It was the “fuck” heard ‘round the world. During the goodnights of the Feb. 21, 1981, episode, Rocket, tasked with stretching for time, broke the ultimate network taboo by uttering the f-bomb.
It was an accident – “I wish I knew who the fuck did it,” Rocket regrettably ad-libbed when asked by host Charlene Tilton about the episode’s running “Who shot Charles Rocket?” gag – and a performer in a more secure position might have weathered the ensuing NBC storm.
(Censor Bill Clotworthy had just that night given a pass to musical guest Prince, whose own “fuckin’” during his performance of “Partyup” was deemed unintelligible enough to ignore.)
But this was the infamous Season 6, where newly hired producer Jean Doumanian vainly attempted to replicate the unparalleled success of Saturday Night Live’s first five seasons, resulting in an all-time TV train wreck that saw SNL’s once-mighty ratings and critical acclaim crash and burn.
By the time Rocket uttered his expletive, Doumanian (and, indeed, SNL itself) was on shaky ground — Rocket was the last straw that brought down this iteration of the show.
While Rocket and Doumanian were doing the contrite rounds in various executive offices, NBC was already plotting their exit, with Dick Ebersol, who’d helped get SNL off the ground initially, tapped to finish out the season — without Charles Rocket.
Season 6 claimed several more victims on its way to television ignominy, with the newly installed producer Dick Ebersol immediately cleaning house once he took over from Jean Doumanian.
In addition to firing most of the existing writers, Ebersol set out to remake the cast, calling both Ann Risley and Gilbert Gottfried into his office for the chop.
The book Saturday Night relates how Eddie Murphy and Joe Piscopo, the only two cast members popular enough to feel secure, giggled their way through the parade of departing fired faces, the sourness of the dismal season’s implosion turning them, as Piscopo puts it, into a “couple of little bastards.
” And while Charles Rocket’s recent f-bomb made his firing all but a certainty, Risley and Gottfried, who’d barely made an impression in their brief time on the show, found themselves victims of Ebersol’s desire to essentially start over again from scratch.
As noted in Saturday Night, the only reason Season 6 performer Denny Dillon was temporarily spared was that Ebersol couldn’t afford to buy out as many contracts as he’d have liked.