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Saturday Night Live
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Saturday Night Live (SNL) is a weekly late-night 90-minute American sketch comedy/variety show based in New York City that debuted on October 11, 1975. It features a regular cast of typically up-and-coming comic actors, joined by a guest host and musical act. The show — broadcast live (or on tape delay to the Mountain and Pacific Time Zones) from Studio 8H at the GE Building in New York's Rockefeller Center — has launched careers for many major American comedy stars of the last thirty years. It was created by Canadian Lorne Michaels who, excluding seasons 6 through season 10, has produced and written for the show and remains its executive producer. SNL is one of the longest-running network programs in American television history.
Originally, the show was called NBC's Saturday Night, as the current (and originally intended) title was in use by rival network ABC.
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Saturday Night Live (SNL) is a weekly late-night 90-minute American sketch comedy/variety show based in New York City that debuted on October 11, 1975. It features a regular cast of typically up-and-coming comic actors, joined by a guest host and musical act. The show — broadcast live (or on tape delay to the Mountain and Pacific Time Zones) from Studio 8H at the GE Building in New York's Rockefeller Center — has launched careers for many major American comedy stars of the last thirty years. It was created by Canadian Lorne Michaels who, excluding seasons 6 through season 10, has produced and written for the show and remains its executive producer. SNL is one of the longest-running network programs in American television history.
Originally, the show was called NBC's Saturday Night, as the current (and originally intended) title was in use by rival network ABC. NBC purchased the rights to the name in 1976 and officially adopted the new title on March 26, 1977. Throughout its history (except for season 7 and other rare exceptions), the show has traditionally begun with a cold open that ends with someone breaking character and proclaiming "Live, from New York, it's Saturday Night!"
History- By era: 1975-1980; 1980-1985; 1985-1990; 1990-1995; 1995-2000; 2000-2005; 2005-present
- By season: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34
- Weekend Update
Saturday Night Live cast- See also: Saturday Night Live cast
Current repertory players
Notable tenuresAlthough Saturday Night Live has a rapid turnover of supporting players, some performers have had long tenures with the show. (•) means they have a Best Of:
Announcer
Don Pardo has served as the announcer for the series since it began (except for season 7, when Mel Brandt and Bill Hanrahan filled that role). Pardo, who was 57 when the show debuted and who retired from NBC in 2004 at age 86, still flies in from his home in Tucson, Arizona, to introduce the show as of 2008.
The SNL Band The Saturday Night Live Band (most often referred to as The Live Band) is the house band of Saturday Night Live (SNL). It has consistently featured some of the finest studio musicians available in New York, including Paul Shaffer, G.E. Smith, Lou Marini (1975-1983), David Sanborn (1975), Michael Brecker, Ray Chew (1980-1983), Alan Rubin (1975-1983), Georg Wadenius (1979-1985), Steve Ferrone (1985), David Johansen (performing as Buster Poindexter) and Tom Malone, who served as leader of the band from 1981 to 1985. The band is currently under the leadership of Tower of Power alum Lenny Pickett and keyboardists Leon Pendarvis and Katreese Barnes.
Recurring characters and sketches
Films based on SNL sketchesThe early days of SNL spawned several movies, including the successful The Blues Brothers. However it was the success of Wayne's World, that encouraged Lorne Michaels to produce more film spinoffs, based on several popular sketch characters. Michaels revived 1970s characters for Coneheads (1993), followed by It's Pat (1994); Stuart Saves His Family (1995, with the Stuart Smalley character); A Night at the Roxbury (1998, with the Butabi Brothers characters); Superstar (1999, with the Mary Katherine Gallagher character); and The Ladies Man (2000). Some did moderately well, though others did not — notably It's Pat!, which did so badly at the box office the studio which made the film, Touchstone, pulled it only one week after releasing it, and Stuart Saves His Family, with the latter losing US$15 million despite good reviews.
In addition, Office Space (1999) originated from a series of Mike Judge animated short films that aired on SNL after appearing on several other programs.
The studioSince the show's inception, SNL has aired from Studio 8H, located on floors 8 and 9 of GE Building (30 Rockefeller Plaza, or "30 Rock"). Due to the studio originally being a radio soundstage for Arturo Toscanini and his NBC Symphony Orchestra, the layout of the studio floor and the audience positioning causes some audience members to have an obstructed view of many of the sketches. According to NBC, the 8H studio has an almost perfect sound acoustic. The offices of SNL writers, producers, and other staff can be found on the 17th floor of "30 Rock".
