Lorne Michaels had a vision for a live comedy show to help
revive NBC's audience on Saturday nights. He began planning this monumental show in the early 1970's and eventually
it grew to a reality. He became Executive Producer of the show. On October 11, 1975 in Studio 8H in 30 Rock (Rockefeller
Center for those of you that don't know). The original cast consisted of Dan Ackroyd, John Belushi, Chevy Chase, Jane
Curtin, Garrett Morris, Laraine Newman, and Gilda Radner. This monumental cast set the stage for all of the episodes
to come. Although it started out slow Saturday Night Live took off and was a huge hit.
In 1980 Lorne Michaels left as producer and the next 5 years
were an all time low for the show but created stars out of Eddie Murphy and Joe Piscopo-the stars of those 5 years.
And in the 1985-1986 season Lorne Michaels returned to find himself basically starting his beloved show over and he was quite
successful. The late 80's and early 90's gave new life to SNL. Mike Myers, Dana Carvey, Adam Sandler, Chris Farley and
David Spade were just a few of the cast members that revived the show to the highest ratings since the original cast.
The 90's turned into successful years with the likes of
Will Ferrel, Tracy Morgan, Tim Meadows and the first real female stars since the original 3-Molly Shannon, Cheri Oteri and
Ana Gasteyer as well as Tina Fey becoming the first female Head Writer for the show. Some other stars of the most recent
casts include Chris Kattan, Darrell Hammond, Chris Parnell, Horation Sanz and Jimmy Fallon. The casts have been focusing
on political issues and also the usual humorous sketches but the politics on the show do actually give an accurate interpretation
of what is happening in the world. Many viewers get their news from the show in an easy to understand but yet informative
way. Al Gore watched the SNL version of the presidential debates in order to do better in the final 2. And many
celeberities know that they are truly stars when SNL talks about them.
They are known for the music played on their show as well.
The studio is about 95% soundproof thanks to some old conductor who used the studio back when it was built and swore that
he could hear the subway far beneath him and when the studio was converted to a television studio it lost about 5% of that
sound quality. That is why many musicians love to play on SNL and sound top notch when they do. I only have read
about one group that lipsynced when on the show and that was ABBA and apparently they sounded awful.
Anyway, those are the facts and I'm sticking to it. (spin
on Colin Quinn's WU signoff.
Personally I love SNL and hope one day to go and see the
show in person and maybe hopefully one day I'll be a part of it. Whether a writer, actor, guest or behind the scenes person
I hope to help broadcast the greatest show one day and live in my favorite city in the world-NYC.
