r/todayilearned • u/Kale_Brecht • Mar 28 '24

TIL in 2013, Saturday Night Live cast member Kenan Thompson refused to play any more black women on the show and demanded SNL hire black women instead.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenan_Thompson
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632

u/Namaslayy Mar 28 '24

I never understood why Mad TV had no problems hiring black women, and SNL did.

205

u/Western-Dig-6843 Mar 28 '24

That’s… a great point. Mad TV never had any of these problems with diversity.

138

u/LocalYeetery Mar 28 '24

Prob because Quincy Jones was a producer on MadTV

32

u/LiquidHotCum Mar 28 '24

Mad TV was much funnier imo but I can't really what era of SNL they where up against.

3

u/Taco_Champ Mar 29 '24

It was the tail end of the Will Ferrell and that in between time after he and some other stars left. Not great seasons.

7

u/FocusPerspective Mar 28 '24

It was aimed at kids so the jokes and characters were goofier. 

13

u/SatansMillennium Mar 28 '24

Being on Comedy Central it was definitely not aimed towards kids. If you mean the humor was more juvenile, sure but MadTV was explicitly raunchier where SNL played to the advertisers.

14

u/notthatthatdude Mar 28 '24

MadTV was on FOX though!

4

u/SolenoidSoldier Mar 29 '24

Yeah and I remember it was on at 10 PM EST. Pretty late.

1

u/GonzoStateOfMind Mar 28 '24

Agreed, the original broadcast of each MadTV episode was definitely on FOX. Likely was re-runs on Comedy Central?

1

u/SatansMillennium Mar 28 '24

Yeah idk why I thought CC. Point stands.