Saturday Night Live

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Saturday Night Live
The Saturday Night Live inter-title since season 32.
Also known as	NBC's Saturday Night (1975–1977) Saturday Night Live '80 (1980)
Format	Stand-up Comedy, Sketch Comedy, Comedy, Variety
Created by	Lorne Michaels
Starring	See Saturday Night Live cast
Country of origin	United States
No. of seasons	34
No. of episodes	658 (as of May 16, 2009) (Episode list)
Production
Location(s)	Studio 8H, GE Building, Rockefeller Center New York City, New York
Running time	90-92 minutes
Production company(s)	Broadway Video SNL Studios
Broadcast
Original channel	NBC
Picture format	480i (SDTV), 1080i (HDTV)
Original run	October 11, 1975 – present
Chronology
Related shows	TV Funhouse
External links
Official website

Saturday Night Live (SNL) is a weekly late-night sketch comedy and variety show filmed in New York City. It made its debut on October 11, 1975. The show features a regular cast of comedy actors, joined by a guest host and musical act. The show is broadcast live in the Central and Eastern time zones (with a time delay in the Mountain Time Zone and Pacific Time Zone) from Studio 8H at the GE Building in New York's Rockefeller Center.

It was created by Canadian Lorne Michaels, who, excluding seasons 6–10, has been with the show throughout, first as producer and writer and later its executive producer. The show was originally intended to have just six episodes. Currently in its 34th season, SNL is one of the longest-running network programs in American television history. The first episode of the 35th season will air on Saturday, September 26, 2009.^[1]

Throughout its history (except for season 7 and other rare exceptions), the show has traditionally begun with a cold open that ends with someone breaking character and proclaiming "Live, from New York, it's Saturday night!"

History

See also: history of SNL by season: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35

The show began as a replacement for The Best of Carson reruns of The Tonight Show that aired on either Saturday or Sunday night, at an affiliate's discretion, from January 1965 until September 1975 (originally known as The Saturday/Sunday Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson). Originally, the show was called NBC's Saturday Night, as the current title was in use by rival network ABC. NBC purchased the rights to the name in 1976^[2] and officially adopted the new title on March 26, 1977. After five years, creator Lorne Michaels chose not to renew his contract, and was joined in departure by the cast members and writers. Jean Doumanian took over the show for the 1980 season, hiring a new cast and writers that included Eddie Murphy. Doumanian was replaced after one year by Dick Ebersol, who had hired Michaels as the show's creator. Murphy and Joe Piscopo continued as cast members under Ebersol, remaining with the show until 1984. For fall 1984, Ebersol added several cast members with television experience, including Billy Crystal, Martin Short, Harry Shearer, and Pamela Stephenson. After one season, Ebersol wanted a more significant revamp, which was rejected in favor of bringing back Lorne Michaels.

Creator Lorne Michaels in April 2008.

Michaels' return for the 1985-6 season restored an association with NBC that has lasted nearly thirty years. The show has helped launch the careers of Dan Aykroyd, John Belushi, Chevy Chase, Stephen Colbert, Billy Crystal, Jane Curtin, Joan Cusack, Larry David, Robert Downey, Jr., Jimmy Fallon, Chris Farley, Will Ferrell, Tina Fey, Janeane Garofalo, Gilbert Gottfried, Phil Hartman, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Dennis Miller, Tracy Morgan, Mike Myers, Eddie Murphy, Bill Murray, Conan O'Brien, Amy Poehler, Gilda Radner, Chris Rock, Maya Rudolph, Adam Sandler, Rob Schneider, Paul Shaffer, Molly Shannon, Harry Shearer, Martin Short, Sarah Silverman, David Spade, Ben Stiller, Damon Wayans and many more. As head of Broadway Video and SNL Films, Michaels has leveraged the talent he's helped introduce, producing shows and films such as All You Need Is Cash, Wayne's World, Late Night with Conan O'Brien, Coneheads, Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, and 30 Rock

