The biggest controversies in ‘Saturday Night Live’ history

nypost.com:

The NBC sketch comedy series premiered on Oct. 11, 1975, with the goal of making people laugh — and mission accomplished! After all, the series is about to return for its milestone 50th season.But over the past 49 years, “SNL” has also drawn criticism for its long list of controversial moments.Unfiltered hosts, badly behaved musical guests and game-changing firings have caused Lorne Michaels’ TV baby to make headlines for all the wrong reasons.Here are the biggest controversies in “Saturday Night Live” history.Fear was the musical guest during the 1981 Halloween episode that went completely off the rails. “SNL” alum John Belushi rallied to get the punk rock band onto the show, and he also arranged for a group of die-hard fans to be in the front row of the performance.While Fear sang “Beef Bologna” and “New York’s Alright If You Like Saxophone,” the fans went nuts and started a mosh pit.

There were expletives dropped during the madness, forcing the network to cut to commercial early. The show’s set was damaged in the process, as well.Unsurprisingly, Fear was banned from “SNL” after the incident.In January 1986, the Replacements were visibly drunk by the time they took the stage for their musical performance.

The rock band uttered the f-word and wore each other’s clothing during the chaotic set. Bob Stinson, one of the band members, tripped and broke his own guitar before the performance even got going, forcing “SNL” to lend him one of their spare instruments.

The Replacements were banned from NBC for 30 years until they performed on “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon” in 2014.