Whatever you may think of Adam Sandler’s film career these days, you can’t argue with his status in the comedy world in 1995. In February of that year, Sandler’s Billy Madison debuted at No. 1 at the box office, and the following February he released yet another comedy classic, Happy Gilmore. Somewhere in between, both Sandler and his friend and castmate Chris Farley were fired from S.N.L. Farley’s dismissal from S.N.L. was also sandwiched by back-to-back comedy classics: Tommy Boy, released in March, 1995, and Black Sheep, released in February, 1996. Both of those Farley vehicles were produced by Lorne Michaels himself. Nearly 20 years later, Sandler still doesn’t know exactly what happened when he and Farley were fired. He told the Daily Beast:

Yes, we were [fired]. We kind of quit at the same time as being fired. It was the end of the run for us. The fact that me and him got fired? Who knows. We were on it for a few years, had our run, and everything happens for a reason. We kind of understood because we did our thing. It hurt a lot at the time because we were young and didn’t know where we were going, but it all worked out.

The “we had our run” argument doesn’t really hold water. Other successful cast members, like Fred Armisen or Jason Sudeikis, were on the show for much longer. But the end of the 1995 season saw a huge shake-up in the cast due to overall low ratings (NBC reportedly threatened to fire Michaels) and ushered in a new class of comedians including mainstays Will Ferrell, Darrell Hammond, Cheri Oteri, and Chris Kattan.

But Sandler was absolutely correct in saying it all worked out. Once again, whatever you may think about Sandler’s film career, many of his movies continue to be highly lucrative. In that Daily Beast interview, Sandler may seem fairly blasé about being fired, but earlier in the summer Sandler expressed a little rancor when he told fellow S.N.L. alum Norm MacDonald that he wasn’t interested in ever returning to host. “Why should I?” he said. Despite the low 1995 ratings and some behind-the-scenes factors that the S.N.L. audience at home isn’t privy to, throwing Sandler and Farley out with the bathwater directly after a season that saw both the debut of Sandler’s “Hannukah Song,” and several classic sketches like the “Gap Girls,” “Canteen Boy,” and Matt Foley in heavy rotation, remains as much a puzzle to us as it does to Sandler.

For the most part, however, Sandler is looking to the future. With dramatic roles in two Toronto International Film Festival entries this year, Tom McCarthy’s The Cobbler, and Jason Reitman’s Men, Women, & Children, Sandler’s plate is pretty full. But it’s hard, even for Sandler, to entirely avoid looking back:

I miss Farley. He was a tour de force on the show and dominated. He could dominate anybody. There’s nobody that can walk into a room and take over better than Farley. I haven’t seen anyone since he’s gone that’s taken that spot. He’s the strongest presence I’ve ever seen.

Maybe it’s nostalgia for a golden age that never was, but in this S.N.L. era of even more confusing behind-the-scenes shuffles, and a cast struggling to make their mark, it’s difficult not to look back with regret at what might have been.