Tracy Morgan Says He Felt ‘Culturally Isolated’ His First 3 Years on “SNL”: ‘Whitest Show in America’

Tracy Morgan was excited to join the cast of Saturday Night Live back in 1996.

Feeling at home on the cast would be another story, however. The comedian came in eager to share a different perspective on the show's 22nd season, his first.

"I wanted to show them my world, how funny it was. But the first three years, I felt like I was being culturally isolated sometimes," he shares in SNL50: Beyond Saturday Night, the new Peacock docuseries looking back at the late night show's storied past.

"I’m coming from a world of Blacks. I’m an inner city kid. To be on the whitest show in America, I felt by myself. I felt like they weren’t getting it," Morgan, now 56, admits.

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Related: Tracy Morgan Reflects on 'Fateful' Accident 10 Years Later (Exclusive)

That changed when Morgan had a conversation about his feelings with producer Lorne Michaels.

"Lorne Michaels had that talk with me. He said, ‘Tracy, I hired you because you’re funny, not because you’re Black. So just do your thing.’ And that’s when I started doing my thing."

Morgan is one of several cast members who watches back their audition tape during the Peacock docuseries; afterward, he says, “I don’t know what Lorne Michaels and them saw, but they saw something.”

Morgan was the ninth Black cast member to be hired on Saturday Night Live. He was a regular on the show for seven years and would later return to NBC as part of the cast of 30 Rock, which ran from 2006 to 2013.

SNL50: Beyond Saturday Night is streaming now on Peacock.

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