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Over the years, Saturday Night Live has banned both hosts and musical guests from re-appearing on the show whether it be for a complete lack of effort in performance or for unconventional or often arrogant behavior either on or off the set.

One of the first hosts to be barred from performing again was Louise Lasser, who hosted at the end of the first season on July 24, 1976. Lasser was said to be going through personal problems at the time and locked herself in her dressing room, only appearing in sketches with Chevy Chase or by herself. This episode was such a disappointment to producer Lorne Michaels, that it was barred from syndication for many years.

Elvis Costello was banned from SNL for 12 years. In December 1977, he was slated to perform with his group The Attractions. NBC and the show's producer Lorne Michaels didn't want Costello to perform "Radio, Radio," since it was an anti-media song. Costello defied them by beginning to play "Less Than Zero," stopping, telling the audience that there was no reason to do that song, and started playing "Radio, Radio." Besides the defiance, it also infuriated Michaels because it put the show off schedule. Costello was finally invited to come back and play in 1989, and even reenacted his act of defiance on the 25th Anniversary Show with the Beastie Boys in 1999.

Frank Zappa was banned from the show after his hosting stint on October 21, 1978 (having appeared once before as the musical guest, on December 11, 1976). His acerbic and often misunderstood sense of humor made him more than unfavorable with the cast and crew. During his performance, he made a habit of reading cue card and mugging the camera. Many cast members (save for John Belushi) stood noticeably far from him during the goodnights.

The April 24, 1979, episode of the show hosted by Milton Berle resulted in his banning due to his habit of upstaging other performers, overacting, mugging for the camera, insertion of "classic" comedy bits and his maudlin performance of September Song. This episode was also barred from rebroadcast for over twenty years as Lorne Michaels felt that the broadcast, and Berle in particular, brought the show down.

On November 13, 1982, host Robert Blake, who had been very uncooperative with the scripts that had been given him throughout the week (at one point, he even crumpled up a script presented to him by cast member and writer Gary Kroeger, and threw it back in his face), was also barred from performing on the show again.

Another banning of sorts happened exactly one week after Blake's, when the show decided to leave the fate of a frequent guest in the hands of viewers. Andy Kaufman, who had appeared on the show periodically since its beginning in 1975, was on the chopping block. Viewers had to call a 900 number to decide if Kaufman should be allowed to stay, or be banned for life from the show. Viewers decided to kick him off and Kaufman never returned to the show. In truth, the idea was pitched to Dick Ebersol weeks before by Kaufman, and Ebersol used the idea after he had a fight with Kaufman. When Kaufman heard the news that he was banned, he felt betrayed.

Steven Seagal, who hosted on April 20, 1991, has also been barred from hosting due to his difficulty in working with the cast and crew (which is detailed in the book "Live From New York: The Uncensored History of Saturday Night Live"), who weren't afraid to make note of the occasion almost a year and a half later. During Nicholas Cage's hosting stint in a 1992 episode, Nicholas is speaking with Lorne backstage after delivering an offensive monologue and says, "...they probably think I'm the biggest jerk who's ever been on the show!" To which Lorne replied, "No, no. That would be Steven Seagal."[2002] The episode itself doesn't rerun that much on NBC, but the E! Entertainment Network has shown a one-hour syndicated version of the episode from time to time.

Perhaps the most notable ostracism came in 1992, when Sinead O'Connor appeared on the program with host Tim Robbins. In her second set of the show, she performed an a capella version of Bob Marley's "War." At the end, she picked up a picture of Pope John Paul II, ripped it up, and shouted, "Fight the real enemy!" From the booth, Director Dave Wilson immediately turned off the "applause" cue. NBC received many complaints about this within a matter of minutes. At the end of the show, Robbins refused to even thank O'Connor—as is custom—for being the musical guest. O'Connor was given a verbal beating by many other celebrities and public figures. To this day, NBC refuses to lend out the footage of the performance to any media outlet. They have also edited out the incident from the syndicated version of the episode (although, curiously, an unedited version has been screened on the Foxtel cable network in Australia) by either fading out before Sinead can show and rip the photo or replacing it with a dress rehearsal version where she smiles and leaves the stage. However, it was finally released in 2003, with an explanation from Lorne Michaels, on Disc 4 of the "Saturday Night Live - 25 Years of Music" DVD set.

Comedian Martin Lawrence has also been banned from the show. His opening monologue on the February 19, 1994 episode included comments about women who don't clean their genitalia. The monologue has been completely edited out in the syndicated version, with just a graphic describing in general what Lawrence had said and how that part of the monologue almost got everyone fired from the show. For a transcript of the uncut version of the monologue (and a note about how it was only shown once), visit http://snltranscripts.jt.org/93/93nmono.phtml

After hosting nine times, former SNL regular Chevy Chase was banned from ever hosting the show again after the February 15, 1997 episode due to his verbal abuse of the cast and crew during the week. Chase became notorious for his treatment of certain cast members when hosting past episodes, particularly his remarks to SNL's only openly gay cast member Terry Sweeney in 1985 when he suggested that a perfect sketch for Sweeney would be one where Sweeney is an AIDS patient who has to get weighed every week before he dies. On the 1997 episode, according to the book, "Live From New York: An Uncensored History of Saturday Night Live", Chase was wasted on painkillers for his back and began insulting and soliciting sexual favors from the writers. Even though Chevy Chase has been banned from hosting, he did make cameo appearances in two episodes: the February 20, 1999 episode in a sketch where Bill Murray (the episode host) plugs a book featuring famous quotes from the movie Caddyshack, and the October 6, 2001 episode where he reprises his role as The Land Shark and eats Tina Fey during Weekend Update.

The most recent banishment was on May 10, 2003, when host Adrien Brody came out to introduce the musical guest, reggae musician Sean Paul, dressed in Rastafarian attire. Without any prior notice, he began speaking in a Jamaican accent and went on for close to 45 seconds shouting as if he were a rudeboy from the "Kingston Massive", peppering his speech with the rudeboy exclamations "Big up" and "Respect" (much like Ali G, another white entertainer famous for using rudeboy mannerisms in his act). It was just over half a minute before Brody finally introduced the act. Lorne Michaels is notorious for his dislike of improvisation and unannounced performances (as was also the case in Elvis Costello's incident), and therefore was furious with Brody for not obtaining clearance before performing this "monologue."