12 Awful SNL Episodes We Wish We Could Forget

"Saturday Night Live" has been on the air for 50 years, and later in its current 51st season, the show will air its milestone 1,000th episode. That's 1,000 episodes of the most iconic moments in television history, from Chris Farley yelling about living in a van down by the river, to Gilda Radner dancing with Steve Martin, to the video that changed the Internet forever, "Lazy Sunday." However, amid all those classic sketches, underrated cast members, and celebrity guests, there have been episodes we'd rather forget.

Anyone who knows how an "SNL" episode is made knows that the show is prone to both good and bad outings. Making generation-defining comedy week after week with only days of prep is rarer than the show's success makes it seem. Throughout nearly 1,000 episodes, there have even been entire seasons of the show derided by critics and all the more forgotten by the show's audience. 

The following 12 episodes, while being some of the worst the NBC staple has had to offer, are bad for a variety of reasons. For some, they simply did not meet the standard of their illustrious guest hosts, while others were doomed from the moment they said, "Live from New York, it's Saturday night!"

Keep scrolling to see the dozen "SNL" installments we don't plan to rewatch anytime soon, then drop a comment with your own picks!

In terms of entire "Saturday Night Live" seasons we wish we could forget, one that often comes to mind for fans is the 11th season, which aired from Fall 1985 to Summer 1986. What was supposed to be a comeback season for creator Lorne Michaels, who had departed ahead of the show's sixth season, quickly turned into a misguided attempt to recapture the magic of the show's origin, with Michaels casting a slew of young talent like Jon Lovitz, Anthony Michael Hall, Robert Downey Jr., and Joan Cusack. 

The very first episode of the season, hosted by Madonna with musical guest Simple Minds, feels like foreshadowing for everything that would eventually go wrong with this season. For starters, the cold open features Michaels and NBC executive Brandon Tartikoff testing the new cast members' urine for drugs — especially tone deaf considering this was only three years after beloved former cast member John Belushi's premature death by drug overdose. (The cold open was later removed from future broadcasts of the episode.)

Despite being the biggest star "SNL" could've possibly gotten to host in 1985, Madonna doesn't do much to elevate a mediocre debut, though Lovitz's introduction would prove fruitful for the show's future. If you have any desire to know more about just how bad this season turned out, check out the docuseries "SNL50: Beyond Saturday Night," now streaming on Peacock; Episode 4 — appropriately titled "Season 11: The Weird Year" — explores the "pivotal year that resets the show's direction."

"Saturday Night Live" regained its form in the 1990s, with a cast of heavy hitters including Lovitz, as well as Jan Hooks, Phil Hartman, Mike Myers, and Dana Carvey. However, few episodes were as controversial at the time of airing as the penultimate episode of Season 15, hosted by Andrew Dice Clay, a controversial stand-up comedian whose satirical jokes about women led to not only audience members boycotting the episode, but cast member Nora Dunn and planned musical guest Sinead O'Connor  also doing so.

Sadly, Clay wasn't really able to prove all those protesters wrong with his hosting abilities. He pretty much played the same character in every sketch, and the only saving graces were an installment of Phil Hartman's Anal Retentive Chef (in which Clay didn't appear at all), as well as a runner in which Jan Hooks and Kevin Nealon sarcastically explained to the audience that their absence from sketches was out of protest for the host. 

While it may not be the worst or best episode of "Saturday Night Live" to come from this era, it's clear the behind-the-scenes controversy overshadowed the cast's ability to make a decent night of comedy, and Clay didn't exactly help by playing himself in every sketch. In terms of absolutely horrific episodes from this early '90s era, there's one in particular that often gets brought up by cast and writers who were there ...

At some point in the long history of "Saturday Night Live," somebody had the bright idea to invite Steven Seagal to host. What resulted was one of the worst episodes of "SNL," with legendary behind-the-scenes stories that are even worse than what ended up on TV. Seagal's pitches for sketches were allegedly downright offensive, he took himself way too seriously to be made fun of, and many of the cast and writers claim that Seagal personally insulted them throughout the week.

Every one of these sketches is a poorly conceived scene from one of Seagal's movies, beating up beloved characters like Hans and Franz, Richmeister the Copy Guy, and, of course, Chris Farley at several points. The crowning jewel of this mountain of terrible sketches is the very last one, a scene in which Seagal beats up a boardroom of Exxon executives, none of whom are played by "SNL" cast members. After making mincemeat of them, Seagal breaks the fourth wall and says to the camera, "This is what happens when you pollute the planet!" while a bewildered audience is silent. 

To give this episode the slightest amount of credit, it does contain some great sketches in which Seagal doesn't appear, like one impression-filled music recording for the benefit of free-range chickens, featuring Adam Sandler as Axl Rose, Victoria Jackson as Cyndi Lauper, and Jan Hooks as ... Diana Ross? Okay, scratch that, maybe this sketch didn't age well, either. 

Athletes hosting "Saturday Night Live" can be a mixed bag. Sometimes, you strike gold with the likes of Peyton Manning and Charles Barkley. Other times, you end up with an episode like Nancy Kerrigan's. Kerrigan had quite the year in 1994, starting off in January when she was assaulted during the U.S. Figure Skating Championships, a hit orchestrated by her rival Tonya Harding (dramatized in Margot Robbie's standout performance in "I, Tonya"). 

