SNL Killer Bees

The Killer Bees segment was inspired by news report in the 1970s that real Killer Bees were migrating north from South America with a predicted arrival by the 1990s.

The cast and guest stars of SNL - John Belushi, Laraine Newman, Dan Aykroyd, Garrett Morris, Neil Levy, Tom Schiller and Elliot Gould - occasionally donned yellow and black stripped costumes and springy antennas tipped with yellow ping pong balls to become a surly group of grizzly Mexican banditos bees who toted machine guns, drove motorcycles and spouted such cheap lines as "Your pollen or your wife, Senor!"

A sample of the original script read:

"We interrupt this (radio) program to bring you this bulletin from the news room. Swarms of South American Killer Bees have been spotted crossing the border into California. Sightings have mostly been confined to rural areas....Eyewitnesses say that the bees are yellow and black and dress much the way Eli Wallach did in the movie, The Magnificent Seven (1960). The bees are also overweight...(radio clicks off)."

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