This week marks the 50th anniversary celebration of Saturday Night Live (or SNL as it is more colloquially known). In its half-century of running, SNL has become a comedic institution unmatched in television history. Conceived by Lorne Michaels, the visionary who still helms the show to this day, SNL follows an iconic structure that
consists of a celebrity host (and monologue),
a musical guest, sketches performed by a principal cast, a weekend update news segment, and, always, the declaration of the iconic, “live from New York it’s Saturday Night.”
A vast number of industry legends have gotten their start on SNL, including the likes of Eddie Murphy, Will Ferrell, Amy Poehler, Julia Louis Dreyfus, Adam Sandler, Tina Fey, and Mike Myers. However, few people know the truth behind SNL’s chaotic origins in 1975, or how close the beloved show was to failing to exist at all. Luckily, this is the very concept behind the recent film Saturday Night, which catalogs the fateful night of SNLs premiere and conceptual inception. Here’s everything you need to know about Jason Reitman’s Saturday Night, and how it primes viewers to celebrate SNL‘s big anniversary.
What Happens in ‘Saturday Night’?
The date is October 11, 1975.
Fledgling producer Lorne Michaels
has been given a once in a lifetime opportunity to air his idea for a new variety show, initally just called Saturday Night, on NBC in front of a room full of executives. Michaels has a nebulous vision, vast resources at his disposal, and limited time. If he fails to get the show together by 11:30 p.m. when it will air, Lorne’s boss David Ebersol (Hoffman) lets him know that major executive David Tebet (Dafoe) will not hesitate to play a re-run of Johnny Carson in lieu of taking a chance on a new, risky comedy show.
Turns out, Michaels has plenty of cause to be concerned that he will not beat the clock. For starters, no one is quite clear what the show is about, exactly.
His principal cast is full of wild cards and flight risks.
John Belushi (Matt Wood) refuses to put on his costume and erratically disappears. Chevy Chase (Cory Michael Smith) starts a fight with Milton Berle (J.K. Simmons) for hitting on his girlfriend (Kaia Gerber). A censor tries to rewrite just about every sketch, of which there are far too many to fit into the show’s runtime. The show’s host, George Carlin (Matthew Rhys), finds the whole affair rudimentary and does not want to be there. Garrett Morris (Lamorne Morris) has an operatic identity crisis. Jim Henson (Braun) cannot get a word in edgewise concerning what his Muppets are going to perform. This is all within the first hour.
Ebersol and Tebet continuously have less and less faith that Michaels can bring SNL together in time. However, during rehearsal, when Belushi, Andy Kauffman, and Chevy Chase at the
Weekend Update desk show the executives
what the true spirit of SNL would look like, they agree to let the show go on air (even if the bricks for the stage are literally still being laid minutes before the show is to begin).
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A Star-Studded Cast
The premiere cast of Saturday Night Live consisted of a slew of legends: Gilda Radner, John Belushi, Chevy Chase, Dan Aykroyd, and
even Muppet-Master Jim Henson
, to name a few. It was only fitting that Saturday Night‘s cast was similarly stacked. The cast includes Gabriel LaBelle, who received a Golden Globe nomination for his performance as Lorne Michaels, as well as Cooper Hoffman, son of the late-great Phillip Seymour Hoffman. There are other relatively newer faces that do an incredible job of
transforming into SNL’s greatest icons
, such as Cory Michael Smith as Chevy Chase, Ella Hunt as Gilda Radner, and Matt Wood as John Belushi.
At every corner of Saturday Night you’ll find a familiar and welcome face, such as Dylan O’Brien as Dan Aykroyd, Lamorne Morris as Garret Morris, Kaia Gerber as Jacqueline Carlin, Rachel Sennott as Rosie Shuster, Finn Wolfhard as an NBC Page, J.K. Simmons as Milton Berle, Nicholas Braun as Jim Henson and Andy Kaufman, and, of course, Willem Dafoe as David Tebet (in what seems like his 20th movie of the year, and we cannot get enough).
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In Real-Time
Perhaps the coolest part of Saturday Night is its real-time gimmick, in which the runtime of the movie runs down like a clock until the show has to premiere. Much of the film is shot in long, lingering tracking shots to give the busy effect of being backstage with Michaels and the crew as they prepare to go live. It is somewhat anxiety inducing, but it truly puts you in
the shoes of the characters
and allows you to feel the minutia of preparing for a television variety show.
In that way, Saturday Night really feels like the only movie of its kind. If you have any sort of interest in comedy, production, or generally, television history, this is a must-watch for educational reasons. Aside from that, it is thrilling to see these creatives stumble around and try to get the show together in what almost feels more like a documentary than a film.
A loving homage
to a show that has stood the test of time, Saturday Night is available to stream now on Netflix. The Saturday Night Live 50th Anniversary special is streaming on Peacock.
This story originally appeared on Movieweb
