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The Night John Belushi Booked the Punk Band Fear on Saturday Night Live & They Got Banned from the Show (1981)
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Open Culture
Like many of their peers, Fear rose to prominence when Penelope Spheeris featured them in her 1981 punk documentary The Decline of Western Civilization, Part I.
But before that seminal film’s release, Fear was discovered by John Belushi, who first caught the band on a local L.A. music show called New Wave Theatre in 1980.
The film’s producers, Rolling Stone writes, “were appalled” by the song “and refused to use it,” so to make it up to Ving and company, Belushi pushed to have the band booked on Saturday Night Live on Halloween, 1981.
And we can also finally hear the long-shelved single for Neighbors that Belushi recorded with the band.
Related Content:The Stunt That Got Elvis Costello Banned From Saturday Night Live (1977)The Birth of the Blues Brothers: How Dan Aykroyd & John Belushi Started Introducing a New Generation to the BluesSaturday Night Live’s Very First Sketch: Watch John Belushi Launch SNL in October, 1975Josh Jones is a writer and musician based in Durham, NC.