Saturday Night Live writers

Saturday Night Live cast

Current repertory players

• Fred Armisen (2002–present)
• Will Forte (2002–present)
• Bill Hader (2005–present)
• Darrell Hammond (1995–present)
• Seth Meyers (2001–present)
• Andy Samberg (2005–present)
• Jason Sudeikis (2004–present)
• Kenan Thompson (2003–present)
• Kristen Wiig (2005–present)

Current featured players

• Abby Elliott (2008–present)
• Bobby Moynihan (2008–present)
• Michaela Watkins (2008–present)
• Casey Wilson (2007–present)

Announcer

Don Pardo has served as the announcer for the series since it began (except for season 7, when Mel Brandt and Bill Hanrahan filled that role). Pardo, who was 57 when the show debuted and who retired from NBC in 2004 at age 86, still flies in from his home in Tucson, Arizona, to introduce the show as of 2009. The 2008-2009 season is/was apparently his last season.

The SNL Band

The Saturday Night Live Band (also known as "The Live Band") is the house band for SNL. It features New York studio musicians including Paul Shaffer (1975-1977, 1977-1980), G.E. Smith, Lou Marini (1975-1983), David Sanborn (1975), Michael Brecker, Ray Chew (1980-1983), Alan Rubin (1975-1983), Georg Wadenius (1979-1985), Steve Ferrone (1985), David Johansen (performing as Buster Poindexter) and Tom Malone, who served as leader of the band from 1981 to 1985. The band is currently under the leadership of Tower of Power alum Lenny Pickett and keyboardists Leon Pendarvis and Katreese Barnes.

Hosts/musical guests

A typical episode of SNL will feature a single host, who delivers the opening monologue and performs in sketches with the cast, and a single musical guest, who will perform two or occasionally three musical numbers. In some cases, the musical guest will also be the host and fill both duties. George Carlin was first to host the show; Candice Bergen was the first female to host the show a few weeks later and again hosted only six weeks after that. Guests that have hosted five or more times are sometimes referred to as belonging to the Five-Timers Club, a term that originated on a sketch performed on Tom Hanks' fifth episode.

Films based on SNL sketches

Films based on SNL sketches are listed below with their release, budget, gross, and ratings from Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic. The gross is from Box Office Mojo.^[3] A Rotten Tomatoes score of 60% or higher indicates the film is "fresh" (well-received)^[4]; Metacritic scores from 81-100, 61-80, 40-60, 20-39, and 0-19 indicate universal/near-universal acclaim, generally favorable reviews, mixed reviews, poor reviews, and overwhelming dislike, respectively.^[5]

The early days of SNL spawned several movies, including the successful The Blues Brothers. However it was the success of Wayne's World, that encouraged Lorne Michaels to produce more film spin-offs, based on several popular sketch characters. Michaels revived 1970s characters for Coneheads (1993), followed by It's Pat (1994); Stuart Saves His Family (1995, with the Stuart Smalley character); A Night at the Roxbury (1998, with the Butabi Brothers characters); Superstar (1999, with the Mary Katherine Gallagher character); and Ladies Man (2000). Some did moderately well, though others did not — notably It's Pat!, which did so badly at the box office the studio which made the film, Touchstone Pictures (owned by the Walt Disney Company, which also owns NBC's rival ABC), pulled it only one week after releasing it, and Stuart Saves His Family, with the latter losing US$15 million. Many of these films were produced by Paramount Pictures. The films based on The Blues Brothers were produced by Universal Studios, which merged with NBC in 2004 to form NBC Universal (Universal also has a joint venture with Paramount for international distribution of the two studios' films).

In addition, Office Space (1999) originated from a series of Mike Judge animated short films that aired on SNL after appearing on several other programs.^[7]

The character Bob Roberts from the Tim Robbins film of the same name, first appeared on SNL in a short film about the conservative folk singer.

The group The Folksmen first appeared on SNL, performing the song "Old Joe's Place" before later appearing in the film A Mighty Wind. The three members of the Folksmen were the same three comedians- Harry Shearer, Michael McKean, and Christopher Guest who also appeared on the same episode as the rock group Spinal Tap. At the time of the appearance, (the 1984-85 season) Shearer and Guest were cast members. Likewise, Guest's Corky St. Clair character from the film Waiting for Guffman originated in the 1984 "Synchronized Swimming" sketch.

