A few years back, I read on Facebook that, in 1969, while preparing for the Apollo 11 mission, astronaut Neil Armstrong was giving careful consideration as to what he would say after becoming the first person to set foot on the moon. Command module pilot Michael Collins jokingly suggested, "If you had any balls, you'd say, 'Oh, my God, what is that thing?', then scream and cut your mic." I also read that apparently Armstrong used to tell unfunny jokes about the moon and then add, "I guess you had to be there." Now I don't know if either of those stories are true. I'm guessing that the only person who can truly confirm or deny them is fellow astronaut Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin, the third astronaut on that historic mission, but I've never seen an interview with him to know for sure. The one thing I do know for certain is that I want those stories to be true. With all my heart and soul and every fiber of my being, I want those stories to be true and not just be some random shit that I happened to read online. Such is the case with the events depicted in this week's movie.
Michael O'Donoghue: Let us begin. Repeat after me: I would like...
John Belushi (in vaguely Eastern European accent): I would like...
O'Donoghue: To feed your fingertips...
Belushi: To feed your feengerteeps...
O'Donoghue: To the wolverines.
Belushi: To the wolverines.
--from the first sketch of the first episode of "Saturday Night Live," 11 October, 1975
It was forty-nine years ago this very week that Lorne Michaels changed the face of television comedy. He took a cast of then unknown actors and comedians from across the country and broadcast a live television show on NBC at 11:30 pm on the night of 11 October, 1975. It was the first television show produced by the first generation to be raised on television. It was irreverent, satirical, anarchic, and even silly in a few places. Over the next half century, the show influenced multiple generations of comedians and became a springboard for up-and-coming performers to hone their comedy chops and writing skills and introduced the world to the likes of Dan Aykroyd, John Belushi, John Belushi's eyebrows, Colin Jost, Chevy Chase, Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, Bill Murray, Michael Che, Dana Carvey, Kate McKinnon, Billy Crystal, Seth Meyers, Kristen Wiig, Mike Myers, Jane Curtin, Martin Short, Chris Rock, Adam Sandler, Chris Farley, Phil Hartman, Will Ferrell, Molly Shannon, Gilda Radner, and future Senator Al Franken... just to name a few. The show recently began its fiftieth season with no signs of stopping. (The show we know today as "Saturday Night Live," or "SNL," was originally titled "NBC's Saturday Night" to avoid confusion with a variety show ABC debuted a month earlier called "Saturday Night Live with Howard Cosell." It was cancelled after eighteen episodes, after which NBC bought the rights to the name and in 1977 re-christened their show as "Saturday Night Live.")
I've been a fan of "SNL" since the mid- to late-1980s. I often credit the show with fostering in me a deep love of comedy, specifically political satire. I've always been fascinated by what makes us laugh and have read all sorts of books and studied the works of great comedians like the Marx Brothers, Monty Python, Abbott & Costello, George Carlin, Robin Williams, and The Firesign Theatre--just a few of my favourites. I think that love was always there, but it really started to take hold when I was a teenager. Along with Gary Larson's "Far Side" cartoon strip, "SNL" kind of cemented it for me, especially the "Weekend Update" segment which taught me that there's a lot of humour that can be mined from "serious" world events. "Update" became the model for some of today's topical comedy hits like "The Daily Show," "Real Time with Bill Maher" and "Last Week Tonight with John Oliver."
A new movie directed by Jason Reitman recreates the hectic drama and sheer uncertainty that occurred during the ninety minutes leading up to that first broadcast. Those events have been fairly well-documented over the years in books and memoirs (I, for one, particularly enjoyed the book Live From New York: The Complete, Uncensored History of Saturday Night Live by James Andrew Miller and Tom Shales). And while those stories and anecdotes are fun to read, especially when told by those who were actually there, it's sometimes hard to fully appreciate what happened in the moment until you see a visual representation of it like this new movie.
I've been looking forward to this film for a couple of months now, since I first heard about its impending release yesterday (which coincided with the anniversary of that first broadcast). In anticipation of it, I re-watched that first episode again. Because it was the first episode--and it was live--they hadn't quite figured out the format that we've come to appreciate today. George Carlin was the host and there were actually two musical guests, Billy Preston and Janis Ian. The cast had been dubbed by writer Herb Sargent as "The Not Ready For Prime-Time Players" and they were introduced that way in the opening titles (I particularly enjoyed hearing legendary announcer Don Pardo flub this, introducing them as "The Not For Ready Prime-Time Players"--ah, the joys of live television). Even though I had seen it before, I was surprised, even taken aback, by the absurdist nature of it. There was almost no political humour aside from a couple of jokes about then-President Gerald Ford during the "Weekend Update" segment, where Chevy Chase also delivered what many consider one of the show's greatest jokes (and certainly one of my all-time favourites)--"The Post Office announced today that it is going to issue a stamp commemorating prostitution in the United States. It's a ten-cent stamp, but if you want to lick it, it's a quarter."
The truth is, like most of the best things in life, it looked considerably easier than it really was. Reitman's movie depicts absolute chaos backstage--actors fighting with each other, writers fighting with and trying to slip jokes past the network censor, Michaels (played by Gabriel LaBelle) fighting with network bigwigs to let them broadcast, drug use, host George Carlin (played by Matthew Rhys) throwing temper tantrums, cast member Garrett Morris (played by Lamorne Morris--no relation as far as I know) wondering why he's even there. At any moment you get the impression the whole thing could fall apart before it even begins. And even though we know how it ends and where it goes from there, Reitman directed the film with such frenetic tension, we actually find ourselves worrying that the final outcome will be something wholly different. Having grown up on the show, it was fun to see the depictions of what went into that first night and see where certain future sketches like "Hard Hats" and "Fred Garvin, Male Prostitute" came from. I also particularly liked seeing the writers' room where Al Franken (played by Taylor Gray) kept eating handfuls of cereal from a box labeled "Colon Blow," which became one of their commercial parodies nearly a decade and a half later.
While I assume that, for dramatic and cinematic purposes, some liberties were taken with the depictions of some of these events, most of what occurs in the film actually happened that night. I wasn't there, so I can't say for sure. But, like those Neil Armstrong stories, I want it to have happened like that. If nothing else, it's a great story--especially in hindsight. Personally, I'm curious to hear what those who were there think of the film. Did it happen that way, or do they remember it differently? As both a fan of "SNL" as well as the films of Jason Reitman (who also co-wrote the film with Gil Kenan), this week I highly recommend Saturday Night, currently playing at a theater near you.
Until next week, stay safe, be good to your neighbours, and please remember that the show doesn't go on because it's ready--it goes on because it's 11:30.
Yours in peace, love, and rock and roll!
The Reverend Will the Thrill
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