‘Saturday Night’ History

Lorne Michaels, the creator and executive producer of NBC’s “Saturday Night Live,” is in a quandary. For the live, black-tie NBC extravaganza, “Saturday Night Live--the 25th Anniversary,” airing this Sunday, he has to whittle down 650 hours of material to less than two hours of clips.

Plus, he’s invited back all the cast members, all the writers and every single guest host to be part of the celebration. “You’re hoping everyone is showing up,” Michaels says. “But how are we going to get them all on? If you cut three minutes out of a sequence you leave out a person’s entire career.”

Michaels expects that during the evening there will be a few tears shed. “It will be more emotional than people are prepared for,” says Michaels.

Over the past 25 seasons, “SNL” has endured numerous cast changes, musical tastes and presidential administrations. Some of the best-loved and most popular TV and movie stars, several now deceased, got their start on the series, including John Belushi, Gilda Radner, Dan Akyroyd, Jane Curtin, Bill Murray, Eddie Murphy, Dana Carvey, Mike Myers, Phil Hartman, Jon Lovitz, Adam Sandler, David Spade, Dennis Miller and Chris Farley.

Though “SNL” has evolved into a cultural institution, it arrived on Oct. 11, 1975, with little fanfare. George Carlin was the guest host. Former Chicago Seven political activist Jerry Rubin appeared in a commercial parody as a pitch person for graffiti wallpaper.

Michaels had “knocked around” in network television for six years before “SNL.”

“In prime time you needed such a big audience, things were always compromised,” he says. “The networks would say, ‘Well, this will play in New York and L.A., but not in the middle of the country.”

But that wasn’t the case in late night. “We were really not being watched by the network because we weren’t important,” he says. “Research said there would be no audience for it. But I knew we were right . . . but in order to hold the interest of the people I wanted we had to be smart. The fact that expectations were so low allowed us to do that.”

Chevy Chase, one of the original Not Ready for Prime Time Players, suggests what was innovative about “SNL” was the cast and writers’ attitudes. “We all came from a particular period of time. We were against the Vietnam War. We were against Nixon who had just resigned. Ford was an unelected president who was about to run again. The civil rights issues were still hot,” says Chase. “There were so many political areas that were interesting for me as a satirist to write about. It was a perfect time to do something like ‘Weekend Update’--a parody of a newscaster.”

Chase was originally hired to be a writer on the series. “Lorne decided to use me [on-air],” he says. “At one point, he said, ‘Chev, why don’t you do these updates. These are funny. Why don’t we put a slot in at midnight.”

Tim Meadows, who is celebrating his ninth season on “SNL” remembers the first episode he ever saw in December, 1975. “It was with Richard Pryor,” says Meadows, from the set of the film, “Ladies Man,” which is based on his popular “SNL” sketch about an oversexed host of a call-in show.

“The only reason I watched it was because Richard Pryor was on it, and I was a fan of his. Then I saw the people who were working on ‘SNL.’ I read the National Lampoon magazine and there were all of these writers who came from Lampoon. So it peaked my interest.”

Though critics have blasted the show’s quality in recent years, Chase disagrees with those who believe that the series was better in the ‘70s.

“We were the first crew to do it,” Chase explains. “So people will always be compared to the legends of ‘Saturday Night Live’ and it’s unfair to them. I tend to think that the cast that’s there now is as good as the cast that was there the first show. It’s just a different kind of people you are playing to, a different kind of humor, a different series of situations politically and socially that have to addressed. It’s still satire, and it’s certainly still the oddest thing on TV.”

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“Saturday Night Live-the 25th Anniversary” airs Sunday at 9 p.m. on NBC.