According to Tom Shales and James Andrew Miller’s “Live from New York: The Complete, Uncensored History of Saturday Night Live as Told by Its Stars, Writers, and Guests,” John Belushi’s friends and colleagues were lobbying Michaels to disregard Belushi’s distaste for television and hire him anyway. He finally relented and called the actor in for an audition. According to Chevy Chase, Michaels was impressed. “[L]orne said, ‘Well, he’s funny, and we could use somebody who looks like him.'”
Michaels took everyone’s enthusiasm for Belushi under advisement and leveled with the performer. “I told John, ‘I hear what you’re doing is great, but I don’t want you to have to do something that you don’t want to do.’ My instinct was that he was going to be trouble.”
Michaels also spied another bit of trouble on the horizon. As Aykroyd remembered:
“Lorne was concerned Belushi and I would be a duo that would give him a lot of trouble. He thought, ‘Oh, get these guys together and their strength will be my weakness, because they’ll be rebels.’ And you know, in a way, he was right. Certainly there was an energy around us.”
