Saturday Night Live

Saturday Night Live (SNL) is an American late-night live sketch comedy variety show created by Lorne Michaels and developed by Michaels and Dick Ebersol that airs on NBC. The show's premiere was hosted by George Carlin on NBC on October 11, 1975, under the original title NBC's Saturday Night. The show's comedy sketches, which often parody popular culture and politics, are performed by a large and varying cast of repertory and newer cast members. Each episode is hosted by a celebrity guest and broadcast live with a studio audience. The host usually delivers a monologue toward the start of the show and then performs in sketches with the cast, and introduces featured performances by a musical guest. An episode normally begins with a cold open sketch that is usually based on current political events and ends with someone breaking character and proclaiming, "Live from New York, it's Saturday Night!", before moving to credits and introduction of the guest host.

In 1980, Michaels left the show to explore other opportunities. He was replaced by Jean Doumanian, who was then replaced by Ebersol after a season of bad reviews. Ebersol ran the show until 1985, when Michaels returned. Since then, Michaels has held the job of showrunner. Many SNL cast members have found national stardom while appearing on the show, and achieved success in film and television, both in front of and behind the camera. Others associated with the show, such as writers, have gone on to successful careers creating, writing, and starring in television and film.

SNL is broadcast from Studio 8H at NBC's headquarters in 30 Rockefeller Plaza in New York. As of the start of season 51 in October 2025, SNL had aired 991 episodes since its debut. It is one of the longest-running network television programs in the United States. The show format has been developed and recreated in several countries, meeting with different levels of success. Successful sketches have seen life outside the show as feature films, including The Blues Brothers (1980), Wayne's World (1992) and A Night at the Roxbury (1998). The show has been marketed in other ways, including home media releases of "best of" and whole seasons, and books and documentaries about behind-the-scenes activities of running and developing the show.

Throughout five decades on air, Saturday Night Live has received a vast number of awards, including 84 Primetime Emmy Awards, 6 Writers Guild of America Awards, and 3 Peabody Awards. In 2000, it was inducted into the National Association of Broadcasters Hall of Fame. It was ranked tenth in TV Guide's "50 Greatest TV Shows of All Time" list, and in 2007 it was listed as one of Time's "100 Best TV Shows of All-TIME." As of 2022, the show had received more than 305 Primetime Emmy Award nominations, the most received by any television program. The live aspect of the show has resulted in several controversies and acts of censorship, with mistakes and intentional acts of sabotage by performers and guests.

Beginning in 1965, NBC network affiliates broadcast reruns of The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson on Saturday or Sunday nights. In 1974, Johnny Carson petitioned to NBC executives for the weekend shows to be pulled and saved so they could be aired during weeknights, allowing him to take time off. In response, NBC president Herbert Schlosser approached the vice president of late-night programming, Dick Ebersol, and asked him to create a show to fill the Saturday night time slot. Schlosser and Ebersol then approached Lorne Michaels. Over the next three weeks, Ebersol and Michaels developed the latter's idea for a variety show featuring high-concept comedy sketches, political satire, and music performances that would attract 18- to 34-year-old viewers. NBC decided to base the new show at their studios in 30 Rockefeller Center. Michaels was given Studio 8H, a converted radio studio that was home to NBC's election and Apollo moon landing coverage. It was revamped for the premiere at a cost of $250,000.

By 1975, Michaels had assembled the show's initial cast, including Dan Aykroyd, John Belushi, Chevy Chase, Jane Curtin, Garrett Morris, Laraine Newman, Gilda Radner, and George Coe. The cast was nicknamed the "Not Ready for Prime-Time Players", a term coined by show writer Herb Sargent. Much of the talent pool involved in the inaugural season was recruited from The National Lampoon Radio Hour, including the original head writer, Michael O'Donoghue.

NBC's Saturday Night debuted on October 11, 1975, with an episode featuring Carlin as host. The original title was used because the Saturday Night Live title was in use by Saturday Night Live with Howard Cosell on rival network ABC. After the cancellation of Cosell's show in 1976, NBC purchased the rights to the name and officially changed the show's title to Saturday Night Live at the start of the 1977–1978 season, its third. The cast was initially paid $750 per episode, and essentially lived at the offices, according to Michaels. The show found its footing by the fourth episode, hosted by Candice Bergen, which featured the cast in most segments. The show developed a cult following, and its humor was seen as refreshing and daring, in comparison to previous sketch and variety shows that would rarely deal with controversial topics and issues. Iconic characters during the show's first five seasons included Belushi's samurai, the Coneheads (Aykroyd, Curtin, Newman), and Radner's Roseanne Roseannadanna. Chase, the show's first breakout star, left in the middle of its second season to pursue a movie career — the first of many cast members to do so — and was replaced by Bill Murray.

Drugs were a major problem during the show's first five years, which exacerbated existing tensions. Cocaine had become an "integral part of the working process" on SNL by the 1978–1979 season, according to Doug Hill and Jeff Weingrad. Aykroyd and Belushi left the show after the 1978–1979 season to make The Blues Brothers, and as the fifth season ended in 1980, Michaels asked executives to place the show on hiatus for a year in order to allow him time to pursue other projects. Michaels suggested writers Al Franken, Tom Davis, and Jim Downey as his replacements; NBC president Fred Silverman disliked Franken and was infuriated by his Update routine in May 1980, called "A Limo for a Lame-O", that had critiqued Silverman's job performance. Unable to secure the deal that he wanted, Michaels chose to leave NBC, and Jean Doumanian was given his position. Almost every writer and cast member, including Michaels, left the show after the May 24, 1980, season finale.