Only two months after the leg attack heard 'round the world, Kerrigan hosted "Saturday Night Live" with musical guest Aretha Franklin, but the episode's disjointedness isn't entirely her fault. For starters, in an unconventional (and, given its ratings at the time, desperate) move, former host Michael McKean debuted in the cast, although his talents would mostly feel wasted during his tenure on the show.

Kerrigan does her best with the sub-par material, but her unfamiliarity with performing is apparent and not at all aided by the show's already-present struggles in the mid-'90s. It's all the more a reminder that despite having undeniable talent like Phil Hartman and Chris Farley around, the show was just as capable of producing bad episodes then as it is now. Maybe it (rightfully) recolors your perspective on the quality of modern-day "SNL," and for that, I guess, well done, Kerrigan. 

Surprisingly, Sarah Jessica Parker made her "Saturday Night Live" hosting debut years before her iconic New York-set series "Sex and the City,"; in 1994, she was there promoting Tim Burton's "Ed Wood." Much like Kerrigan's episode the season prior, this episode had lots of glaring flaws that aided in the poor critical reception of "SNL" at the time, culminating in the infamous New York Magazine article, "How Saturday Night Live Became A Grim Joke." 

Simply put, none of the sketches in this episode have anything going for them. There's a poorly conceived Brooklyn-based talk show sketch starring Parker and Jay Mohr that feels like a precursor to "Bronx Beat," albeit without anything funny about it. There's also a slew of questionable sketches: In one, Myers plays a Chinese man who owns a fortune cookie factory; in another, McKean plays studio exec Robert Evans, creeping on a young actress played by Parker.

Ultimately, despite some decent musical guest performances from R.E.M. and a heartfelt tribute to the then-recently passed Michael O'Donoghue from Bill Murray, this episode suffers from the lack of grounded cast members like Hartman and a host who could elevate subpar material. The worst of it all? A "Wizard of Oz" sketch that just goes to show how bloated and unfunny this season had become, even with talented comedians behind the scenes. 

There's a reason why most directors stay behind the camera, and watching any of Quentin Tarantino's films will prove that. Though the filmmaker is behind some of the greatest films of the 21st century ("Django Unchained," "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood...," "Kill Bill"), he's not as good an actor as you'd expect, given that he appears onscreen in most of his movies. That lack of screen charisma is on full display in his hosting stint on "Saturday Night Live" in 1995, during the show's 21st season.

While the episode has some bright spots worth mentioning, including the debut sketch of Will Ferrell and Cheri Oteri's iconic and overexcited Spartan cheerleaders, as well as Norm Macdonald's Stan Hooper (a role he'd later reprise on his own short-lived Fox sitcom), Tarantino's awkward energy brings down most of the sketches he's in. Perhaps the best example of this is a cringy director's panel sketch, in which Tarantino plays himself bragging about sleeping with all his leading ladies. Imagine that sketch being aired today — we shudder just thinking about it. 

However, to give Tarantino credit where credit is due, this episode is a marked step up from the lowest lows of Season 20, even though the cast at this point (including immediate standouts like Ferrell, Molly Shannon, and Darrell Hammond) is newer than that season's veterans. 

Oh boy, here we go.

No one would argue that Adrien Brody isn't one of today's finest actors, evidenced by his two Academy Awards for Best Actor (his most recent win for "The Brutalist" broke the record for the longest Oscar acceptance speech ever). However, as the host of NBC's sketch comedy show in 2003, an Oscar winner Brody is not. He gets off to a pretty rough start in his monologue, laying a kiss on several cast members and an audience plant, poking fun at his own unsolicited kiss of Halle Berry at the Oscars earlier that year. 

For the most part, Brody is completely fine in the sketches where he plays a supporting role, including Brian Fellow's Safari Planet, but he adopts incredibly offensive accents ranging from effeminate stereotypes to unplaceable foreign dialects. The worst and most infamous of all isn't even in a sketch; it's in his introduction to musical guest Sean Paul, where he dons fake dreadlocks and speaks in a bad Jamaican accent for an uninterrupted 40 seconds. 

It's one of the cringiest things that's ever aired on "Saturday Night Live," and allegedly got Brody banned from the show; he claims this isn't true, but also noted that he hasn't been asked to return. While Brody's career seems just fine, "SNL" did do the right thing and apologize for it during an In Memoriam for poorly aged sketches during "SNL50: The Anniversary Special."

It's honestly offensive that we have to put an actress of Kate Winslet's caliber even close to this list, but in the spirit of objectivity, we must. In 2004, Winslet had already proven herself one of the great actors of her generation, from a leading role in James Cameron's "Titanic" to cult classics like "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind." When she hosted "SNL," she was promoting "Finding Neverland," and though Winslet brimmed with talent, the writers and cast of 2004 let her down at every turn.

