Imagine a television show that’s been on the air for 38 years. It’s broadcast “live,” yet it’s not a news program or a sporting event. It has cutting edge skits, irreverent political humor, keeps us up on the hottest bands, has timely guest hosts, and never seems to get stale. If you guessed “Saturday Night Live” you’re absolutely correct.

“Saturday Night Live”—or “SNL”—is widely popular and has been the highest rated late-night show in America since 1977. The show has also been critically acclaimed; winning 36 Emmy Awards and now holds the title for the most nominated television show in Emmy history with 156 nominations. SNL has been a successful show for almost 40 years despite the nearly complete cast change it goes through every five years or so. So how did this remarkable show get its start? Let’s find out.

In the late 1960’s, when Johnny Carson’s “The Tonight Show” was becoming popular on late-night television, NBC decided to fill the late-night weekend gap by running reruns of that show. This worked fine for a few years and gave NBC a leg-up in the late-night weekend time slots, until 1974, when Carson announced that he wanted to save the reruns for those weeknights when he wanted time off. So, NBC president Herbert Schlosser asked Dick Ebersol, the vice president of late night programming, to create a show to fill the Saturday late-night time slot.

Ebersol got together with Lorne Michaels, a writer/producer for NBC, and in a month they developed the idea for a variety show featuring high-concept comedy skits, political satire, and music performances. They assembled a talented cast, including Dan Aykroyd, John Belushi, Chevy Chase, Jane Curtin, Garrett Morris, Laraine Newman, and Gilda Radner and premiered the show on NBC on October 11, 1975, under the original title “NBC’s Saturday Night.” The show, which was performed “live” in front of a studio audience, was an instant hit. It caught many people off-guard with its irreverent humor and quickly established a reputation for being cutting edge and unpredictable. Word soon spread, and within weeks the show was attracting a new demographic to late-night television: young adults.

While the cast members and featured players have changed over the years, the main elements remain the same: a celebrity host, musical guest, sketches, commercial parodies, and a fake news segment. The show format has been developed and recreated in several countries including Spain, Italy, Brazil, Japan, and South Korea. The show’s comedy sketches, which parody contemporary culture and politics, have become a staple of our national dialogue. As Michaels himself said,

“When you leave NYC and LA and you realize how important the show is, [for] people who are not on the grid and can just check in on it…You’re always aware you’re doing it for the country. Unless you reach the middle of the country you haven’t really succeeded.”

Beyond politics, the show’s cast of recurring characters and take on pop culture targets remain spot-on, and sketches from the show often become coffee-break discussions on Monday mornings. The addition of the show’s Emmy Award-winning SNL Digital Shorts dominate YouTube viewings and continue to keep the show as current today as it was when it debuted. So, with all of the wonderful comedy and thought-provoking ideas the show has generated over the years, we hope we’ll always hear those wonderful words at 11:30 every weekend, “Live from New York, It’s Saturday Night.”

SOURCES:

http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/about/

http://snlibc.jt.org/history.phtml

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturday_Night_Live

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorne_Michaels

PHOTOS:

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http://blogs.suntimes.com/shinyobjects/justin-timberlake-snl-mother-lover.jpg

Is it Lindsanity that Lindsay Lohan’s hosting gig on Saturday Night Live was positioned as a comeback? I think yes. First of all, can we wait until she shows some capacity to live clean and sober for longer than 10 minutes and stops looking like a drug-bloated hot mess to declare her well? Please?

Hey, I love a redemption story as much as the next gal. Robert Downey Jr. is the best one I can think of off the top of my head. But, it takes time to prove you have indeed come back before you give interviews about ‘coming back.’

Lohan has been a mess more than she’s been anything else. The girl has issues and issues don’t go away after some visits to the morgue and several hour-long stints in the county jail. Walk the walk, Linds.

Thing is, I have seen the Saturday Night Live promos and the girl has comic timing, the ability to laugh at herself and plenty of material about which to inspire laughter. I happen to think she has some talent and that back in the day…before her 20s, she was an absolute beauty. I am more than willing to see her have some success, but we all know what too much too soon did for this kid the first time around.

The Hostess With the Most-est?

In all fairness, Lindsay Lohan wasn’t a bad host at all.  She was a decent host—above average even, but she didn’t exactly carry the show or win me over as her new biggest fan. She was no Justin Timberlake (but really, who is?!)

She was neither the kind of good that makes me psyched to see her next film, nor was she the kind of good that screamed, “I’m back, baby…TMZ best find some other Disney disaster to kick around!” (Though that wouldn’t exactly be a tall order).

Ms. Lohan was a solid good sport and one of her skits made me laugh out loud: The Real Housewives of Disney. Granted, it was Kristen Wiig that really got me going, but Lohan was a solid ensemble cast member in all of her skits, really. She had a funny monologue…Why does this all sound like backhanded praise???

Maybe, I expected more. I wanted her to come out on fire and make us all forget the laughing stock she has been for half a decade. She didn’t. While her performance was more than okay, she just looks, well, not good. Twenty-five isn’t supposed to look like that. Twenty-five isn’t supposed to include inflated lips and cheek fillers. It is all distracting and very sad and reminds me how not ‘comeback-ready’ this kid really is.

On the bright side, it was a start. Hopefully Lohan will do more in the future to make us laugh with her and not at her. Addiction isn’t all that funny…Even in Hollywood.

Until Next Time…