Saturday Night Live’s First Movie Failure: Why Coneheads Bombed

Coneheads was easily one of the most popular sketches during the first five seasons of Saturday Night Live, which makes it more of a giant-head-scratcher why these iconic characters bombed on the big screen. Satirical in nature, the premise of the sketches showcased a strange-speaking family of stranded aliens from the planet Remulak, who fail to fit in with suburban life. On the show, Canadian comedian Dan Aykroyd played the father, Beldar, Jane Curtin as the mother Prymaat, and Laraine Newman as their daughter, Connie. From lighting up a whole carton of cigarettes at one time to pleasuring each other with fuzzy rings that slip over their massive craniums, the alien family became part of the late 1970s cultural zeitgeist. However, despite the Coneheads’ enduring popularity, the characters’ transition to the big screen was a surprising disappointment, largely thanks to when the film actually came out.

The characters appeared in a total of 11 sketches between 1977 and 1979 with hosts from Steve Martin to the banned Frank Zappa appearing in them, eventually leading to an unsold animated television pilot in 1983. Ten years later, the movie hit the big screen, which used much of the same plot from that cartoon. Newman was replaced with the much younger Michelle Burke to portray their teenage daughter, though the SNL actress does appear in a small role. The film features the family trying to settle into earth life while being hunted by an Immigration Services agent. The film is filled to the brim with sight gags, references to the original sketches, and SNL cast members including Phil Hartman, Chris Farley, Adam Sandler, David Spade, Michael McKean, Jon Lovitz, and Garret Morris.

In 1990, Lorne Michaels apparently planned out a sketch anthology movie called The Saturday Night Live Movie, but it was abandoned. Up until that point, the only SNL adaptation was the hugely successful Blues Brothers movie. When Mike Myers and Dana Carvey blew up with the Wayne’s World sketches and a film adaptation became a runaway comedy smash, Michaels quickly drew from the anthology project with the new idea of bringing other sketches to bring to the big screen. His decision to begin with the Conehead characters, however, was nowhere near as successful. Part of the reason for this failure may have been that the family hadn’t actually appeared since the 1983 cartoon show. The characters had stopped being an SNL staple since the late 70s, so by the time the 1993 movie came out, much of its primary audience had moved on to alternative content. Although the thin story offered many comedic beats, younger audiences were understandably unfamiliar with the characters, while their 1970s relevancy came across as dusty and dated. Given this questionable timing, it is perhaps unsurprising that the movie failed so spectacularly.

It’s unclear why Michaels chose the Coneheads as the next adaptation, other than his friendship with Aykroyd and knowledge of their past popularity. But the third SNL-inspired movie set a precedent from which they would never quite recover. While each film has its fans, Wayne’s World 2, It’s Pat, Stuart Saves His Family,The Blues Brothers 2000, A Night at The Roxbury, Superstar,The Ladies Man, and MacGruber all failed either critically or financially – suggesting the first two attempts, Wayne’s World and The Blues Brothers, were somewhat of a fluke.

Coneheads earned 21 million dollars on a 33-million-dollar budget, classifying it as a flop. It has since become somewhat of a cult classic, frequently airing on TV and appealing to comedy fans who want to see the smorgasbord of cameo roles. The goofy film is enjoyable, but it simply came out 15 years too late. If it had been made in 1978 or 1979, therefore being the first Saturday Night Live movie, its reception and quality would have likely been a different story.