The Untold Truth Of Saturday Night Live

By Editorial Staff in Entertainment On 11th October 2016

Over 800 episodes, and four decades, Saturday Night Live has been among the most influential comedy shows in the history of American TV. It's produced countless catchphrases and iconic characters; dozens of stars like Bill Murray, Eddie Murphy, Adam Sandler, and Will Ferrell, and even one real-life senator. Always topical, the show has some hidden secrets that not many fans have been privileged to know, until now.

#1 Carson Helped Start The Show

Back in 1974, Johnny Carson was the biggest money maker for NBC. He produced 5 nightly shows, with the Friday episode rerunning on Saturday night. When he renegotiated his contract he let it be known that he would only be doing Monday through Thursdays, leaving NBC with two open nights. They could fill Friday with a repeat but Carson suggested a hipper, younger variety series for Saturdays, and the network began working on his idea.

#2 Lorne Michaels Was Signed To Do The Pilot

Carson and network brass tapped two unknown Canadian comedians to helm the show including a 30-year-old comedy writer Lorne Michaels, best known for his work on an Emmy-winning Lily Tomlin special. It took the two men nearly a year to prepare the 'hip' variety series and they told NBC they were ready to go in 1975, though the network disliked everything they submitted. They let it air anyway starting that October and billed the cast as not being ready for prime time television.

#3 The Name Was Different

The very fist season was disastrous in more ways than one. Even the name was different. ABC had a live, late night variety show already on the air that starred Howard Cosell, which actually had a set player named Bill Murray in the cast. That series ended before the season was over, and NBC snatched up the name, Saturday Night Live, which they used at the start of the second season instead of NBC's Saturday Night.

#4 They Were Not Ready For Prime Time Players

While the show's opening sequence now features the main cast and featured players' names read loudly and excitedly by Darrell Hammond (who replaced longtime announcer Don Pardo after his death in 2014), the SNL cast members weren't introduced individually during the first season. The obscure comedians were instead dubbed the "Not Ready for Primetime Players." But Dan Aykroyd, Chevy Chase, Jane Curtin, Gilda Radner, and the others, wouldn't stay anonymous for long.

#5 The Muppets Were Regulars In Season One

During the first season, there were a lot of issues with the format as well as the title and casting. The show featured mMuppets created especially for the show by Jim Henson. They created a whole slew of new, monstrous, adult-oriented creatures for a segment called "The Land of Gorch." It might have been the first and only time a Muppets project was not well-received. Mixed in with the skits and musical guests, the audience hated the puppetry the most and they were not brought back for the second season.

#6 Hundreds Of Famous People Auditioned For Spots

The first three seasons, Lorne Michales himself visited comedy clubs and improv houses like Second City in Chicago, The Groundlings in Los Angeles or the Upright Citizens Brigade in New York to arrange showcases for top talent that might be a good fit for the show. That same format is used by producers and scouts today and if the scouts like what they see, the performers are invited to the SNL stage to perform forMichaels himself in person. Hopefuls have 10 minutes to do stand-up or present at least two original characters and celebrity impressions. Most of the cast is found in this manner though a few over the years have been spotted at comedy clubs or in other series.

#7 Some Big Names Didn't Make The Cut

Getting on SNL has been a career goal for thousands of comedians and actors, but only a few make the cast each year or maybe one or two every few years depending on the performers. That makes for a long list of performers who auditioned, didn't make it, then went on to achieve fame and fortune anyway. Jim Carrey auditioned and lost out but went on to do a similar FOX show later called 'In Living Color' that made him a huge success. Thirteen-time host John Goodman got inched out by Joe Piscopo, Kevin Hart, Paul Reubens (aka Pee-wee Herman), Stephen Colbert, and Steve Carell all got a thumbs down when they auditioned.

#8 Jennifer Aniston Was Asked To Join

Others who auditioned at one point or another but went on to stardom regardless, include Geena Davis, Louis C.K., Marc Maron, Donald Glover, Kel Mitchell of Kenan and Kel (he lost out to his co-star, Kenan Thompson), and Zach Galifianakis (who was hired as a guest writer). Someone who never auditioned but was offered a spot on the show is Jennifer Aniston, who took an offer instead to star on Friends with Lisa Kudrow, who had auditioned but lost out.

#9 Getting On The Air Is Tough

With more than a dozen performers on the show each week, in addition to a musical guest and guest host, it's hard for any cast member to get any of the 90-minute airtime. Players are prompted to come up with a character that they can use in recurring skits but it is sometimes difficult to come up with one that is liked by the audience. former cast member Jay Mohr says he was so desperate to get a sketch on the air in 1995, that he stole a routine by comedian Rick Shapiro and turned it into "O'Callahan & Son Pub." Shapiro successfully sued the show. Even writers fight for air time. Larry David, who eventually went on to co-create Seinfeld and star in Curb Your Enthusiasm, wrote for the show in 1984 and only had one sketch make it to the air, one that he recreated for an episode of Seinfeld later on.

#10 Not All Guests Are Equal

There are several special guests that the cast, crew, and audiences just love to see, like Steve Martin, Lois CK, Alec Baldwin, Jon Hamm, and Melissa McCarthy. But for those that are loved, there are three times as many who are pretty much despised and brought ratings down when they appeared. SNL alumni, including David Spade, have named the martial arts actor Steven Seagal the show's worst host. Others have named the worst guest host as Paris Hilton, who is never welcomed back and is almost unknown now anyway.

