With “Saturday Night Live” kicking off its 50th season this weekend, and Jason Reitman’s upcoming movie about what it was like behind the scenes of the series’ debut, now is a good time to read what my friend Mark Evanier wrote on his blog about that first show.
As he points out, the modern “SNL” has only a few similarities to the way the product appeared when it launched on October 11, 1975.
The biggest difference was that with host George Carlin doing three standup routines, musical guests Janis Ian and Billy Preston each performing two songs, a filmed short by Albert Brooks, a weird Muppets skit, recorded commercial parodies, and Andy Kaufman’s “Mighty Mouse” bit, there was barely any room for comedy sketches.
Extra kudos to Mark for recalling that character actor George Coe was credited as part of the original cast of “Not Ready For Primetime Players.” But he didn’t even last as long as Chuck Cunningham on “Happy Days.”