‘Saturday Night’: A frenetic, nostalgic celebration of early days of SNL
- Matt Palmer
- Oct 20, 2024
- 4 min read
For five decades, one of the most popular comedy shows ever, NBCs ‘Saturday Night Live,’ has been entertaining us with some very hilarious segments and even some controversial moments. Over the years, there have been some really good seasons and some that aren’t as good.
The first few seasons of ‘SNL’ are simply some of the best, and like most shows, getting the first episode together had a really rough start. And, now, we get to see how ‘SNL’ started in the film ‘Saturday Night.’
At 11:30 pm on October 11, 1975, a ferocious trope of young comedians and writers changed TV forever. Find out what happened behind the scenes in the 90 minutes leading up to the first broadcast of ‘Saturday Night Live.’
‘Saturday Night’ is a somewhat fictionalized account of the frantic night that the first episode of ‘SNL’ is getting ready. This is definitely a film that fans of the first few seasons and original cast will really enjoy!
Even though there are some funny moments scattered throughout the film, the film is more of a drama since its main focus shows us how chaotic things were getting as show creator Lorne Michaels was doing all he could to get the show on track.
‘Saturday Night’ does a great job showing how tense things were on set. The film shows that everything that could go wrong did - the set began to fall apart, the sound system breaks, writers put together too much material, some of the cast begins to rebel (mainly Belushi) and a few NBC execs hoping the show would actually fail.
For older fans of the show, there will be a feel of nostalgia. There are a couple scenes that recreate infamous ‘SNL’ moments, such as the very first skit (“Wolverines”) and the Andy Kaufman/Mighty Mouse sketch that’s still really funny. The cast also does a phenomenal job portraying the original ‘SNL’ cast/crew members. There are even times that you would think you’re watching the actual original members.
If you enjoy ‘SNL’ (primarily the earlier seasons) and are fans of the original cast, then make sure to not miss ‘Saturday Night’!
Some of the cast: Gabriel LaBelle as Lorne Michaels; Rachel Sennott as Rosie Shuster; Cory Michael Smith as Chevy Chase; Ella Hunt as Gilda Radner; Dylan O’Brien as Dan Aykroyd; Emily Fairn as Laraine Newman; Kim Matula as Jane Curtin; Willem Dafoe as Dave Tebet; Matthew Rhys as George Carlin; J.K. Simmons as Milton Berle and Matt Wood as John Belushi, among many others.
‘Saturday Night’ is written by Gil Kenan and co-written/directed by Jason Reitman, who also collaborated with Kevan on the recent ‘Ghostbusters’ movies.
It was announced in May 2023 that Reitman would be directing, producing and co-writing a film about the creation of ‘Saturday Night Live.’ He and Kenan conducted interviews with the living cast and crew of the premiere season in order to develop a better script.
‘Saturday Night’ is rated R for language throughout, sexual references, some drug use and brief graphic nudity and has a running time of 109 minutes.
Let me know on my Wyoming County Press Examiner reviews page on Facebook what your all-time favorite SNL sketch is!
Dan Aykroyd was the only original SNL cast member who read the script.
Early in the film, a box of "Colon Blow" is seen on a backstage desk. This is a reference to a later SNL commercial for "Colon Blow Cereal" featuring Phil Hartman (Season 15, 1989).
Benny Safdie was originally cast as Andy Kaufman, but had to drop out due to scheduling conflicts. Because of this, Nicholas Braun plays two roles in this film: Kaufman and Jim Henson. Kaufman's appearance on Saturday Night Live (1975) was previously dramatized in Man on the Moon (1999), where he was played by Jim Carrey.
When news of this movie first came out, the original working title was "Wolverines", the name of the first-ever "Saturday Night Live" sketch that featured John Belushi and writer Michael O'Donoghue. In the sketch, Belushi, a foreign man learning English from Michael, imitates everything he says, starting with "I would like to feed your fingertips to the wolverines" followed by other offbeat sentences involving wolverines. Then the teacher, after saying, "next," has a heart attack and falls on the floor; Belushi does the same, imitating him like he'd been doing with the sentences. Then Chevy Chase walks out with a headset on, looking like a crew member, and utters the famous line: "Live from New York, it's Saturday Night!"
In the movie, Milton Berle tells Lorne Michaels he looks forward to hosting the show someday. Berle hosted in Season 4, but at the time Michaels considered it the worst episode they had done, and held it out of syndication.
The movie's working title, "SNL 1975," technically doesn't fit since in 1975 the show was originally titled "Saturday Night". Howard Cosell already hosted a prime-time variety show called "Saturday Night Live," which is why Chevy Chase (and everyone else thereafter) says "Live from New York, it's Saturday Night!" The title was later changed to "Saturday Night Live."
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