Christopher Lee's comic introduction of Meat Loaf was ad-libbed live on air, including his seemingly being corrected by an off-camera crew member. In reality, there is no crew member and Lee later said that he could see the technicians in the main booth "looking like they wanted to kill me." According to Lee, Meat Loaf was also not amused by the joke.
According to Al Franken, Christopher Lee announced at his first meeting with the writers that he would not appear in any horror parody sketches, especially not as Dracula. This was a disappointment to them, as Lee had been brought in specifically for a horror-themed episode. As a result, Lee only appears in three sketches. He did agree to play one horror-themed role, "Mr. Death".
In his autobiography "Tall, Dark and Gruesome", Christopher Lee recounts how he originally didn't want to host the show because of a bad experience with live television years earlier. However, his agent insisted that he would do it. He changed his mind during the sketch read-through sessions leading up to the show, when he got a laugh while reading aloud a sketch set in a sauna. In it, most of the regular cast would be scantily clad, but Lee would play a typical uptight Brit dressed in a suit who complained that it wasn't hot enough for him. Unfortunately the sketch never made it past dress rehearsal.
One of Christopher Lee's prized possessions after this show was a photograph of himself with John Belushi, which was inscribed, "To Chris, you are the Best in the Biz, John Belushi - Second Best"
Laraine Newman threatened to quit the show if she wasn't given the role of the little girl in the "Mr. Death" sketch. She got the role but later found out that Gilda Radner had written the role for herself. She felt badly about taking Radner's role and never used such tactics again.