#11 Lots Of Guests Are Banned from Appearing Again

Speaking of stars who are never welcomed back, there are several, mostly musical guests. A lot of people do not realize that though the cast is from improv backgrounds, it is forbidden to improvise on the live show because of time constraints. Everything is scheduled and planned down to the last second. But not every host and musical guest follow that rule, and many were subsequently banned. Frank Zappa allegedly didn't mesh with the cast and crew in the preparation week, then mugged for the camera and made it obvious that he was reading cue cards during the broadcast. He was banned. Others include Martin Lawrence, Cypress Hill, The Replacements, Rage Against the Machine, and of course, Sinead O'Connor who protested the Catholic Church on live TV.

#12 Things Got Weird With Francis Ford Coppola

Every SNL episode follows the same format. There is an opening skit which is typically political, a few sketches, two musical performances, and the Weekend Update. In 1986, that all went out the window, but just once. Acclaimed director Francis Ford Coppola was the host, and the through-line of the episode was that Coppola was "directing" the show. The credits were stylized like those of an art film and the music was provided by that night's musical guest, avant-garde composer Philip Glass. Cheers star George Wendt delivered the opening monologue and appeared in sketches, while Coppola sat in a director's chair and interrupted the show every few minutes to critique performances. He also appeared in vignettes with Michaels and cast member Terry Sweeney to discuss innovative ways to save the show, which NBC was thinking of canceling.

#13 It's Not All 'LIVE' On Saturday Night

A lot of the final broadcast is not performed live on Saturday Night.There have always been aspects of the show that have been pretaped, like the TV Funhouse, the commercial spoofs, and those digital shorts that have become popular in the last eight years. In the '70s, comedian and filmmaker Albert Brooks rejected Michaels' offer to make him the show's permanent host and instead offered to create short films. His shorts were used as templates for those used in the current versions, but through the years others have created segments for the show as well, including Christopher Guest, Andy Samberg and John Solomon, and Matt & Oz.

#14 Nobody Is Safe From The Axe

Nobody is safe on the show, but one of the longest running members is Kenan Thompson. In 1995, SNL cleaned house. In the wake of a blistering New York cover story titled "Saturday Night Dead," and as ratings rapidly fell, Michaels fired nearly everyone (including Adam Sandler and Chris Farley) except for David Spade and a few others. The next season, Michaels brought on new hires Will Ferrell, Molly Shannon, and Cheri Oteri. And in 1998, NBC executive Dick Ebersol (who helped create the show) fired "Weekend Update" anchor Norm MacDonald (reportedly due to his constant jokes about accused murderer O.J. SimpsonMacDonald had repeatedly said Simpson was guilty, and Ebersol happened to be one of Simpson's friends). More recently, standouts Taran Killam and Jay Pharaoh were both let go after six years on the show.

#15 Some Sketches Don't Make The Reruns

For reruns, a lot of the show that originally aired is cut for either time or subject matter. That means some "lost" sketches only survive on DVD and streaming versions. Fans can recall a 1985 sketch where Dan Akroyd hosted a barn dance and NBC cut in with stock footage of a car race instead. Another example is when NBC president Brandon Tartikoff appeared in a sketch to collect urine samples from cast members for drug testing, but it was later deemed to be in poor taste. In the reruns, it's swapped out with an extra musical performance by Simple Minds. Many recall the lip synching performance by Ashley Simpson where the wrong song was played and she did the jitterbug instead. That was cut for repeats and the DVD and replaced by a sketch done in rehearsals.

#16 It Spawned Pop Culture Classics

Many of the most popular SNL characters have been spun off into feature films, but very few of them have been successful. The Blues Brothers is a comedy classic, and so is Wayne's World. And it's the $100 million-plus box office take of the latter that encouraged the production of more and more SNL movies. A Night at the Roxbury offered a look at the backstory and home life of those guys in the club who bobbed their heads (Will Ferrell and Chris Kattan). Coneheads was made almost 20 years after the sketch was popular. Superstar is about Molly Shannon's awkward schoolgirl character Mary Katherine Gallagher. And did you even know they made It's Pat or Stuart Saves His Family? How about The Ladies Man or MacGruber?

#17 Helped Shape The Future Of Several Celebrities

On the other hand, a few television shows have become popular that are loosely based on SNL sketches or cast members. Tina Fey's NBC sitcom and Emmy winner '30 Rock' is loosely based on her time as a head writer for SNL. SNL names like Alec Baldwin and Tracey Morgan helped make the show an 11 season success. Though not all the spin-offs and films were blockbusters, the stars from the show did go on to do very successful projects. The show made Chevy Chase, Martin Short, Bill Murray, Will Ferrell, and Jimm Fallon household names. Not to mention, US Senator Al Franken.

#18 Political Humor Is Spot-On

Tina Fey came back to Saturday Night Live to create a character that will go down in history as one of the best impressions ever. When she did a stint as vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, the audience tuned in by the millions, and they had her keep coming back to recreate the role almost every week for the entire election cycle. Americans polled said that Fey's characterization of Palin helped determine their vote on election day. While one of the staples of the show is political and topical humor, many performers have tried to do candidates in the past. Chevy Chase did Gerald Ford, Dana Carvey did Ross Perot and George Bush, Darrell Hammond was Bill Clinton, and Kristen Wiig was Michelle Bachmann. But the standout this cycle is Kate McKinnon as Hillary Clionton and Alec Baldwin doing a guest slot as Donald Trump.