Last night, they showed the very first show from October 11, 1975.
It's been a while since I've seen that episode and it was pretty awful by today's standards, to tell you the truth. The opening skit (between John Belushi and Michael O'Donogue" - something about feeding fingertips to wolverines - was something you'd expect from a high school talent show. A bad high school talent show.
But back in 1975, it was fresh and exciting to see something like that on TV. And it would get much better, quickly. One thing that struck me was how many people who performed in that first show are dead today. George Carlin, John Belushi, Michael O'Donoghue, Andy Kaufman, Billy Preston (musical guest)...
In fact, George Carlin in one of his monologues (he had several), observed that people would watch old movies and try and figure out how many of the actors were dead today. Pretty ironic as I was doing the exact same thing as I watched that first show.
People here on Free Republic tend to criticize the show because they feel that their comedy has been directed more toward conservatives. But I don't see that. They can be just as merciless with liberal icons as well, such as Jimmy Carter, Mike Dukakis, Al Gore, etc., I think it's important to have a sense of humor about things.
my big question was how would SNL handle the Brian Williams story? The answer was - we will punt and go back in time to 1975 before the evil internet existed, and Dem’s completely controlled congress and the media.