The studio

Since the show's inception, SNL has aired from Studio 8H, located on floors 8 and 9 of GE Building (30 Rockefeller Plaza, or "30 Rock"). Due to the studio originally being a radio soundstage for Arturo Toscanini and his NBC Symphony Orchestra, the layout of the studio floor and the audience positioning causes some audience members to have an obstructed view of many of the sketches. According to NBC, the 8H studio has almost perfect acoustics. The offices of SNL writers, producers, and other staff can be found on the 17th floor of "30 Rock."

During the summer 2005 shooting hiatus, crews began renovations on Studio 8H. With its thirty-first season premiere in October 2005, the show began broadcasting in high definition, appearing letterboxed on conventional television screens. Though the show is still produced in widescreen, beginning in 2008, many viewers again began seeing the show in a 4:3 aspect ratio due to the DTV conversion.

Three of the first four shows of the 1976-77 season were shot at the former NBC Studios in Brooklyn, due to NBC News using Studio 8H for Presidential election coverage.

Production process

The following is a summary of the process used to produce the show. It is based in part on interviews with former SNL head writer and performer Tina Fey in 2000 and 2004.^[8][9]

Monday:

• The day begins with a topical meeting, identifying the biggest story for the show's opening.
• This is followed by a free-form pitch meeting with Lorne Michaels and the show's host for the week. The official name is "The Host Meeting" but all the writers and cast members call it "The Pitch Meeting"
• Throughout the week the host has a lot of influence on which sketches get aired.
• Following the meeting, writers begin to draft the two scripts each must produce.

Tuesday:

• Starting in the afternoon, anywhere from 30 to 45 scripts are written, most of which will not be broadcast.
• Once a writer's scripts are complete, he or she will often help other writers on their scripts.
• Meanwhile, Lorne Michaels has another "Pitch Meeting" with the musical guest(s) and discusses which of their current songs, 2 to 3, they should play in the show for their music act.

Wednesday:

• All scripts get a read-through from the writers and producers.
• The scripts get switched to each other for their read throughs.
• After the read-through, the head writer(s) and the producers meet with the host to decide which sketches to work on for the rest of the week, with Lorne Michaels and the host having the final say.

Thursday:

• The surviving sketches are reviewed, word-by-word, by the writing staff as a whole or in two groups in the case of co-head writers.
• Some sketches which survived the cut because of their premise, but are in need of work, are rewritten completely. Others are changed in smaller ways.
• The Weekend Update crew starts coming together, starting with the news items written by writers dedicated all week to the segment.
• The crew comes in for rehearsal, and the music act is rehearsed as well as some of the larger, more important sketches.
• The host and musical guest and usually some cast members shoot two to four promos to play for NBC.

Friday:

• The show is blocked.
• The writer of each sketch acts as producer, working with the show's set designers and costumers.
• Special music is recorded for the show.

Saturday:

• With the show still far from finalized, the day begins with a run-through, with props, in front of Lorne Michaels.
• The Saturday Night Live Band does a mid-morning rehearsal.
• After the run-through, the cast and crew find out which of the sketches are in the dress rehearsal, and which are cut. The writer/producer deals with any changes.
• This is followed by a dress rehearsal performed in front of the studio audience, which lasts from 8 p.m. - 10 p.m. (or sometimes later) and contains approximately twenty minutes of material which will be deleted from the final broadcast.
• Lorne Michaels uses firsthand observation of the audience reaction during the dress rehearsal and input from the host and head writer to determine the final round of changes, re-ordering sketches as necessary.
• The show then begins at 11:30 p.m. local time.
• After the show comes the after-party which is located at various "hot-spots" in New York. Everybody that was involved in the show, including the host, is invited. This includes the musical guest(s) too.

Sunday:

• The next day, the cast checks out the reviews online or on TV
• This is when the cast decides whether the host should do the show a second time in the future or not.
• If the show was slightly mediocre, the cast and Lorne Michaels find out which celebrity has been recognized since the past week and give him/her the offer of hosting the show.
• They do the same for the musical guest(s).