During the summer 2005 shooting hiatus, crews began renovations on Studio 8H. With its thirty-first season premiere in October 2005, the show began broadcasting in high definition, appearing letterboxed on conventional television screens.
Three of the first four shows of the 1976-77 season were shot at the former NBC Studios in Brooklyn, due to NBC News using Studio 8H for Presidential election coverage.
Production processThe following is a summary of the process used to produce the show. It is based in part on interviews with former SNL head writer and performer Tina Fey in 2000 and 2004.
Monday:
- The day begins with a topical meeting, identifying the biggest story for the show's opening.
- This is followed by a free-form pitch meeting with Lorne Michaels and the show's host for the week. The official name is "The Host Meeting" but all the writers and cast members call it "The Pitch Meeting"
- Throughout the week the host has a lot of influence on which sketches get aired.
- Following the meeting, writers begin to draft the two scripts each must produce.
Tuesday:
- Starting in the afternoon, anywhere from 30 to 45 scripts are written, most of which will not be broadcast.
- Once a writer's scripts are complete, he or she will often help other writers on their scripts.
Wednesday:
- All scripts get a read-through.
- After the read-through, the head writer(s) and the producers meet with the host to decide which sketches to work on for the rest of the week, with Lorne Michaels and the host having the final say.
Thursday:
- The surviving sketches are reviewed, word-by-word, by the writing staff as a whole or in two groups in the case of co-head writers.
- Some sketches which survived the cut because of their premise, but are in need of work, are rewritten completely. Others are changed in smaller ways.
- The Weekend Update crew starts coming together, starting with the news items written by writers dedicated all week to the segment.
- The crew comes in for rehearsal, and the music act is rehearsed as well as some of the larger, more important sketches.
- The host and musical guest and usually some cast members shoot two to four promos to play for NBC.
Friday:
- The show is blocked.
- The writer of each sketch acts as producer, working with the show's set designers and costumers.
Saturday:
- With the show still far from finalized, the day begins with a run-through, with props, in front of Lorne Michaels.
- After the run-through, the cast and crew find out which of the sketches are in the dress rehearsal, and which are cut. The writer/producer deals with any changes.
- This is followed by a dress rehearsal performed in front of the studio audience, which lasts from 8 p.m. - 10 p.m. (or sometimes later) and contains approximately twenty minutes of material which will be deleted from the final broadcast.
- Lorne Michaels uses firsthand observation of the audience reaction during the dress rehearsal and input from the host and head writer to determine the final round of changes, re-ordering sketches as necessary.
- The live show then begins at 11:30 p.m. Eastern Time, but some markets will delay airing.
The status of the show during the week is maintained on a bulletin board. Sketches and other segments are given labels which are put on index cards and put on the board in the order of their performance. The order is based on content as well as production limitations such as camera placement and performer availability. Segments which have been cut are kept to the side of the board. As the broadcast approaches, often the writer/producer discovers the fate of his or her segment only by consulting the bulletin board.
A 60 Minutes report taped in October 2004 depicted the intense writing frenzy that goes on during the week leading up to a show, with crowded meetings and long hours. The report particularly noted the involvement of the guest hosts in developing and selecting the sketches in which they will appear. Similarly, there has been an A&E episode of Biography which covered the production process, as well as an episode of "TV Tales" in 2002 on E! Entertainment Television.
When it's not live
RerunsSNL reruns are aired out of its original broadcast sequence, usually determined by which episodes have not yet been repeated, but had high ratings or acclaim for its live broadcast. Shows usually air twice during a particular season, but often the highest rated shows of the season have a second encore show towards the end of the off-season, or episodes will be repeated a second or third time to coincide with a new event connected with the person who hosted. For example, the Natalie Portman episode aired in March 2006 to promote V for Vendetta was repeated August 5, 2006, prior to the film's DVD release August 8. Similarly, Jeff Gordon's episode reran following NBC's coverage of the Pepsi 400.
Encore showings are not always identical to the original broadcast. Successful sketches aired later in the show during the original broadcast may be reedited to appear earlier, and segments that did not work well during the live broadcast may be replaced by the dress rehearsal version, or entirely new sketches. A Peter Sarsgaard sketch from his January 21, 2006 appearance, involving Rachel Dratch's fake newscast, met with technical difficulties during the live broadcast when the in-sketch TV stopped working and a stagehand was seen fixing it. It was replaced with a dress rehearsal version in rerun. This has happened many times over the years, including Kathleen Turner's monologue in 1989. A sketch involving "butt pregnancy" during the first broadcast of the November 12, 2005, Jason Lee episode was replaced with a musical sketch about cafeteria food during the repeat. In the earlier years of the show's history, reruns occasionally replaced weaker sketches with segments from other episodes, usually from episodes that did not have an encore showing at all.
