Saturday Night Live started in 1975 but it remains as relevant as ever – even the older episodes from decades ago. Recently, actor Dana Carvey revisited an SNL sketch featuring himself and Sharon Stone, and the whole skit’s plot has him now apologizing to Stone.
Carvey, along with fellow SNL alum David Spade, co-host the Fly On The Wall podcast, in which they travel down memory lane to share tales of the series, usually joined by guests from the show as well. Stone appeared on last week’s episode and the trio recalled the “Airport Security” sketch that, looking back, Carvey considers doubly offensive and worth apologizing for to Stone.
For security purposes
The skit in question sees Carvey as an Indian man working at airport security; he’s joined by Kevin Nealon and Rob Schneider also as security officers. When Stone’s character tries to go ahead to her flight, the metal detector at the security gate repeatedly goes off. The guards have her strip away layer after layer until she is dressed only in her bra, a skirt, and underwear.
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Carvey used this podcast reunion to address the skit and Stone.
“I want to apologize publicly for the security check sketch where I played an Indian man and we’re convincing Sharon, her character, or whatever, to take her clothes off to go through the security thing,” said Carvey. “It’s so 1992, you know, it’s from another era.”
Sharon Stone offers her surprising reaction about what had been a very turbulent ‘SNL’ episode
“I know the difference between a misdemeanor and a felony,” Stone replied, dismissing the apology from Carvey. “And I think that we were all committing misdemeanors [back then] because we didn’t think there was something wrong then. We didn’t have this sense. I had much bigger problems than that, you know what I mean? That was funny to me, I didn’t care. I was fine being the butt of the joke.”
“When I was doing the Indian character… there was no malice in it,” Carvey went on to explain. “It was really me rhythmically trying to get laughs. So I just want to say that watching it — comedy needs a straight person and you were perfect in it. You were completely sincere and you made us funny.”
When Stone mentioned “bigger problems” from that time, she was referring to the backlash against her AIDS activism. She hosted SNL in 1992, following the release of Basic Instinct and its infamous upskirt shot of Stone.
“A bunch of people started storming the stage, saying they were going to kill me during the opening monologue,” she recalled. “The police that are always in there during all of that, and the security that is always in there, froze ’cause they’d never seen anything like that happen. They sort of, they froze. [SNL boss] Lorne started screaming, ‘What are you guys doing, watching the f—ing show?’ And Lorne started, himself, beating up and pulling these people back from the stage.”
“I was doing this live monologue while they were beating up and handcuffing people at my feet,” she added.
“They were mad because it was the beginning of my work as an AIDS field worker and as an AIDS activist,” explained Stone of the big protest movement. “They didn’t understand, nobody understood at that time, what was really happening, and they didn’t know if AmFAR could be trusted.”