The late-night TV show “Saturday Night Live” is officially 50 now, as it debuted on October 11, 1975. Its legend as a comedy-culture dynamo is almost as old, captured for the first time in book form in this collection of sketch scripts from Seasons 1 and 2.
Today, it reads like an old family album, a hodgepodge of stray jokes and scrawled banter by its original cast, writers and other creatives. The website Vulture called it a “samizdat scrapbook.” Amusing it is, cohesive it isn’t. What it captures is the afterglow of brilliance that made the show such a must-see for Boomers and Gen Xers back in the day.
How does it read in retrospect? Depending on your age, either very poignant or rather dated. This was a show that took pride in its ability to be offensive back when the price for such line-stepping was minimal.
Take this public service announcement, delivered by cast member Garrett Morris as Ugandan dictator Idi Amin:
GARRETT: You know, it’s too bad that venereal disease doesn’t just strike Jews, but the unfortunate fact is, anyone can get it, even nice people like you and me.
Or Bill Murray as an old man waiting for his grandson to call:
BILL: I hate Timmy. I hope he dies. Wouldn’t that be great? He’d probably go to hell. I’m sure he hocked the watch I gave him. He hocked it; hocked it, then raped the woman who owns the pawn shop.
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| "Saturday Night Live" cast members (from left) Bill Murray, Jane Curtin, Dan Aykroyd, Gilda Radner, John Belushi, and Laraine Newman pose on stage at Studio 8-H. Saturday Night Live the book brings together sketch scripts from multiple episodes to create a composite of 1975-1977 highlights. Image from https://www.businessinsider.com/vintage-1970s-photos-saturday-night-live-2020-9 |
Reading these scripts is not the same thing as watching the episodes they came from, but it reminds one of the fact old “SNL” had a real edge and unpredictability about it that can still shock today.
Does it make you laugh? If you still remember the 1970s, specifically 1975-1977 when the scripts printed here were written, it helps a lot. This is especially true with the very topical satirical news items in “Weekend Update” that dominate the middle of the book:
The United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution equating Zionism with racism. Black entertainer Sammy Davis Jr., a convert to Judaism, was quoted as saying, “What a breakthrough! Now, finally, I can hate myself!”
It was announced today that the small African nation of Chad has changed its name to Brian. In the spirit of third-world solidarity, the nation of Tanzania has changed its name to Debby.
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.
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| Chevy Chase at the "Weekend Update" desk, probably talking to some woman he met last night. The Saturday Night Live book features a generous sample of "Update" items from both Chase and successor Jane Curtin. News-based humor was a staple of the show both on "Update." and in sketches. Image from https://www.biography.com/movies-tv/chevy-chase-weekend-update-snl |
That last item, as read by the show’s first breakout star Chevy Chase, aired 50 years ago tonight on the inaugural episode hosted by George Carlin. It is hard to explain to youngsters today how central Chase was to “Saturday Night Live’s” winning formula in the beginning.
Chase even penned an introduction to this book, to let us know how he feels about the show:
He feels good because he knows, my friends, he knows that Saturday Night was him. It always was. It still is. Sure, without him it bites. But even just the memory of how good it used to be with him guiding, teaching, giving – even the memory makes watching it worth $200.
That’s tongue in cheek but no doubt from the heart. Chase’s legendary ego while he was on “Saturday Night Live,” along with his archly smug delivery on “Weekend Update,” helped define his comic persona.
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| Original cast member Garrett Morris struggled to develop a comic persona on the show. A trained opera singer and playwright, he was cast to be the black guy on the show and often got weak roles that exposed the writers's insensitivity in multiple ways. Saturday Night Live the book includes an angry viewer letter at his playing a nanny in drag. Image from https://www.nbc.com/nbc-insider/garrett-morris-young-saturday-night-live-photos |
The book was written by many but assembled by Anne Beatts, one of the show’s core writers, and John Head, a show contributor who worked closely with the producer, Lorne Michaels.
Beatts and Head opt for a unique layout where script dialogue appears on the recto side of each page and assorted handwritten notes, business cards, order slips, diagrams and other related materials on the verso.
This offers a candid, often appealing view of the show’s snarky camaraderie. A note from actor Gilda Radner reads: In loving memory of John Belushi who can hit me without hurting me and hurt me without hitting me. Michael O’Donoghue, turned down for a dinner date by fellow show writer Marilyn Susanne Miller, writes to her: Moth crystals are getting more out of life than you are.
These brief glimpses at backstage life take many amusing forms as the book continues. They may be the most wonderful aspect about Saturday Night Live the book reading it today. However idealized these snippets undoubtedly are, printed for consumption, the juxtaposition of staff chatter while the show plays on makes for an entertaining package.