Perhaps one of the most notable substitutions was the replacement of Sinéad O'Connor's October 3, 1992 live performance during which she destroyed a photograph of Pope John Paul II, with the dress rehearsal performance from earlier that evening.
The show is never live in the western half of the USA. There was a short experiment in which it did air live on the west coast in 2001 after live XFL football games. NBC airs a recording of the live show for the Mountain and Pacific time zones.
NBC and Broadway Video share the copyright to every episode of the show made thus far. From 1990 until 2004, Comedy Central and its predecessor Ha! re-aired reruns of the series, after which E! Entertainment Television signed a deal to reruns. Abbreviated thirty and sixty minute versions of the first five seasons aired as The Best of Saturday Night Live in syndication beginning in the 1980s and later on Nick at Nite in 1988, VH1, Comedy Central and E! Entertainment Television.
CompilationsFrom time-to-time, SNL airs compilation shows. Such shows will feature hand-selected best sketches from the previous season; of a particular cast member or multiple-time host; or centered on a particular theme (eg. Halloween, Christmas). Political sketches are typically culled for a special in presidential election years; the 2000 special was notable for having self-deprecating (though separate) appearances by candidates George W. Bush and Al Gore.
Delays- The show was forced by the network to run on a seven-second delay when Andrew Dice Clay and Richard Pryor hosted.
- The episode scheduled for October 25, 1986, hosted by Rosanna Arquette, was not aired until November 8 due to NBC broadcasting Game 6 of the 1986 World Series; the game entered extra innings, causing that night's broadcast of SNL to be canceled. The show was recorded for the studio audience starting at 1:30 a.m. Eastern Time, and broadcast two weeks later with an "apology" by New York Mets pitcher Ron Darling.
- The episode scheduled for February 10, 2001, hosted by Jennifer Lopez, aired 45 minutes late due to an XFL game. Lopez and the cast were not told they were airing on a delay.
- During Eddie Murphy's last season, he negotiated to record a number of extra sketches in September 1983 that featured him and were broadcast in episodes for which he was not available. His last live show was with host Edwin Newman on February 25, 1984.
- When Sam Kinison delivered a comic monologue in 1986, NBC removed his plea for the legalization of marijuana from the West Coast broadcast and all subsequent airings.
- A portion of Martin Lawrence's 1994 monologue concerning feminine hygiene has been removed from all repeats, replaced with a voice-over and intertitles stating that the excised portion "...was a frank and lively presentation, and nearly cost us all our jobs."
- In a November 21, 1992 Wayne's World sketch, the characters Wayne and Garth (respectively portrayed by Mike Myers and Dana Carvey) made fun of Chelsea Clinton (the then 13-year old daughter of President-Elect Bill Clinton), implying that Chelsea was incapable of causing males to "Schwing!" (essentially meaning she was unattractive). This joke was subsequently edited out of all repeats and syndication rebroadcasts of this sketch.
On DVDSaturday Night Live: The Complete First Season was released on DVD by Universal Studios on December 5, 2006.
The complete second season was released in the US on DVD on December 4, 2007., and the third season on May 13, 2008.
In addition to the full season releases, there have been multiple releases both on VHS and DVD of former cast members, guest hosts, documentaries, musical performances and themed compilations of sketches as well as a release of the show's 25 year anniversary.
See also
Further reading- Cader, Michael. (1994). Saturday Night Live: The First Twenty Years. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin. ISBN 0-395-70895-8.
- Hill, Doug, and Jeff Weingrad. (1986). Saturday Night: A Backstage History of Saturday Night Live. New York, NY: Beech Tree Books. ISBN 0-688-05099-9.
- Mohr, Jay. (2004). Gasping for Airtime: Two Years in the Trenches of Saturday Night Live. New York, NY: Hyperion. ISBN 1-4013-0006-5.
- Shales, Tom, and James Andrew Miller. (2002). Live from New York: An Uncensored History of Saturday Night Live. Boston, MA: Little, Brown. ISBN 0-316-78146-0.
- Streeter, Michael. (2005). Nothing Lost Forever: The Films of Tom Schiller. New York, NY: BearManor Media. ISBN 1593930321.
External links
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