How’s This For A Flashback?
Here’s an ad for the first ever episode of ‘Saturday Night Live’ and goes a long way in clearing up some confusion in the comments section from last week.
As I wrote then, Tom Snyder did a special 90 minute Saturday version of ‘Tomorrow’ with Jerry Lewis to cover the one week pushback of the SNL debut. Some had posted that Billy Crystal was to host the first show and the pushback gave George Carlin the honor of being the first guest host, but that was never the case. It was always Carlin, BUT…Crystal was scheduled to appear. Unfortunately, the show went long and Billy’s segment had to be cut.
It would be interesting to know if Billy made it to the stage in the dress rehearsal or if the cut came that afternoon. Anyone know? Thanks to Doug Gerbino for this classic ad. Enjoy and share! -Bobby Ellerbee
I love that the show started on 4/20.
Notice they still used “Live” in the title, albeit with a hyphen…..due to the fact that ABC had “Saturday Night Live with Howard Cosell” at the same time. Less than 18 months later, long after Cosell’s live show bombed, NBC got the title (and Bill Murray along with it) and the rest is history.
The Muppets seemed to have been everywhere in those days. To me, their being on SNL is like Sha Na Na appearing at Woodstock. But, in both instances, they did!
I was 12. I tuned in because George Carlin was in it. Very surprised when George was not the best part of the show. I was hooked.
Interesting that the Not Ready For Prime-Time Players don’t even get a mention!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gNlBzzbtN1U
best ever sketch show with Colonel Angus and his lust for heat
Cool!
https://screen.yahoo.com/george-carlin-classic-monologue-1-000000814.html
This first episode did not air in Columbia, South Carolina where I was living at the time. In 1975, I worked at the number 1 TV station in SC, WIS-TV in Columbia. The station did not start airing SNL for about 2 years after it began. They made more money running a local movie on Saturday nights than they would have with the Network. Knowing this, a group of us who worked at the station would meet in the maintenance shop to watch the NBC Network feed each Saturday night. We were the ONLY ones in Central SC who saw SNL for the first 2 years!
Billy Crystal actually debuted on Cosell’s “Saturday Night Live.”
One of the biggest laughs I saw from this show, was the closing credit crawl….when everyone was called “Bud”. Sadly, when Warner Home Video released the premiere on VHS/Beta back in the early 80s, they cut a small chunk of the closing credits out, namely to remove the credit for Dick Ebersol (at the behest of NBC who didn’t want executives taking on-air credit). The credit was restored when NBC released the first season DVD set.
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SNL Started Oct 11, 1975 4 and 20 are the channels.