Questlove talks to IndieWire about 'Ladies and Gentlemen… 50 Years of SNL Music,' the NBC documentary he co-directed airing on NBC. INTERVIEW.

Getting fired from "Saturday Night Live" usually spells career disaster. But for Damon Wayans, getting the boot was exactly what he wanted.

Damon Wayans is opening up on the circumstances surrounding his firing from “Saturday Night Live” in 1986, admitting he “purposely” got himself canned.

Wayans is one of many funny people looking back at the weekly late-night staple's place in comedy history in the Peacock docuseries SNL50: Beyond Saturday Night. Recalling his time on season 11 in the fourth episode, “Season 11: The Weird Year," Wayans said he didn't feel a lot of nerves about auditioning or making the cast — at first.

The comedian looks back on "purposely" jeopardizing his position due to frustrations with creative direction in a docuseries on the sketch comedy.

Michaels said he canned him midseason because “it had to be done,” EW noted. Before his unauthorized improv, Wayans said in the doc he was warned by “SNL” great Eddie Murphy that as a Black man he would be pigeonholed into certain characters, so he’d better write his own, Deadline reported.

Wayans basically “broke the ultimate [ SNL] golden rule, which is no surprises,” according to Live From New York author James Andrew Miller. Former writer A. Whitney Brown added, “You cannot go rogue. You cannot try to steal a sketch.”

Damon Wayans is opening up about his short stint on Saturday Night Live and the sketch that got him fired from the NBC late-night sketch show.

The sketch comedy show is celebrating 50 seasons with two documentaries and an upcoming prime-time special that reflect on its standing as an American institution.

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"Mr. Monopoly" sketch on "SNL" starring Damon Wayans, Griffin Dunne, Jon Lovitz, and Randy Quaid

Damon Wayans was a cast member during season 11 of SNL, when the show had an overhaul on existing stars participating.