The status of the show during the week is maintained on a bulletin board. Sketches and other segments are given labels which are put on index cards and put on the board in the order of their performance. The order is based on content as well as production limitations such as camera placement and performer availability. Segments which have been cut are kept to the side of the board. As the broadcast approaches, often the writer/producer discovers the fate of his or her segment only by consulting the bulletin board.

A 60 Minutes report taped in October 2004 depicted the intense writing frenzy that goes on during the week leading up to a show, with crowded meetings and long hours. The report particularly noted the involvement of the guest hosts in developing and selecting the sketches in which they will appear. Similarly, there has been an A&E episode of Biography which covered the production process, as well as an episode of "TV Tales" in 2002 on E! Entertainment Television.

When it's not live

Reruns

SNL reruns are aired out of its original broadcast sequence, usually determined by which episodes have not yet been repeated, but had high ratings or acclaim for its live broadcast. Shows usually air twice during a particular season, but often the highest rated shows of the season have a second encore show towards the end of the off-season, or episodes will be repeated a second or third time to coincide with a new event connected with the person who hosted. For example, the Natalie Portman episode aired in March 2006 to promote V for Vendetta was repeated August 5, 2006, prior to the film's DVD release August 8. Similarly, Jeff Gordon's episode reran following NBC's coverage of the Pepsi 400.

The show is never live in the western half of the USA. There was a short experiment in which it did air live on the west coast in 2001 after live XFL football games.^{[citation needed]} NBC airs a recording of the live show for the Mountain and Pacific time zones, usually exactly as it aired in the East—mistakes notwithstanding.

NBC and Broadway Video share the copyright to every episode of the show made thus far. From 1990 until 2004, Comedy Central and its predecessor Ha! re-aired reruns of the series, after which E! Entertainment Television signed a deal to reruns.^[10] Abbreviated thirty and sixty minute versions of the first five seasons aired as The Best of Saturday Night Live in syndication beginning in the 1980s and later on Nick at Nite in 1988, VH1, Comedy Central and E! Entertainment Television.

Compilations

From time-to-time, SNL airs compilation shows. Such shows will feature hand-selected best sketches from the previous season; of a particular cast member or multiple-time host; or centered on a particular theme (e.g., Halloween, Christmas). Political sketches are typically culled for a special in presidential election years; the 2000 special was notable for having self-deprecating (though separate) appearances by candidates Governor George W. Bush and Vice-president Al Gore. During the 2008 presidential race, then Senator Hillary Clinton, Governor Mike Huckabee, Senator John McCain, Senator Barack Obama, Mayor Rudy Giuliani, and Governor Sarah Palin all made appearances on the show.

Delays

• The show was forced by the network to run on a five-second delay on three separate occasions when Richard Pryor, Sam Kinison, and Andrew Dice Clay each hosted.
• The episode scheduled for October 25, 1986, hosted by Rosanna Arquette, was not aired until November 8 due to NBC broadcasting Game 6 of the 1986 World Series; the game entered extra innings, causing that night's broadcast of SNL to be canceled. The show was recorded for the studio audience starting at 1:30 a.m. Eastern Time, and broadcast two weeks later with an "apology" by New York Mets pitcher Ron Darling.
• The episode scheduled for February 10, 2001, hosted by Jennifer Lopez, aired 45 minutes late due to an XFL game. Lopez and the cast were not told they were airing on a delay.^[11]
• During Eddie Murphy's last season, he negotiated to record a number of extra sketches in September 1983 that featured him and were broadcast in episodes for which he was not available. His last live show was with host Edwin Newman on February 25, 1984.^[12]
• When Sam Kinison delivered a comic monologue in 1986, NBC removed his plea for the legalization of marijuana from the West Coast broadcast and all subsequent airings.
• A portion of Martin Lawrence's 1994 monologue concerning feminine hygiene has been removed from all repeats, replaced with a voice-over and intertitles stating that the excised portion "...was a frank and lively presentation, and nearly cost us all our jobs."^[13]
• In a November 21, 1992 Wayne's World sketch, the characters Wayne and Garth (respectively portrayed by Mike Myers and Dana Carvey) made fun of Chelsea Clinton (the-then 12-year old daughter of the then President-Elect Bill Clinton), implying that Chelsea was incapable of causing males to "Schwing!". This joke was subsequently edited out of all repeats and syndication rebroadcasts of this sketch.^[14]

