Saturday Night Live animal sketches: Encyclopedia II - Saturday Night Live animal sketches - The Killer Bees

Saturday Night Live animal sketches - The Killer Bees

The Killer Bees were the first characters to recur on SNL. According to a Lorne Michaels interview for the book Live From New York, "The only note we got from the network on the first show was 'Cut the bees.' And so I made sure I put them in the next show." The bees were played by all the repertory players at the time, who wore yellow and black horizontal stripes, wings, and overly springy antennae. Much of the humour from these scenes came out of puns or metaphors that had to do with well-known activities and body parts of bees.

Saturday Night Live animal sketches - Episodes Featuring full sketches of The Killer Bees

• October 11, 1975 "Bee Hospital" - host: George Carlin
• October 25, 1975 "Bees Dramatic Scene" - host: Rob Reiner
• December 20, 1975 "Bee Capades" - host: Candice Bergen
• January 10, 1976 "The Killer Bees" - host: Elliott Gould
• December 2, 1978 "Bad News Bees" - host: Walter Matthau

Saturday Night Live animal sketches - Additional appearances of The Killer Bees

• October 18, 1975 In a brief appearance, the bees come out after a performance by Randy Newman and host Paul Simon tells them that their sketch has been cut.
• November 8, 1975 John Belushi appears as a lone bee in host Candice Bergen's monologue.
• November 15, 1975 Garrett Morris, dressed as a bee, tells a story of another bee who had a brush with George Washington.
• January 17, 1976 "The Blues Bees" - John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd, as The Blues Brothers, perform "King Bee" dressed in bee outfits.
• January 24, 1976 "No Bees In This Show" - Scred, one of Jim Henson's Muppets wants to be in the show based on the fact that he came dressed as a bee, and can perform the popular quirks of the cast's characters.
• March 13, 1976 "Sherry's Bee" - Laraine Newman's recurring character, Sherry, is unhappy that she's been paired with a bee (John Belushi).

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "The Killer Bees", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki