Damon Wayans explains “Saturday Night Live” sketch that got him fired immediately: 'I snapped'

Damon Wayans is ready to laugh about his short-term employment at Saturday Night Live: "Yeah I got fired. We gonna talk about it."

The comedian sat down for an interview in Peacock's SNL50: Beyond Saturday Night for the docuseries' fourth episode titled, "Season 11: The Weird Year," a deep dive into one of the show's roughest seasons despite the return of creator Lorne Michaels after a five-year absence.

"I felt like I was born to be on Saturday Night Live. So I was not nervous for the audition," Wayans began. He explained that he'd already been working to develop Homey D. Clown and other characters that would become fan-favorites on his future sketch show, In Living Color, but never saw life on SNL.

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The working comic's onscreen resume was bare at the time, aside from a small role in Beverly Hills Cop, alongside Eddie Murphy, who'd recently departed the sketch show. The SNL superstar shared some words of wisdom when Wayans was cast on the show in 1985. "Eddie's advice to me was, 'Write your own sketches. Otherwise, they're gonna give you some Black people s--- to do and you ain't gonna like it," he reflected.

Those words turned into something of a prophecy for Wayans as he struggled to find a rapport with the writers.

"Hey, give me the ball; I know what this needs," he recalled of trying to get his own material on the show. "But they would shoot my ideas down." He cited Al Franken in particular as not meshing with his frame of reference.

"Everything Eddie said came true. They started writing me in their sketches," he said of roles that felt like stereotypes. He noted there were times he had to outright refuse a part the white writers created for him. "I'm like, 'Hell no.' I said, 'Listen, my mother's gonna watch this show. I can't do this. I won't do this.'"

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Finally, on March 15, 1986, 12 episodes into the season, he took matters into his own hands, albeit by leaning into a different stereotype for a sketch that would go down in SNL infamy for all the wrong reasons.

In "Mr. Monopoly," Wayans and castmate Randy Quaid played cops grilling a suspect (host Griffin Dunne) whose lawyer is the board game mascot. After doing things by the book at dress rehearsal, Wayans, unhappy that another of his sketches had been cut, went off script in the live version, playing his character as an over-the-top, effeminate gay stereotype, leaning his crotch into Dunne as he spoke.

"I thought it was weird, but people still laughed," Dunne recalled of Wayans' added affectations. "And then Lorne fired him pretty much as he walked off the stage."

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"I snapped. I just did not care," Wayans reflected. "I purposefully did that because I wanted [Michaels] to fire me," he explained.

Michaels called firing Wayans "really, really hard, but it had to be done."

"You cannot go rogue, you cannot try to steal a sketch," castmate A. Whitney Brown clarified about Michaels' action. "A lot of people don't know this about Saturday Night Live, but the actual amount of improvisation on that show is miniscule, maybe one line a year, I would bet one line every five years."

What some thought career suicide at the time turned out to be a boon to Wayans' career and pop culture in general as he went on to work with his famous family to make In Living Color, a sketch show featuring a largely Black cast (and launching the career of Jim Carrey, whom SNL passed on hiring) and serving a fresh point of view in the comedy landscape.

The show was wildly popular and even beat SNL to win the Emmy for Outstanding Variety, Music, or Comedy Series after its first season in 1990.

After exiting In Living Color, Wayans went on to star in The Last Boy Scout with Bruce Willis, Mo' Money, Blankman, Major Payne, The Great White Hype, and led the sitcom My Wife and Kids alongside Tisha Campbell-Martin. He currently stars on Poppa's House with his son, Damon Wayans Jr.

He also returned to SNL nearly nine years after his firing to host the April 8, 1995 episode, where he performed another effeminate character, but this time it was in the script. He revived his recurring In Living Color character Blaine Edwards and was joined by former castmate David Alan Grier as Antoine Merriweather from their "Men on Film" sketches.

Related: In Living Color cast: Where are they now?

It should also be noted that despite his termination mid-season 11, Michaels also invited Wayans back to perform stand-up in that season's finale.

"Lorne is a very forgiving man," Wayans said, "and I think he just wanted to let me know that he believed in me."

All four episodes of SNL50: Beyond Saturday Night are streaming on Peacock. Saturday Night Live returns with host Dave Chappelle Saturday at 11:30 p.m. ET/8:30 p.m. PT on NBC.

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