Replaced/altered sketches

Encore showings are not always identical to the original broadcast. Successful sketches aired later in the show during the original broadcast may be reedited to appear earlier. In the earlier years of the show's history, reruns occasionally replaced weaker sketches with segments from other episodes, usually from episodes that did not have an encore showing at all.

Occasionally, sketches originally performed in the dress rehearsal (which is recorded as a backup) have replaced the live version in reruns. This is usually due to errors (either technical or by the actors) in the live broadcast. Examples include

• A Peter Sarsgaard sketch from his January 21, 2006 appearance, involving Rachel Dratch's fake newscast, met with technical difficulties during the live broadcast when the in-sketch TV stopped working and a stagehand was seen fixing it.^[15]
• A sketch involving "butt pregnancy" during the first broadcast of the November 12, 2005, Jason Lee episode was replaced with a musical sketch about cafeteria food during the repeat.^[16]
• A Debbie Downer sketch featuring Ben Affleck was pulled from later rebroadcasts and replaced with the dress rehearsal version. In this case, the replacement is actually referenced by a title card, explaining that the dress version "worked better." The main difference between the two is that in the dress version, the actors broke character and started laughing during the sketch (causing the audience to laugh more), while the live version was performed without laughter from the actors, and less laughter from the audience.^{[citation needed]}
• One of the most notable substitutions was the replacement of Sinéad O'Connor's October 3, 1992 live performance during which she destroyed a photograph of Pope John Paul II, with the dress rehearsal performance from earlier that evening where she holds up a picture of a starving African child.^[17]

Censorship

In some cases, a sketch was censored in repeat broadcasts.

• On the Rainn Wilson/Arcade Fire episode on February 24, 2007, during the sketch where four men talk about where they were when they first heard "Danny's Song", Bill Hader's character tells the story of how he first heard the song when he was spending time with his father in the park, and concludes that it was the first day that he thought, "I have a dad," instead of, "I have a dad with Down's Syndrome." Due to complaints^[specify], the "Down's Syndrome" part of the line was bleeped out in all NBC reruns.
• When Nirvana played on SNL, at the end of their gig, frontman Kurt Cobain french kissed bassist Krist Novoselic. Cobain later stated, "I did that just to piss off the rednecks and homophobes back in Aberdeen, Washington" (where Cobain was from). NBC decided to edit out the kiss in fear of "complaints".
• On the NBC rerun of the season 34 episode hosted by Anne Hathaway, the CSPAN Bailout sketch was edited to remove references to Herb Sandler and his wife, Marion, and their corrupt banking practices, as days after the sketch aired, Lorne Michaels discovered that Herb and Marion Sandler were an actual couple who were accused of this.^[18]
• On April 10, 1996 the band Rage Against The Machine was scheduled to perform two songs on Saturday Night Live. The show was hosted that night by ex-Republican presidential candidate and billionaire Steve Forbes. According to RATM guitarist Tom Morello, "RATM wanted to stand in sharp juxtaposition to a billionaire telling jokes and promoting his flat tax by making our own statement."^[19]

To this end, the band hung two upside-down American flags from their amplifiers. Seconds before they took the stage to perform "Bulls on Parade", SNL and NBC sent stagehands in to pull the flags down.^[20] The inverted flags, says Morello, represented:

The band's first attempt to hang the flags during a pre-telecast rehearsal on Thursday was stopped by SNL's producers, who "demanded that we take the flags down," according to Morello. "They said the sponsors would be upset, and that because Steve Forbes was on, they had to run a 'tighter' show." SNL also told the band it would mute objectionable lyrics in "Bullet in the Head" (which was supposed to be RATM's second song), and insisted that the song be bleeped in the studio because Forbes had friends and family there.^[19]

On the night of the show, following the removal of the flags during the first performance, the band was approached by SNL and NBC officials and ordered to immediately leave the building. Upon hearing this, RATM bassist Commerford reportedly stormed Forbes' dressing room, throwing shreds from one of the torn down flags.

