More than 50 years later, Richard Pryor’s “Word Association” sketch is still a fan favorite.
The iconic Saturday Night Live sketch, which first aired in the show’s first season in 1975, has now been voted by fans as one of the greatest SNL sketches of all time.
The sketch famously takes place during a job interview, with Chevy Chase in the place of an interviewer while Pryor—as Mr. Wilson—is up for a job. Chase challenges Pryor to a Word Association test, which gets progressively offensive, using racial slurs. Ultimately, Chase offers Pryor the job out of fear with triple the original salary.
“You’ll be the highest paid janitor in America. Just don’t hurt me,” Chase says.
According to LateNighter, who published the ranking on Thursday, September 24, “it remains one of the earliest and starkest examples of SNL using discomfort itself as part of the comedy.”
Paul Mooney—who claimed to be the writer behind the famed skit—the sketch came about after days of pestering by Chase begging to get screentime with Pryor.
“After all the bulls–t I’ve been put through to get here, the f—ing cross-examination Lorne subjects me to, I decide to do a job interview of my own,” he explained, per Salon. “Chevy’s the boss, interviewing Richard for a janitor’s job. The white personnel interviewer suggests they do some word association, so he can test if the black man’s fit to employ.”
The sketch, which originally aired on December 13, 1975, landed at No. 12 on LateNighter’s ranking. In 2014, Rolling Stone named it No. 10, and in 2011 Paste put it as No. 5 “most shocking moments.”
Pryor’s December 1975 appearance made him the first Black host and would mark his only SNL appearance.