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Steven Seagal (born April 10, 1952) is an American action film star, producer, writer, martial artist, guitarist and reserve deputy sheriff who is a 7th-dan black belt in Aikido and is best known for his roles as Det. Sgt. Nico Toscani in the 1988 action film Above the Law, CPO Casey Ryback in the Under Siege films and as Travis Hunter in the 2005 action film Into the Sun. He hosted Saturday Night Live on April 20, 1991 where he was named the "worst host ever" to appear on the show (a fact that Lorne Michaels mentioned on-air two seasons later: when Nicolas Cage, having realized that his misogynistic monologue had upset the cast and crew, frets that he must be considered the worst host, Michaels assures him, "That would be Steven Seagal"[1]) due to his bad sketch ideas and inability to work with the cast and crew.

He was also impersonated by Will Ferrell on the May 20, 2000 episode during the opening monologue, by Jimmy Fallon on the January 10, 2004 episode during the "Paparazzi" sketch, by Bill Hader on the October 6, 2007 episode during the opening monologue and on the September 25, 2010 episode during "The Unwatchables" live commercial sketch and by Bobby Moynihan on the October 13, 2012 episode during the "Give Us All Our Daughters Back!" filmed commercial sketch.

Seagal's work was considered so bad that SNL censored the episode when it offered the 1990 season via streaming on Netflix. However, in recent years Lorne Michaels has let up a bit on the disaster. In a recent interview when Michaels had been asked about banned performers, the reason for Seagal's ban had come up. Lorne admitted that he did not feel it was fully Seagal's fault, noticing a general lack of focus among the crew and cast, in essence "that was a week where nothing was going right; an off week in all".

One skit that parodied Seagal as an action hero was him playing a nonviolent "Greenpeace photographer", also spoofing the 1989 'Exxon Valdez' oil spill where it is shown Exxon is conspiring to create an even greater disaster in 1992. Seagal renounces his nonviolence when he resorts to shoving, then finally knocking out the evil executives, ending the sketch warning "This will keep going on until we stop polluting the planet!". Interestingly, the concept for the sketch was revisited two years after Seagal hosted, in the 1993 film 'On Deadly Ground', albeit with more seriousness and fighting.

Impressions[]

  • Andrew Dice Clay

Gallery[]

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