The Mythology Of ‘SNL’: A Look Back At The Inaugural Episode That Upended TV
deadline.comSaturday Night Live is no stranger to mythologizing, and no episode has been as elevated to the stuff of legend as the late-night sketch comedy series’ inaugural showing.
A tricenarian Lorne Michaels, half a century yet removed from becoming the preeminent juggernaut of television — before SNL produced such comedic powerhouses as Tina Fey and Steve Martin and late-night mainstays as Seth Meyers and Jimmy Fallon, before Fey’s 30 Rock spoofed it and numerous other sketches were transformed into feature-length projects — and a group of rag-tag yet promising comedians, including Dan Aykroyd, John Belushi, Chevy Chase, Laraine Newman, Garrett Morris, Jane Curtin and Gilda Radner, comprised the as-yet untested unit piloting NBC’s experiment of sorts to replace reruns of Johnny Carson’s late-night TV program.
Coinciding with the debut of SNL Season 50, Jason Reitman’s Saturday Night, about the famed 90 minutes leading up to that first Oct.
11, 1975 show in Midtown’s 30 Rockefeller Plaza’s Studio 8H, added to the grandeur and mystery behind the NBC series. In lieu of the regularly scheduled programming on Saturdays and amid SNL‘s flurry of jubilees culminating in tomorrow’s final three-hour fete, the network hosted a special re-airing of its first show, then titled NBC’s Saturday Night.
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