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| The Saturday Night Live book showcases both the actors as well as the many writers (seen above) who supplied the words. As co-editor, Anne Beatts (sitting on the floor) gives each of them a page or two for personal notes, snapshots, and playful digs at one another. Image from https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/08/arts/anne-beatts-dead.html |
The sketches are brilliantly written for the most part, though even the best of them don’t match seeing them performed by cast members, which can be enjoyed on YouTube and in DVD sets. You do get unique items like costume notes, excised lines of dialogue, and in the case of a legendary “Star Trek” parody, handwritten camera directions:
SULU: They’re right behind us, Captain.
KIRK: Let’s lose them, Mr. Sulu. Prepare for evasive action. Helm hard to port!
(THEY LURCH TO RIGHT AS CAMERA TILTS)
KIRK: Hard to starboard!
(THEY LURCH TO LEFT AS CAMERA TILTS)
KIRK: Hard to port!
(THEY LURCH TO RIGHT AS CAMERA TILTS)
SPOCK: Frankly, Captain, I’m exhausted.
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| The "Star Trek" sketch as it aired live in May 1976, featuring Chase as Mr. Spock, Belushi as Kirk, and show production designer Akira Yoshimura as Sulu. Written by Michael O'Donoghue, the sketch was groundbreaking in concept and execution. Saturday Night Live the book includes an appreciative note from "Star Trek" creator Gene Roddenberry. Image from https://fanfilmfactor.com/tag/saturday-night-live/ |
Other scripted moments include an opening monologue (singer Paul Simon complaining they sent him out in a turkey costume by taunting him to stop acting like “Mr. Alienation”), a cut sketch titled “Planet of the Enormous Hooters” starring that week’s guest Raquel Welch, a genuine clarification read by announcer Don Pardo that a prior weekend sketch about Claudine Longet didn’t mean to imply she intended to kill her boyfriend. There are also many commercial parodies.
Sketches are from the first two seasons, which is why Bill Murray is often absent. Chase, whom Murray replaced, wrote and starred in many of these pieces. Some highlights do capture the show’s post-Chase glory, like the first ever Coneheads sketch (from January, 1977, about as late in the show’s life as this book gets). There’s also Radner’s merciless Barbara Walters send-up, Baba Wawa, here interviewing Madeline Kahn as Marlene Dietrich, who also didn’t pronounce Rs:
GILDA: Mawene, what is it wike to be a wiving wegend?
MADELINE: Wet me just say, it’s been a weawy wich expewience.
GILDA: I’m so impweesed. Mawene … you are so withe and swender. How do you stay so swim?
MADELINE: Swimming keeps me swim.
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| Even before the book, "Saturday Night Live" was being remarketed in other media. Above, the cover of a 1976 record album featuring audio recordings of sketches from the show's first season. After a few years, this would continue with home video. Image from https://www.discogs.com/master/266881-Various-NBCs-Saturday-Night-Live/image/SW1hZ2U6NDk3ODM1Mzg= |
A lot has changed about “Saturday Night Live,” but the book reveals other things have stayed constant. The show always hated Republicans, reflected here in a send-up of President Nixon’s last days (“Well, Abe, you were lucky. They shot you. Come on clot! Move up to my heart! Kill me! Kill me!”) They always were clever about incorporating big musical acts of the time (Linda Ronstadt joins Gilda and the other female cast members, Jane Curtin and Laraine Newman, to sing an girl-group-style ode to saccharine, just outlawed by the FDA.)
And they always found ways to simultaneously send up and celebrate their boss, Lorne Michaels, like when he made his famous plea in 1976 for the Beatles to reunite.
LORNE: Well, if it’s money you want, there’s no problem there. The National Broadcasting Company has authorized me to offer you this check to be on our show. (HOLDS UP CHECK) A certified check for $3,000.
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| In a later episode, an abashed Lorne Michaels (on right) explains to George Harrison (left) that the $3,000 offer was for four Beatles, not just one. Harrison grumbles that Lorne is being "rather chintzy." Beatle humor was one of many ways the show catered to its core Baby Boomer audience, then just reaching 30. Image from https://ultimateclassicrock.com/george-harrison-lorne-michaels-snl/ |
The most enjoyable sketch found in “Saturday Night Live” is probably a slumber party sketch featuring Kahn with Gilda, Jane, and Laraine as pre-teen girls. Madeline has just shocked them with the facts of life:
JANE: Well, I just know it can’t be true, because nothing that sickening is true.
MADELINE: Boogers are true.
When “Saturday Night Live” went through a complete overhaul of cast and writers in 1980, this book was all I had for a while. It really presented the old show in a warm light, with an endless parade of brilliant and near-brilliant material.
It stands up well today, maybe even better in some ways than it did back when the original cast were all still alive, putting on a show, and easier to take for granted. Even when the jokes fall flat, reference obscure celebrities, or clang harshly against modern tastes, you see why people still remember and celebrate the legacy of the original cast and crew with all the turnover there has been in the half-century since. Their pioneer legacy holds up, on video and in print.
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