Recurring Saturday Night Live characters and sketches introduced 1995–1996 Oscar winner "Raging Bull", the first movie to star both De Niro and Pesci), and "Li'l bit" (a shortened version of a line from "Goodfellas" (where De Niro accuses another mobster of being a "little bit out of line" for insulting Pesci's character), another film starring the two actors). The real Pesci and De Niro appeared on one episode, criticizing Breuer for playing caricatures of their film characters. Quinn suddenly says he is not De Niro, but "Colin Quinn from "Remote Control"." Breuer's and Quinn's weak defense of themselves insults Pesci, who asks De Niro if they were just insulted,
Frank Rosenthal Spilotro, on which the character Nicky Santoro (played by Joe Pesci) is based. Rosenthal is represented by the character Sam "Ace" Rothstein (played by Robert De Niro). The character of Ginger McKenna Rothstein, his wife in the film (played by Sharon Stone), is based on Geri McGee, Rosenthal's wife in real life. In an interview about the movie, Rosenthal stated that his character portrayed by Robert De Niro was quite but not fully similar to him, namely "7 on a scale of 1 to 10", and that he would neither "dispute" nor "confirm" whether Sharon Stone accurately portrayed his wife