October 4, 1975…The Missed Debut Date For “Saturday Night”
October 4, 1975…The Missed Debut Date For “Saturday Night”
As it turns out, “The Not Ready For Prime Time Players” were not even ready for late night television! Really! Here’s the story…
NBC’s new 90 minute, live comedy show “NBC Saturday Night” was scheduled to debut at 11:30 on October 4, 1975. The plane truth is, they just could not get the show ready in time for a number of reasons, with timing and blocking among the biggest hurdles to overcome.
Although Tom Snyder’s “Tomorrow” show was a one hour, Monday – Friday production, NBC called on him at the last minute to do special 90 minute Saturday show to cover the SNL hole in their schedule.
Fortunately, Jerry Lewis was in town and agreed to do the show. For the first 85 minutes, he was the single guest. The last five minutes were reserved for the introduction of the SNL cast and it’s producer Lorne Michaels.
In this clip, you will see the first ever network appearance of the original cast of “NBC Saturday Night”. The debut show was one week later, on October 11, with George Carlin as host. Enjoy and SHARE! -Bobby Ellerbee
I remember that first show very well. It was a game changer.
I was working at WHAG-TV on master control when the first SNL was broadcast. I was 21 and I had never seen anything like this before on TV and kept my finger ready to go to black in case they happened to cross the “line”. Luckily I didn’t have to or want to press the button. Whew! HAHA.
As I recall, Tomorrow didn’t air on Fridays. Instead NBC showed The Midnight Special.
I think those ‘golden years’ are overrated. They did some very funny stuff but I have seen better things on that show over the years.
I remember at the time PBS was showing Monty Python, which we’d never been introduced to previously. I didn’t think SNL was as smart as Python, but what was? It’s still an incredible institution that Lorne magically reinvents from year to year to remain relevant. It’s four decades later and all the news channels can’t wait to show clips of Alec Baldwin and Kate McKinnon as Trump and Clinton.
If you ever stayed up on Saturday night you have to see this.