

If he wasn’t front and center, he was bothered. One of Rocket’s former “SNL” castmates remembers him as hungry for attention and being “wrapped up in career issues. and moved to Connecticut.Ĭheeks says that Rocket never let on that his firing from “SNL” was a minor roadblock shortly thereafter, he picked himself up, brushed himself off and went back to finding work. Lately, he’d been doing a lot of voiceover work. He managed lots of one-shot roles on other series, including “Law & Order: Criminal Intent” and “Touched by an Angel.” He went on to forge a career as a supporting player in movies (“Dances With Wolves,” “Dumb and Dumber”) and on TV, where he played Bruce Willis’ brother on “Moonlighting” and costarred opposite John Goodman in the short-lived Fox sitcom, “Normal, Ohio.” NBC apologized to viewers, and Rocket was fired. For some reason, Rocket decided to improvise on his lines and ended up blurting out: “I’d like to know who the did it.” Ewing, who’d just been shot on the CBS series. – had elected to move on.Ĭharlene Tilton, a cast member from the highly successful “Dallas” series, was guesthosting and the show was doing a send-up of the prime-time soap, Charlie was playing J.R. Rocket was hired for “SNL” in the 1980 season, the first time the show underwent major cast changes after the orginals – Dan Aykroyd, John Belushi, Jane Curtin et al. He wasn’t one to be morose or depressed.” “He didn’t stay down for any length of time. “If he was dealing with something that was tough, he would come right back at it. “He was an absolutely upbeat kind of guy,” says Rudy Cheeks, a friend of Rocket’s for over 30 years. No trouble at home was reported.Īnd he left behind a group of friends who had long forgotten Charlie’s big screwup – even if the rest of the world had not. He’d been married to the same woman, Beth, for 33 years and had a son, Zane. He apparently did not leave a suicide note. There are few clues as to why Rocket, born Charles Claverie, took his own life. Yesterday, the state medical examiner ruled that Charlie had done it himself. He was found dead in a field 10 days ago near his Connecticut home.
#CHARLES ROCKET CURSES ON SNL MOVIE#
He continued to work somewhat more anonymously in lower-profile movie and TV roles.īut Rocket never approached the fame of his castmates Eddie Murphy, Gilbert Gottfried and Joe Piscopo.


He was fired pretty much as soon as the lights went down, and thereafter became known as the guy who threw away a comedy career in the twinkling of a word. So bring him back, Lorne Michaels! After all, he managed to not curse during Sesame Street.CHARLES Rocket’s brief moment of TV immortality came in February 1981 – when he used the f-word on “Saturday Night Live.”

(His response, though, is hilarious.) What’s more, Entertainment Weekly confirmed with SNL that even though Jackson has never been on the show since, he’s not banned. You can watch the clip below, and though the moment, which arrives around the 6:20 mark, is censored, you can see Thompson never had the chance to cut him off. “He didn’t cut me off soon enough and I said the forbidden word on television. “Kenan got me banned from Saturday Night Live,” Jackson told Jones. It was during another spin of Thompson’s beloved recurring sketch “What’s Up With That?”, in which he’s talk show host who keeps interrupting guests by bursting into song, that he let slip the f-word (as well as “bulls*it”). The two got around to talking about the longtime sketch show, which he’s only hosted once, in 1998, though he did a guest appearance in 2012, on an episode hosted by alum Martin Short. On Friday, the same day he was awarded an honorary Oscar, Jackson appeared on The Ellen DeGeneres Show, which was guest hosted by SNL vet Leslie Jones. Jackson did that, too, but while he’s not officially banned, he thinks he is. Charles Rocket was fired from the show when he dropped an f-bomb. Honcho Lorne Michaels banned Elvis Costello for years and years, all because he played a song he hadn’t planned to, thus mucking up the show’s air-tight schedule. For the nearly 47 years it’s been on air, SNL has managed to keep things relatively clean, despite being a live show.
