#37. Robert Downey Jr.
Era: 1985-1986
25 points on 1 of 10 lists - Highest Ranking: #1 (ScottD)
Most Memorable Characters: Jimmy Chance, Rudy Randolph III I guess this was inevitable (Speak of the devil and he will appear.) But hey, at least this gives me the opportunity to talk about season 11s mad experiment. So in the previous year there was Ebersol’s All-Stars, the ringers who were signed to one-year contracts (Crystal, Short, Guest and Shearer). The next season Dick Ebersol and his all-stars were gone and Lorne Michaels was brought back as producer. And I dunno, maybe he thought he’d do what Ebersol did, but with actors. There was Joan Cusak, Anthony Michael Hall, Randy Quaid and RDJ. Unfortunately
SNLs frustrated writers didn’t know how to write for them.
On RDJ, the website
Saturday Night’s Children noted… “While on
SNL, Downey had two recurring characters who each appeared three times — the name-dropping New York actor Jimmy Chance from "Actors on Film" and redneck commercial salesman Rudy Randolph III. He also impersonated celebrities including George Michael, John Cougar Mellencamp, Elvis, Paul Simon, Sean Penn, and Julian Lynch in the sketch "Models Against the Wilderness."
Watching the videos posted on that website, I’m not sure what Downey was doing – giving a book reviews by making fart noises / sitting on stage in a suitcase (with only his head showing) and yelling at a cast mate (Joan Cusack) – was this bad performance art?
In the end, the experiment failed and season 11 is looked on as one of SNLs very worst. Lorne’s first year back on the show was almost his last. But he managed to talk the network in giving him another chance, and didn’t squander the opportunity. He fired his “actors”, found and brought in Carvey, Hooks and Hartman (keeping Lovitz and later, Dennis Miller and Dunn). All of whom helped usher in an SNL Renaissance.
Rolling Stone ranked him #141 and said…
Robert Downey Jr. is a comic genius. Making him unfunny stands as SNL's most towering achievement in terms of sucking. How do you f*** up a sure thing like Downey? He's funny in anything. I mean, dude was funny in Weird Science. He was funny in Johnny Be Good. He was funny in Iron Man. But he met his Kryptonite, and it was SNL, where he spent the 1985-1986 season sucking up a storm. His greatest hit? A fart-noise debate with Anthony Michael Hall. In a perverse way, the Downey Fail sums up everything that makes SNL great. There are no sure things. No rules. No do-overs. No safety net — when you flop on SNL, you flop big. And that's the way it should be. The cameras roll at 11:30, ready or not. Live from New York — it's Saturday Night.