The 1985 mutiny that almost destroyed ‘Saturday Night Live’: “The show is an embarrassment”As you’d expect from any show that’s been on the air for over 50 years, Saturday Night Live has been through some rough patches, but very rarely has the series turned on itself. It wasn’t without merit, though, and it coincided with arguably the closest the late-night staple has ever come to being pulled from the airwaves. Internally and externally, the 11th season was supposed to be a hard reset, and it was, just not in the way anybody had predicted or intended. Head honcho Lorne Michaels returned after a five-year sabbatical, and the cast was populated by fresh, unknown, and unproven faces, like Robert Downey Jr, Anthony Michael Hall, Joan Cusack, and Randy Quaid. The following month, Michael O’Donoghue, who’d returned alongside Michaels, opened fire.