Saturday Night Live premieres - October 11th, 1975

On this day in 1975, sketch comedy series Saturday Night Live broadcast its first episode live from Studio 8H in Rockefeller Center.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
This Day in History Class. It's a production of I
Heart Radio. Hello and welcome to This Day in History Class,
the show where we explore the past one day at
a time. I'm Gay Bluesier, and today we're talking about

(00:23):
the TV show that launched a thousand comedy careers, Saturday
Night Live. The day was October. The sketch comedy series

(00:45):
Saturday Night Live broadcast its first episode live from Studio
eight h and Rockefeller Center. The show was originally called
NBC's Saturday Night because rival network a b C already
had a variety show called Saturday Night Live with Howard Cosell. Eventually,

(01:08):
NBC was able to purchase the rights to the name,
and two years later, in nine seven, the show changed
its title to Saturday Night Live and never looked back.
The topical sketch comedy show was the creation of a
Canadian producer named Lauren Michaels. He partnered with an NBC

(01:28):
executive named Dick Ebersol, and over the course of several
brainstorming sessions in Hollywood, they worked out a loose concept
for the show. It was Lauren's ambition to shake up
the American comedy landscape in a similar way to what
Monty Python had done in England several years earlier. As

(01:50):
the producer later explained, quote, so much of what Saturday
Night Live wanted to be, or what I wanted it
to be when it began, was cool. This meant taking
the sensibilities that were in music, stage and the movies
and bringing them to television. To achieve this goal, he

(02:10):
enlisted a repertory company composed of young comedians. The initial
seven cast members, known as the not Ready for prime
Time players, were Garrett Morris, Lorraine Newman, Chevy Chase, Gilda Radner,
John Belushi, Jane Curtin, and Dan Ackroyd. Looking back, it's

(02:32):
amazing how many defining features of the show were present
in that very first episode. There was a cold open
sketch that ended with someone saying, live from New York,
it's Saturday Night. The guest host gave a monologue, the
musical acts performed, and there was even a version of
the satirical news segment Weekend Update. But there were also

(02:56):
plenty of things in SNL's debut episode that set it
apart from future shows. For starters, the first host, comedian
George Carlin, didn't appear in any of the sketches. Instead,
he gave his opening monologue and then performed three separate
stand up sets throughout the episode. The show also featured

(03:19):
more live music than it does these days, with musical
guests Billy Preston and Janice Ian performing two songs each.
Another difference was that the first episode featured special guests
who performed their own comedy acts separate from the evening sketches.
For example, comedian Andy Kaufman presented his famous Mighty Mouse routine.

(03:44):
He put on a record of the cartoon characters theme
song and then stood by awkwardly until the part of
the song when Mighty Mouse triumphantly proclaims, here I come
to save the day, at which point Kaufman sprang to life,
mal thing the lyrics and gesturing dramatically. But probably the

(04:04):
biggest difference between early episodes of SNL and later ones
was the presence of the Muppets. That's right, I found
a way to sneak them into the show again. A
year before the Muppets got their own prime time show,
they made regular appearances on SNL in a recurring segment
called the Land of Gorch. But these weren't the Muppets

(04:28):
were used to like Kermit and Miss Piggy. Instead, Jim
Henson created a new set of characters to better play
to the adult crowd. The sketches saw characters like King
Plubus and Queen Pewta making jokes about mature topics like
sex and drugs. The only problem was that the jokes

(04:49):
were painfully unfunny. According to SNL writer Alan's Wibel quote,
whoever drew the short straw that week had to write
the Muppets etch and that actually might be the biggest
similarity between SNL's debut and it's later incarnations. The show
can be very hit or miss. Part of the problem

(05:12):
with the premiere was that it didn't devote much time
to actual sketch comedy. Between the four musical performances, Carlin's
three stand up sets, the Muppets segment, and the other
acts like Andy Kaufman, there was only time for five
true skits in the entire ninety minute episode, and the

(05:33):
little screen time that the cast members did get wasn't
received very well by the studio, audience or critics. Reviews
of that first episode were not kind, with Andy Kaufman
being the high point for most viewers. He said he
was there to save the day, and apparently he did.

(05:54):
Of course, the show did get better, as evidenced by
the fact that it's remained on the air for forty
six years and counting. Along the way, SNL has earned
over seventy Emmy Awards and has introduced the world to
countless characters, catch phrases, and cast members who have become
beloved parts of comedy history today. Saturday Night Live is

(06:19):
an institution all its own, an achievement that few would
have predicted when watching that first episode all those years ago.
I'm Gabe Lousier and hopefully you now know a little
more about TV history today than you did yesterday. If
you want to keep up with the show, consider following

(06:40):
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HC Show and if you have any feedback, you can
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or you can send us an email at this day
at I heeart media dot com. Thanks to Chandler Mays
for producing the show, and thank you for listening. I'll

(07:02):
see you back here again tomorrow for another Day in
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