26/46

In reality, he arrived immediately

Line of Events

On October 11, 1975 at 11:30 PM, a fierce group of young comedians and writers changed television forever. Find out what happened behind the scenes in the 90 minutes leading up to the premiere of Saturday Night Live (1975). Matt Wood stars as John Belushi on Saturday Night, meet the rest of the cast and their real-life counterparts. Dan Aykroyd was the only member of the original SNL cast to read the script. When the show airs live, John Belushi enters the frame 39 seconds late through a door.

Paul Shaffer: Aykroyd

Don Pardo: [repeating his lines] Chevy Chase, Gilda Radner, Dan… Ike… [to Paul Shaffer] Don Pardo: How the hell do you pronounce that? The film opens with a quote from Lorne Michaels: “The show doesn’t go on because it’s ready, it goes on because it’s 11:30.” Appears in Eddie Murphy: The Black King of Hollywood (2023). Ixoo ‘Chickenweed’ Chawz Written by Don Cento and Martin Garner Performed by Don Cento and Martin Garner.

They are extremely entertaining to watch and carry the majority of the film with plenty of humor

Billed as taking place in “real time” as the hour-and-a-half film counts down the final 90 minutes before the live broadcast of the first episode of “Saturday Night Live” (then called “Saturday Night”). We are invited to witness and be drawn behind the scenes as we enter the chaos of this magical Hollywood version of the beginning of a legendary television show. Longtime SNL fans will enjoy spotting the many Easter egg references to SNL’s most famous and beloved sketches, the majority of which wouldn’t have been there and ready prior to this first airing. The pace and action are frenetic as disaster after disaster occurs while the hundreds of tiny little gears needed to create something like SNL all try to come together in a form that will work and produce a viable show by the time the curtain goes up. The character actors chosen to emulate the first cast are spot on and do a great job of truly embodying what are undoubtedly huge shoes to fill.

A visit to the mind of SNL past

But I fear that Lorne Michaels was either miscast or miswritten, because as our main focus in this maelstrom of frustrating and incompetent administration, he has largely turned into a boring, amateurish little jerk whom we keep waiting for to rise to the occasion, and who never quite does. He can barely share his vision of the show in cloying human words and wanders from one fire to the next, never putting any out and immediately forgetting them as he moves on to the next. When the first show succeeds, it is largely because all the others have carried on without him and made it work in spite of him. I also irrationally hate his face and the little look he gives when something is wrong; it is as if an overwhelmed, irritated toddler smells something bad. This film is a fun homage to nostalgic fantasy.

But this is definitely NOT a biographical reconstruction of what actually happened, and should not be considered as such

This is a film primarily aimed at fans, and other viewers will find it hit and miss, and will most likely find themselves googling the sketches mentioned afterwards.