushi was making them put Fear on TV,” Murphy declared.

Taking place on Halloween night, this infamous 1981 episode was filled with extremely dark imagery and taboo humor – certainly fitting for its host, Halloween star Donald Pleasence. Viewers watched blood gushing from a Jack O’ Lantern in one scene, while cast member Christine Ebersole crooned about a murderous housewife in another sketch.

Not even the spooky sketches could have prepared viewers for the night’s loud and violent musical set from Fear. The band brought along their own slam-dancers for the front of the stage filled with future punk icons like Ian MacKaye, of Minor Threat, from Washington D.C. and ripped through a set of four songs in quick succession.

“John felt that in order to allow [Fear] to look the way that it looks genuinely, there had to be this contingent [of slam-dancers],” Ving explained.

As Fear performed songs with snarky titles like “New York’s Alright If You Like Saxophones” and “Let’s Have a War,” shocked viewers across the country witnessed slam-dancing for the first time.

“Mr. and Mrs. Normal America, who usually go see Saturday Night Live, they’re sort of looking askance at the punk rockers, wondering what the hell this is,” Lee Ving remembered, before recalling: “Mr. and Mrs. Tourist America are back in [the audience] looking at [us] like, ‘My God! What is this? Jesus, we’re gonna die!”

NBC eventually cut away from Fear mid-performance to regain control of the studio. Producer Dick Ebersol later admitted in 50 Years of SNL Music that he hadn’t “really figured out what slam-dancing was” before he allowed the punks into Studio 8H.

There have been widespread rumors about a riot as well as damage to the SNL studio in the ensuing decades, but nothing of the sort actually occurred.

“There wasn’t a riot,” Hal Willner, former SNL musical coordinator, explains in the documentary. “They didn’t destroy equipment. That was a good story, but [Fear] were totally nice people and acted totally professionally.”

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While the mythology around Fear’s SNL appearance may have been exaggerated over time, rock legend Jack White still regards the chaotic segment as a watershed for the show.

“That was a chance for this really kind of hardcore punk to be on nationwide television in a way that most people hadn’t seen before,” Jack White said in the doc. “It was kind of a dangerous move.”

Ladies & Gentlemen … 50 Years of SNL Music is available to stream now on Peacock.