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It took Kevin Nealon over 30 years to find out why he lost his job at the “Weekend Update” desk on “Saturday Night Live.”
“I’m just finishing reading that book called ‘Lorne.’ It’s about Lorne Michaels. And I’m learning what happened behind the scenes that I didn’t know about,” the comedian, 72, told “Obsessed: The Podcast” host Matt Wilstein over the weekend.
In 1994, at which point Nealon had been on “Weekend Update” for three years, Entertainment Weekly published an article titled “Is ‘Saturday Night’ Dead?” that listed 20 ways the show should improve — and firing Nealon was at the top of the list.
In her 2025 biography about “SNL” creator Lorne Michaels, Susan Morrison wrote, “The network felt the same way and were ready to meddle. Nealon was a superb sketch player, but there was a sense that, on Update, he was a mushmouth, his delivery not crisp enough.”
On the podcast, Nealon explained NBC West Coast President Don Ohlmeyer, whom he noted “was in and out of rehab” at the time, was responsible for his firing.
“I knew I got taken off of there because he wasn’t happy with me, but I didn’t know until I read the book that one of the reasons was he said I was ‘mushmouth,’” Nealon explained. “He couldn’t understand some of the things I was saying.”
“And for someone who, you know, is a partier like him, I think he knows what ‘mushmouth’ is about,” Nealon added.
Ohlmeyer spent time in rehab in 1996. He died of cancer at age 72 in 2017.
Nealon, who was replaced by the late Norm MacDonald on “Weekend Update,” explained that he didn’t mind losing the gig because his plate was already too full.
“That was fine too, because it was a lot of work for me,” Nealon shared. “I was doing ‘Weekend Update,’ and I was writing sketches and characters, and being in sketches. So it was hard to juggle the two. I had to write a lot of the jokes for ‘Weekend Update,’ which started on late Friday night and Saturday, because you couldn’t do the material or the areas that the late-night talk show hosts did during the week.”
Nealon continued, “Saturday morning, I was up, and I had all the newspapers on the table. So I was doing that and trying to wrangle that altogether and then oversee a sketch I wrote, and it was a lot of work, but I enjoyed doing it for the three years.”
The “Weeds” actor also spoke about how Bill Murray ranked Nealon as the ninth-best “Weekend Update” anchor ever during the “SNL” 50th anniversary special last year.
“You know what? I was not a big fan of myself on the ‘Weekend Update,'” he admitted. “People always tell me how much they loved me on ‘Weekend Update.’ Of course that was 30 years ago, and at the time it felt right to me. I guess I wouldn’t do anything differently.”
Nealon joined “SNL” in 1986 and began working on “Weekend Update” in 1991.
He was fired from the news parody segment in 1994 and stayed on the show for one more year.
English (US)