Live From Nowhere In Particular...It's Saturday Night!

I'd just turned 16 and started working at Baskin-Robbins. It was a time when changes in my life were speeding up and I was doing my best to not get left behind. I'd just come in from work on a Saturday night and found myself alone downstairs, my parents asleep upstairs. I turned on the TV and started flipping through channels. 

The news was just ending, and it was at least a half-hour before Dr. Madblood’s Movie came on. Howard Cosell had a new show, Saturday Night, and even though I was not a sports fan; I thought it might be a way to fill the thirty-minute gap. After flipping the channel to NBC and plopped down on my dad’s recliner.

Then something different happened. A person I had never seen before was on screen talking about something, then he tripped and fell before saying “Live from New York it’s Saturday night.”  

What the hell was this? 

As you may have guessed, it was October 11, 1975, and I was on hand for the birth of something that is still alive, well, and kicking. I wasn’t sure what it was, but again

I was just looking to fill half an hour, so I left the TV tuned to it. The announcer reeled off names of people I’d never heard of, but then got to people I had heard of before. Billy Preston was the musical guest, as was Janis Ian. I liked Billy and Janice was okay, too. Jim Henson was billed as being on the show, and I knew that meant Kermit the Frog. I liked Kermit. (BTW no Kermit) Then came the clincher, my favorite comedian George Carlin was hosting. Maybe I was going to skip the replaying of The Horror of Party Beach on Dr. Madblood. There was also Andy Kaufman. Who?

Carlin did a great monologue that included a discussion of the blue food that I still remember. In all the years since, I still have never found a blue food. Then came the sketches. I was quickly introduced to comedians that would fill my next few years with laughter. Dan Aykroyd, Gilda Radner, Garrett Morris, Jane Curtin, Laraine Newman, and John Belushi. Because he started the show, and then later did the Weekend Update newscast, Chevy Chase struck me as being the leader of the cast, but he also struck me as being a real jerk. It was hard to tell how much of that was an act and how much of that was him. Over time, I found it was pretty much him. 

I did not know what I was part of that night, but I knew it was significant. The show I was watching turned into a heavy part of my life for several years as I always tried to make it home on Saturday nights to watch it - as this was before VCRs and DVRs. In between the sketches, the music of Billy and Janis provided a nice mind cleansing to prepare you before the next comedy bits. Then Andy did his Mighty Mouse bit. At first I was perplexed, but before it was over I was laughing out loud.

The show became the instant topic for Monday mornings at school. We shared various lines from the show that became part of our lexicon, and because it was live, we also talked about the mistakes we caught. Plus so many recurring characters and tag lines -- Never mind. The comedy and music became part of my life, as evidenced by just a small sampling of blog entries:

• Got Cat Class & Got Class Style With a Christmas Twist
• With Paradise In Sight, She Cried Out "Stop Right There!"
• Your Other Most Important Vote of 2012
• My Year In Live Music 2018, Act II: Paul Simon -- Tell Me That Crazy Story One Last Time
• I Got a Fever, and the Only Prescription...Is More Cowbell!!

Oh yeah, and an obsession with cowbell.

When I heard they had made a movie about Saturday Night Live, I was immediately excited. I wanted to see what it took to put on that show. It was lucky that I could never catch in the theater or even watch it streaming until recently. This allowed me to sit down and take time to watch the movie uninterrupted and then follow it immediately with the first episode from 1975, since it is exactly where the movie ends.

I think the movie is well made; the people portraying the various cast members, writers, and even Lorne Michaels did a great job. As a theatre kid, I understood and shared the underlying electricity as they prepared to go on stage for the first time. The props that were in the wrong place, people who were suddenly missing minutes before the curtain went up, and more. I think the movie perfectly captured what it must’ve felt like that first time. It also gave me insight into a lot of things I was unaware of.

I admit I knew Chevy was a jerk, so that was not a surprise but things like Garrett Morris questioning why he was there I was unaware of. The same with Lorraine Newman. The trio of extremely talented women who were on the show was amazing, yet they all questioned their own talent. John Belushi’s failure to sign his contract until the last minute was an interesting revelation. No doubt he could’ve made it without the show, but would the show have made it without him?

Learning what Lorne Michaels went through to get this on the air was also surprising. I’ve always looked at TV as something that was carefully scripted and choreographed. Maybe so, but from the show itself to the way it wound up on the air instead of a rerun of Johnny Carson proved that perception was another a bit of Hollywood magic. Should we talk about Michael O’Donoghue? No, we shouldn’t.

If you haven’t seen it yet, I would advise you to watch the movie but only if you can follow it immediately after with the first episode. Seeing how they got there and what they eventually delivered together like that is perfect. In fact, I think it should be required watching for anybody doing anything on stage. It shows you how you go from that mass confusion of high energy to delivering a product that the audience raves about without ever knowing what it looked like just a minute before the curtain rose.

PostScript: I haven’t watched the show in years. It has morphed into something I no longer recognize nor enjoy -- but that’s okay. I am not 16 anymore and that’s who the show is for.

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