The Most Offensive ‘SNL’ Sketch You’ve Never Seen
Unless you’re an SNL completist or a 55-plus fan who stayed up late in 1980 to catch Rodney Dangerfield, you likely haven’t seen one of the most offensive SNL sketches in the show’s history.
The sketch aired on the show’s fifth season, that weird year in which a watered-down version of the original Not Ready for Prime Time Players still performed, but without crucial talents like John Belushi, Dan Aykroyd and Chevy Chase. They were replaced by Spinal Tap’s Harry Shearer, future Letterman bandleader Paul Shaffer and famous brothers Peter Aykroyd and Brian Doyle-Murray. You didn’t see much of those guys during the SNL50 retrospectives.
Dangerfield was the host, and after his monologue (“I don’t get no respect at all — last Christmas, my kid wanted a BB gun. I got him a BB gun, he got me a sweatshirt with a bull’s-eye on the back”), Lorne Michaels and company decided that the first sketch should feature Harry Shearer as a South African spokesperson for a gold coin that commemorates the labor of those who made it possible: the N*ggerrand.
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You read that right. While you won’t find this bit on SNL’s treasure trove of YouTube or TikTok videos, the sketch is still up and running on Peacock, a historical document of a very different time in American comedy. Here’s a transcript of Shearer’s sales pitch:
The stock market rises and falls. Savings interest doesn’t even keep up with inflation. And stamps take years to collect.
Now, for the person who is wise enough to recognize the world’s finest investment — and secure enough not to have to apologize for it — the South African Gold Board introduces a distinguished new gold coin: the N*ggerrand. This 1-ounce, 99.9 percent fine gold coin commemorates the labor of those who made it possible, with this beautifully-etched portrait of an actual African minesman.
On the reverse: a beautifully-etched map of the areas where, by law, these workers are allowed to live.
You’ll want to treasure your N*ggerrands for years to come. Or you’ll want to buy and sell them, just like the people they honor do. For that perfect person on your gift list, the N*ggerrand is an especially perfect way of expressing your feelings of caring because it’s the gift that keeps on grinning. Tomorrow is the perfect time to begin your investment program.
Why not visit your selected bank or brokerage house and put your future in N*ggerrands? Because even the color-blind can see gold.
Beyond the obvious, there’s another reason the sketch has aged like milk: No one in 2025 re the controversy Shearer and SNL were trying to satirize. In 1980, the South African Krugerrand was the world’s most popular choice for investing in gold. But public outcry over the coins’ association with South Africa’s apartheid government and human rights abuses in that nation’s gold mines caused the investment to fall out of favor.
The Krugerrand was a worthy subject for satire, but this extremely 1980 take didn’t come close to standing the test of time. And I’m guessing it’s a sketch that Michaels and Shearer would like to have back.
