Chevy Chase Confronted Lorne Michaels Over SNL50 Exclusion: 'Should Have Had Me on That Stage'

What's more, Chase said he did ultimately confront SNL creator Lorne Michaels about the decision to not include him in any sketches on a show that featured on-stage appearances by his fellow Season 1 cast members like Laraine Newman and Garrett Morris.

In a preview for LateNighter of his upcoming CNN documentary I'm Chevy Chase and You're Not, scheduled to drop on New Year's Day, the actor admitted that the decision for him to not be involved, despite his key role in the development of the show and its most enduring segment, Weekend Update, was "kind of upsetting, actually," adding, "And this will probably be the first time I'm saying it."

To add salt to the wound, his wife Jayni Chase said that the show was in discussions with him for a role up until the last minute. "They told Chevy up until that day that there were two bits [and] they were going back and," she said in the special. "And then all of a sudden, there's no bit."

Chase said it was hard watching his fellow cast members being involved. "I expected that I would have been on that stage too," he said. "When Garrett and Laraine went on the stage there, I was curious as to why I didn’t. No one asked me to. Why was I left aside?"

The comedian admitted, "I did bring it up once in a text to Lorne, and then took it back. I said, ‘OK, I take it back. It’s silly.'"

But, he adds in the documentary, "It's not that silly. Somebody made a bad mistake there. I don’t know who it was, but somebody made a mistake. They should have had me on that stage. It hurt."

Producers for the documentary did manage to get Michaels himself on tape about Chase's exclusion, with the showrunner confirming that there were talks at one point about including the show's first star, who left after a single season.

According to Michaels, "There were a couple versions of Update, and we went back and forth on that." Ultimately, they went with Bill Murray, who joined the show in Season 2 and briefly worked alongside Chase before the latter's exit mid-season. Murry took over Weekend Update in his third year with the show.

For SNL50, Murray revisited his famous list segments, this time ranking Weekend Update anchors. As he moved his way up the list, Murray did give a shout-out to Chase, though he didn't get the top slot as the creator and originator of the segment.

"Let’s face it. Weekend Update would simply not exist without him," Murray said on the special, "so it would be wrong to have him listed anywhere but number four." Ahead of him on the list were the pairing of Jane Curtin & Dan Aykroyd (who took over after Chase's exit) and Norm Macdonald, with Murray's brother Bryan Doyle-Murray landing at the top.

"Why was Bill Murray there? Why was I not?" Chase says in the documentary, referring to the anniversary special's Weekend Update segment. "I don't have an answer for that."

Michaels may have a more complete answer, but he only alluded to more factors behind the decision when he told producers, "There was also a caution from somebody that I don’t want to name that Chevy, you know, wasn’t as focused."

Chase has long had a volatile and controversial relationship with the show, with many claims of bad behavior over the years, including an alleged backstage brawl with Murray in 1978 -- though both actors would apparently reconcile and go on to star together in multiple projects.

Nevertheless, former writer Alan Zweibel called excluding him from the celebration of a show he helped make into a comedy juggernaut "a bit of a slap in the face." Martin Short, though, said there's also the issue of just too many stars and not enough time. "There’s 50 years of casts," he emphasized. "Billy Crystal -- no bigger star than Billy -- he didn’t say a word that night. It’s just too many people to fill."

It is worth noting that Chase and Crystal were by far not the only cast members who stayed in the star-studded audience. Among them were the aforementioned Curtin, as well as Dennis Miller, Al Franken, Jim Belushi, Catherine O'Hara, Ben Stiller, Sarah Silverman, Rob Schneider, and dozens more.

Still, Chase's daughter Caley knows of one simple way the show could have honored her father's importance to the early success of the show. "He should have opened the show with 'It's Saturday Night!'" she offered. "They didn’t even need to use him more. But come on, guys! That was it."

While the show's signature opening line has become a rotating honor for cast members, guest stars, and hosts alike over the years, Chase famously was just about the only one to utter the phrase in the show's first season, delivering the line in all but two episodes, often preceded by a pratfall.

I'm Chevy Chase and You're Not is set to premiere January 1 at 8 p.m. ET on CNN.