Pop culture, capitalism, and entertainment in the 1990s created unanticipated and strange fellow travelers. In this clip of outtakes from Saturday Night Live, NBA star Charles Barkley is standing with members of Nirvana – Kurt Cobain, Dave Grohl, and Krist Novoselic – while practicing the announcement for the 1993 season premiere.
“Hi, I’m Charles Barkley, host of the season premiere of Saturday Night Live with Nirvana. Look mom! Your favorite, Nirvana.”
With the SNL dressing rooms virtually on top of each other, Charles kept the door open to allow his friends and family to come in and out. In doing so, he started to feel for himself how the musical guests were spending their downtime three feet across the hall from him.
“Every time those guys from Nirvana opened up their door, I got like a contact high,” Charles recalled. “It was like one of those big mushroom clouds came. I was scared to go to the airport … ‘Do not go to the airport!’”
“Whether the smoke from the ganja had anything to do with the stacks of food the production assistants brought him on set was unclear,” said David Mandel, an SNL writer at the time. “What was more obvious was that Charles was not going to step onstage in front of a live audience on an empty stomach.”
“God bless him,” Mandel said. “He ate a lot.”
Nirvana appeared on Saturday Night Live as the musical guests twice, once on January 11, 1992 in which they played “Smells Like Teen Spirit” and “Territorial Pissings.” That episode was hosted by Rob Morrow. The second time was on September 25, 1993, which is the Season 19 premiere, in which they played “Heart-Shaped Box” and “Rape Me.”
That episode was hosted by Charles Barkley. For the second performance, Pat Smear also played with them as the second guitarist. Smear was not an official member of Nirvana, but he was included in their picture for the show.
The band was formed in 1987 and released three studio albums before their dissolution in April 1994 following Cobain’s suicide. Grohl would later form the band Foo Fighters, who have made numerous appearances on the show themselves.
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