Saturday Night Live 

A famous guest host stars in parodies and sketches created by the cast of this witty show.

Creator:

Lorne Michaels

Stars:

Don Pardo, Lenny Pickett, Darrell Hammond

Won 58 Primetime Emmys. Another 71 wins & 348 nominations.

Cast

Series cast summary:
Don Pardo	...	Himself - Announcer / ... 727 episodes, 1975-2014
Lenny Pickett	...	Himself - Bandleader / ... 417 episodes, 1985-2018
Darrell Hammond	...	Various / ... 362 episodes, 1995-2018
Kenan Thompson	...	Various / ... 305 episodes, 2003-2018

Storyline

A late-night comedy show featuring several short skits, parodies of television commercials, a live guest band, and a pop-cultural guest host each week. Many of the SNL players have spun off successful independent comedy and/or movie careers from here.

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Plot Keywords:

guest | parody | late night | three word title | sketch | 

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Taglines:

Live from New York, it's Saturday Night!

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Genres:

Comedy | Music

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Certificate:

TV-14

Details

Official Sites:

NBC Official Facebook

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

11 October 1975 (USA)

Also Known As:

NBC's Saturday Night

Filming Locations:

JC Studios, Brooklyn, New York City, New York, USA

Company Credits

Production Co:

NBC Studios, NBC Universal Television, Broadway Video

Technical Specs

Runtime:

90 min

Sound Mix:

Mono Stereo

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

4:3

Did You Know?

Trivia

In order to make Bill Hader laugh, and break character during the "Stefon" sketches, John Mulaney would change some of the jokes right before the live broadcast, meaning that when Hader was reading the cue cards, he was reading some of the material for the first time. His trademark gesture of covering his mouth with both hands, was his attempt to (often unsuccessfully) conceal fits of laughter.

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Goofs

...almost everything. Live television is largely exempt from the usual rules of goofs.

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Quotes

Ross Perot: Now, I think the deficit is like a crazy old aunt that lives in the cellar: everybody knows she's down there, but nobody wants to talk about her. Well, I say bring her on up and give the bitch a good hosing.

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Connections

Featured in Nerve (2016)

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Soundtracks

(closing theme song)
Composed by Howard Shore

User Reviews

40+ years of teleprompted and safe sketch comedy, far more often than not

What promised well from the early seasons has become, more seasons than not, a safe and homogenized sketch comedy. It's basically the McDonalds of TV sketch that has pushed worthier competitors out of the way for years.

Performers and writers are basically encouraged to ruin sketches with one-note repetition/dragged-out premises, breaking character (essentially on purpose) and smug self-satisfaction... and all of this in the least interesting way possible. What could have been an American version of the avante-garde sketch-breaking started with Monty Python has instead evolved into the pettiest of petty irony "lol I'm in a sketch" onanism; professional 'high school pep assembly' sketches.

The teleprompter-life-support terrible acting that has plagued the show since the 80's or so deserves its own separate paragraph.

The next part may be tough to talk about in a year as politically polarizing and maddening as 2016 is, but I'm nothing if not willfully oblivious: The sketch and satire has picked a direction instead of bravely throwing punches at all valid targets. However, due to the nature of most kinds of satire, from the Ancient Greeks onward, this political directionality itself is forgivable, even if the occasional punch in the other direction would be more intellectually honest. But far, far worse is that instead of an open-minded, sharp, liberal satire, it has chosen, especially in the last 15 years or so, a sophomore-level, party-line Democrat 'satire'. So instead of leading in their own particular apologize-to-no-one way that satirists should do (and as South Park does and The Daily Show and Colbert Report almost always did- they are not always right, but they are always satirists), they follow the party line.

Instead of the 2/10 that I'm giving for the occasional good sketch, would you find it reasonable to give a 1/10 to a show that has for 40 years: had essentially its pick of the litter on writers and performers; had a decent budget; has cornered the market (merely by being first to market) on the national attention that no other show of its kind has come close to rivaling; and for all that has given us a batting average of good/rewatchable sketches somewhere around the 5% range?