Dana Carvey Apologizes to Sharon Stone Over ‘Offensive’ ‘SNL’ Sketch
On the latest episode of Fly on the Wall With Dana Carvey and David Spade, Carvey apologized to guest Sharon Stone for making her take part in an “offensive” 1992 SNL sketch that saw her disrobing for Carvey’s Indian airport security guard.
Stone hosted the April 11, 1992 episode of SNL following the March 20 release of Basic Instinct, still one of her most famous roles. Carvey noted that Stone was “such a good sport,” but admitted, “the comedy we did in 1992 with Sharon Stone, we would be literally arrested now.”
Carvey then revealed he was referring specifically to a six-minute sketch simply dubbed “Airport Security Check.” It involves Carvey and his co-stars, Rob Schneider and Kevin Nealon, playing TSA agents who take advantage of Stone’s agreeable nature, making her disrobe one clothing item at a time under the pretense of a security procedure.
After the trio is joined by Phil Hartman and Tim Meadows, who do little more than gawk at Stone, the sketch ends with the actress in her bra and Carvey videotaping her naked torso in close-up. It’s a bizarre, oddly timed effort that fits snugly within SNL’s early ‘90s oeuvre.
“I want to apologize publicly for the security check sketch where I played an Indian man and we’re convincing Sharon, her character, or whatever, to take her clothes off to go through the security thing,” Carvey told Stone on Fly on the Wall, adding that the entire enterprise was “so offensive.”
Carvey continued: “It’s so 1992, you know, it’s from another era.”
But Stone, who’s never been one to mince words regarding those who she feels wronged her in the industry, doesn’t harbor any ill will towards Carvey or his SNL cohorts.
“I know the difference between a misdemeanor and a felony,” she said. “And I think that we were all committing misdemeanors [back then] because we didn’t think there was something wrong then. We didn’t have this sense,” Stone explained.
“I had much bigger problems than that,” the actress elaborated of her time in Hollywood. “You know what I mean? That (sketch) was funny to me, I didn’t care. I was fine being the butt of the joke.”
Stone went on: “Now we’re in such a weird and precious time because people have spent too much time alone. People don’t know how to be funny and intimate and any of these things with each other. And everyone is so afraid that they’re putting up such barriers around everything that people can’t be normal with each other anymore. It’s lost all sense of reason.”
You can watch Stone’s full Fly on the Wall episode, including more of her SNL-hosting anecdotes, below.