Morello noted that members of the Saturday Night Live cast and crew, whom he declined to name, "[e]xpressed solidarity with our actions, and a sense of shame that their show had censored the performance."^[19]

Music theme

For its first five years, Saturday Night Live's opening theme used was NBC's Saturday Night, composed by Howard Shore. From its first two seasons it was a swing tune, but since season 3, however, the music theme was reworked as a jazz-funk tune. This opening theme was used until 1980. For the 1980-1981 season, starting on November 22, 1980 until March 7, 1981, Saturday Night Live '80 written by Kenny Vance and Leon Pendarvis was the opening theme. They returned to the 1977 arrangement of the 1975 theme only on April 11, 1981. From 1981 to 1985, Saturday Night Live, written by Tom Malone and Louis Marini was the opening theme. From 1985 to 1995, Dark Side, written by Cheryl Hardwick, was the opening theme. From 1995 to 1997, a medley of the 1975 original theme and the 1985-1995 theme, was used as the opening theme. From 1997 to 2000, a truncated uptempo rock re-recording of the 1995 theme was used for the openings. From 2000 to 2003, a hip-hop redo of the previous music theme was used. The current music theme is a medley of the 1975 theme and the 1981 theme.

The closing music theme is NBC's Saturday Night (Reprise) and was written by Howard Shore. It is used as the closing theme for all the episodes, except in rare occasions.

On DVD

Saturday Night Live: The Complete First Season was released on DVD, in the US, by Universal Studios on December 5, 2006.^[21] Upon the set’s release, some criticism of its authenticity as complete and uncut arose from reviewers and fans.^[22] This was due to the existence of original live copies, which in comparison to the "complete" episodes reveal edits and omissions, which are common among the rerun versions of the shows in the set. ^[23] One such example is a Wrigleys gum parody which originally aired in two episodes live, but was removed for the repeat broadcasts for time, and the DVD uses the repeat versions of these episodes. ^[24]

The complete second season was released in the US on DVD on December 4, 2007.^[21], the third season on May 13, 2008, and the fourth season on December 2, 2008.^[25]

In addition to the full season releases, there have been multiple releases both on VHS and DVD featuring the "Best Of" former cast members and guest hosts in addition to documentaries, musical performances and themed compilations of sketches as well as a release of the show's 25 year anniversary. In 2001, the Presidential Bash 2000 was released on VHS, but it has not thus far been released on DVD.

Books

The first authorized book for the series was published by Avon Books in 1977. Saturday Night Live (ISBN 0380018012) was edited by Anne P. Beatts and John Head, with photography by Edie Baskin.^[26]; all three worked for Saturday Night Live at the time the book was published. The oversized illustrated paperback included the scripts for several sketches by the Not Ready for Prime Time Players, as the repertory cast was known at first.^[27]

International broadcasts

Europe

The show was aired on MTV Europe from 1987 until 1994, when it was moved to NBC Europe. In Spain, there was a briefly lived version of Saturday Night Live. It aired on Cuatro.

In Portugal, Fox Portugal bought the rights of the 34th season and it airs every Saturday, at 10.20 pm. ^[28]

The show was briefly aired on ITV4 in a very late time slot on Saturday nights/Sunday mornings in 2006.

In Poland, Comedy Central Polska airs the 32nd season every Saturday at 11.40 pm.

See also

• Fridays (ABC TV series)
• The Kids in the Hall
• Live from New York, it's Saturday Night!

Further reading

References

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (November 2008)

External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Saturday Night Live

• Official NBC website
• Official website for Broadway Video
• Saturday Night Live at the Internet Movie Database
• Saturday Night Live at TV.com
• SNL Transcripts from snltranscripts.jt.org
• Saturday Night Live Cast and Musical guest database from snlmusic.parshaparts.com

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