Mark McKinney on his 'SNL' stress flashbacks — and the Madonna sketch that never was

Mark McKinney is shown in this handout image. Canadian comedian McKinney reflects on his time as a writer and cast member for "Saturday Night Live" ahead of the show's 50th anniversary. THE CANADIAN PRESS/HO-CTV*MANDATORY CREDIT*

TORONTO — Decades later, Mark McKinney says the pressure of writing comedy sketches for “Saturday Night Live” still haunts him.

The Ottawa-born comedian says he occasionally wakes in a panic reliving the deadline stress he felt long ago — back when it would be “four o’clock in the morning on a Wednesday when you don’t have an ending for your sketch,” McKinney chuckles from Toronto.

“That’s when the PTSD sets in.”

He’ll be attending festivities in New York this weekend to celebrate the show’s 50th anniversary.

While many know McKinney from Canadian absurdist comedy troupe The Kids in the Hall — or as the current star of CTV’s “Mark McKinney Needs a Hobby” — he was also a writer for “SNL” in 1985 and rejoined the show as a cast member from 1995 to 1997.

He recalls the show’s breakneck pace as “a grind,” and his offbeat humour didn’t always fit its broader, crowd-pleasing style.

McKinney describes it as “surreal” when Lorne Michaels scouted him and fellow Kids member Bruce McCulloch for the eleventh season, when Michaels returned from a five-year hiatus. Alongside new writers, Michaels hired a fresh cast, including Randy Quaid, Robert Downey Jr., and Joan Cusack.

“I was working at a Second Cup, barely making rent in Toronto, and then three weeks later I’m giving notes to Madonna on one of my sketches and having Al Franken kick me under the table saying, ‘Don’t give Madonna notes,’” he says.

Madonna was the season’s first musical guest and “at the height of her fame,” McKinney recalls. “She’d just married Sean Penn, so I remember going to work with helicopters around 30 Rock and security being really tight.”

His material often landed in the show’s final sketch, typically reserved for the night’s weirder, more experimental fare. One such sketch he and McCulloch wrote for Madonna never made it to air.

It saw the pop megastar seducing a paper boy, played by “SNL” cast member Anthony Michael Hall, who was 17 at the time.

“It was Anthony Michael Hall telling Madonna he couldn’t come around, he couldn’t deliver her newspapers anymore because she had to stop dragging him into her bedroom. And it was Madonna admitting she had a long string of paper boys.”

Hall refused to do the skit.

“He said, ‘I don’t want to play teens anymore,’” recalls McKinney.

That was his first taste of disappointment at “SNL.”

“We had the set already built. It got nixed on a Friday morning and I remember watching them cart out the set. That’s how I found out.”

McKinney eventually grew accustomed to his sketches getting rejected. He and McCulloch found an outlet in returning to Toronto on occasional weekends to perform live with Kids in the Hall.

“I think because ‘SNL’ can be a place where your favourite sketches don’t get picked, we would come back to Kids in the Hall and just write up a storm and do the stuff we wanted to do. So in a weird way, there was a threat of us (breaking up), but it was ultimately a great year for the troupe.”

Michaels later caught one of their sets in Toronto, leading to a development deal for their CBC series, which he produced. McKinney and McCulloch left “SNL” to focus on the new show, which debuted in 1989.

“We got to do our own show autonomously because when you have Lorne Michaels as your producer, you get some creative protection that you might not otherwise have,” McKinney says.

Years later, when “Kids in the Hall” wrapped, McKinney says he was the lone member eager for a sixth season. That’s when Michaels invited him back to “SNL” as a cast member.

While McKinney felt like a “mismatch” his second time around, he has no regrets.

“I kept trying to do ‘Kids in the Hall’-type sketches on ‘SNL,’ which is a fundamentally different show. I didn’t really think through what I was doing,” he says.

“But I had a blast. How can you not? Every Saturday at 11:30 when that theme kicks in, it’s like, wow, goosebumps every time.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 15, 2025.

Alex Nino Gheciu, The Canadian Press