Fear on Saturday Night Live Documentary
November 9, 2021 10:12 AM   Subscribe

Short (10 min) documentary about Fear's performance on Saturday Night Live on 1981. From Jeff Krulik the film maker that brought us "Heavy Metal Parking Lot". In 1981, Lorne Michaels and John Belushi wanted to get some authentic punks to appear on SNL as audience members for the Halloween episode's musical guest, LA punk band Fear. They called Ian MacKaye (Minor Threat/Fugazi) in DC. They were looking for about 15 people to travel up to NYC and appear on the show. More like 80 punks would descended on 30 Rock. During the performance, the audience slammed, got into fist fights, and created more mayhem than SNL producers had bargained for. When DC punk rock superfan, Bill MacKenzie, came from backstage wielding a gigantic pumpkin, SNL went to dead air before the pumpkin was unceremoniously smashed over a guy's head.
posted by josher71 (14 comments total) 25 users marked this as a favorite
 
IIRC, the HarDCore turnout would have been higher if PIL hadn't been playing that same night.
posted by Mr. Yuck at 11:09 AM on November 9, 2021 [2 favorites]


Worth it for the Donald Pleasence-in-full-ham-mode intro alone.
posted by Think_Long at 11:09 AM on November 9, 2021 [2 favorites]


Chekov's Pumpkin.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 12:10 PM on November 9, 2021 [7 favorites]


Maxell UD XL II tapes, man.
posted by OHenryPacey at 12:10 PM on November 9, 2021 [2 favorites]


I just realized Belushi' been gone for almost 40 years.
awesome, thanks for this.
posted by clavdivs at 12:29 PM on November 9, 2021 [1 favorite]


This rules and I'm glad this cultural moment is getting a little more examination.
posted by Maaik at 1:02 PM on November 9, 2021 [1 favorite]


…and that’s when the shit hit the fuckin’ fan.

See, that’s the thing about punk rock. It was really, really fun.

Great post!
posted by scratch at 1:59 PM on November 9, 2021 [2 favorites]


We were a bunch of nerdy midwestern white kids back in this time and we never set foot in a mosh pit but MAN did we love to tape punk shows off of WNUR and trade them around and listen to them in the car. I'm with scratch, this stuff was capital-F FUN!

I found the video years ago and still spool it up when I'm blue. It's a time machine.

Rest in peace, Lee.

ONETWOTHREEFOURONETWOTHREEFOUR
posted by JoeZydeco at 2:02 PM on November 9, 2021 [2 favorites]


I'm 50 and never was into Punk. But considering the lame music acts they book on SNL these days? At least this was fun and interesting.
posted by SoberHighland at 2:36 PM on November 9, 2021 [1 favorite]


Fear were a bunch of dumb trolls, but this was a great stunt.
posted by Jessica Savitch's Coke Spoon at 2:40 PM on November 9, 2021 [5 favorites]


Also, Ian MacKaye is a treasure.
posted by Jessica Savitch's Coke Spoon at 2:44 PM on November 9, 2021


13-year-old me was watching that night because my best friend and I had seen Halloween II earlier that day and Donald Pleasance was hosting. When Fear came on, I said to myself, "This is going to be very important to me, even if I don't know why right now."
posted by AJaffe at 2:47 PM on November 9, 2021 [9 favorites]


This is a fantastic detour from SNL's perpetually vanilla humor (exceptions for the 70s and part of the 80s). Two thumbs up.
posted by bendy at 7:07 PM on November 9, 2021


Fear were a bunch of dumb trolls

Without a doubt Fear were right wing trolls, but they weren't dumb. They were the summit of musicianship for 80's hardcore and their first album brilliantly written, performed and produced. As excellent as anything of any genre being done at the time. And they distilled the malignant element of hardcore to its quintessence. Let's have a war. I don't care about you.

Thanks for the post!
posted by bertran at 9:31 PM on November 9, 2021 [4 favorites]


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