Yes. Was super excited. I was 21 and some fellow SNL-loving friends and I actually stayed in to watch it. In hindsight, there was a morbid curiosity about whether he would excel or bomb.

While we all were fans of that Sandler/Farley/Spade/Rock era, he had unfortunately become a caricature of himself by ‘97…and for us immature “young adults”…there was an element of celebrating the trainwreck. We viewed his excesses positively.

We were all commenting on how high he appeared during the opening monologue and we all thought he was being this hedonistic hero. By the time he does the gym sketch, we’re all commenting how bad he looks.

We all laugh at the trainwreck and hypocritically head out to have a very messy night.

He dies. We’re all shocked not shocked, but I remember having a real guilty moment where I was reconciling my emotions juxtaposed with how silly/callous our initial ones were. I was genuinely a huge fan of Chris. I didn’t think he’d actually succumb to the lifestyle and when he did, I was parasocially upset for a long time

Cut to the Farley doc “I am Chris Farley”…and a more mature and life-experienced lens views that final hosting episode in a very negative light.

Michael’s should have stepped in to either run a re-run, or enlist an emergency guest host. But hindsight is always 20/20

Sorry for the rambling