Both the cold open and Winslet's monologue reference the previous episode's awkward exposing of Ashlee Simpson's lip-syncing, which is a pretty poor waste of Winslet's talents right from the start. Sadly, the incident is brought up again, thanks to Horatio Sanz's always-in-poor-taste Elton John impression on Weekend Update. Later sketches in the episode just feel like an embarrassing showcase of the worst this cast had to offer, as much as Winslet does her best with the subpar material. 

Maybe we could've argued that Winslet isn't as cut out for comedy as she is for slow-burn dramas like "Mare of Easttown," but her cameo in Ricky Gervais' "Extras" and roles in "The Holiday" and "The Regime" prove she's plenty capable of making us laugh. Hopefully, the door isn't closed for her to come back and redeem herself, given her approval of the show's "Easttown" parody, "Murder Durdur."

Paris Hilton is one of many "Saturday Night Live" hosts invited based on sheer celebrity, and not because they have any actual comedy talents to show off. However, not even Kim Kardashian's 2021 episode feels as awful as Hilton's hosting in 2005 felt. Her monologue features a shoehorned cameo from her chihuahua, Tinkerbell, and her first sketch co-stars Maya Rudolph as Donatella Versace skiing with, once again, Sanz's very bad Elton John. 

Though Hilton's presence is unwelcome in nearly every sketch, there are some bangers in this episode. There's a runner promoting a website selling toys for kids whose parents don't care, a memorable sketch where Hilton sells a phone sex service for fantasy and sci-fi nerds, and Fred Armisen as Rafael Alonso promoting a school for learning about computers. But then, there's also a very boring sketch in which Hilton plays Melania to Darrell Hammond's Donald Trump, and some pretty bad examples of male cast members doing drag. 

While it's far from the worst episode on this list, it's still a low point in what was otherwise a solid season going into the mid-2000s, prior to the introduction of all-timers like Bill Hader, Kristen Wiig, and Andy Samberg. That being said, as far as television disasters starring Paris Hilton go, there was a lot worse coming in the mega-celebrity's career.

It may seem surprising that January Jones is on this list, as she's far from untalented or a bad actor; in 2009, she had already been starring in AMC's "Mad Men" as Betty Draper. But she seemed to have difficulty with live television, as her "SNL" episode saw Jones stumbling on her lines, not knowing her cues, and unknowingly breaking the fourth wall.

Sadly, though Jones' performance is pretty rough to watch back, a lot of the sketches in the episode weren't exactly helping. There's a really lazy "Rear Window" sketch where the main joke is... Jones' Grace Kelly farting. There's a news sketch where Wiig plays a reporter crushing on a Dairy Queen employee she's interviewing, which would be good if it wasn't a repeat of previous installments. There's also, yet again, a very homophobic sketch in which Hader plays Dr. Jekyll trying to defend his alter ego's gay tendencies. 

That being said, there were some diamonds in the rough. Jones excelled in the pre-taped sketch "A Lady's Guide to Throwing a Party," full of outdated advice from a 1950s housewife. There was also a decent digital short, "Get Out," where Armisen kept walking in on Samberg on the toilet, even when he's not in the bathroom. 

We all knew this one was coming. "Saturday Night Live" has been no stranger to inviting political candidates on during their campaigns, as seen in cameos from Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Bob Dole, and, most recently, Kamala Harris. However, Donald Trump's hosting of "Saturday Night Live" in 2015, in the middle of his campaign for the Republican nomination, has aged poorly for all the wrong reasons. (It wasn't Trump's first time hosting, though, as he'd hosted in 2004 to promote "The Apprentice.")

And yet, if any of those "SNL" sketches about Trump from the past decade or so have exhausted you, this episode from 2015 has them all beat. Nearly every sketch is about Trump, whether it's imagining how utopian everything in America will be after he's elected, to interrupting a banal sketch by live-tweeting criticisms of the cast, to joining Cecily Strong and Vanessa Bayer's uncharismatic adult film stars as they endorse his presidency. 

Even the sketches where Trump doesn't play himself are hard to watch, especially in hindsight. There's an incredibly dated parody of "Hotline Bling" mocking Drake's dancing, and the sight of the future president awkwardly dancing to that song... yikes.

There's only one person on Earth who thinks the comedy in Elon Musk's "Saturday Night Live" episode was funny, and that person's name is Elon Musk. In 2021, the future owner of Twitter X hosted the show on the Saturday before Mother's Day, and what should've been an entertaining night was bogged down by Musk's own inability to act, understand comedy, and laugh at himself. 

This episode also had some of the worst sketches that Season 46 had to offer, including "Gen Z Hospital," a soap opera riddled with Zoomer slang that felt abhorrent coming out of the mouths of nobody from Gen Z, and a Weekend Update feature in which Musk played a financial advisor hawking Dogecoin. The pièce de résistance of awfulness was a courtroom sketch in which Musk played Wario, featuring his then-partner Grimes as Princess Peach. 

Behind-the-scenes revelations of Musk's behavior on set haven't helped the episode's reputation, including Chloe Fineman alleging that he made her cry over one of her sketch ideas. That being said, this episode had the aforementioned "Murder Durdur" sketch parodying "Mare of Easttown," so at least it's not all bad.