Ep. 17: Saturday Night Live – Original Cast Members
Intro
Hello and Welcome to this episode of the podcast, "The Mnemonic Tree", where we add a single mnemonic leaf to our Tree of Knowledge.
Today's episode will be on the Saturday Night Live, original cast members, and it just may surprise you who was in that original cast, and what they went on to do.
Saturday Night Live better known as SNL was created by Lorne Michaels and has been running since 1975. It has launched the careers of numerous stars and remains a popular and iconic television program to this day.
With that being said, we will begin with a summary from Wikipedia.
Wikipedia Summary
Saturday Night Live (often abbreviated to SNL) is an American late-night live television sketch comedy, political satire, and variety show created by Lorne Michaels and developed by Dick Ebersol that airs on NBC and Peacock. Michaels currently serves as the program's showrunner. 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 contemporary American 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, who usually delivers the opening monologue and performs in sketches with the cast, with featured performances by a musical guest. An episode normally begins with a cold open sketch that ends with someone breaking character and proclaiming, "Live from New York, it's Saturday Night!", properly beginning the show.
In 1980, Michaels left the series 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.
Broadcast from Studio 8H at NBC's headquarters in the Comcast Building at 30 Rockefeller Plaza, SNL has aired 948 episodes since its debut, and concluded its 48th season on April 15, 2023, making it 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) and Wayne's World (1992). 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 four decades on air, Saturday Night Live has received a vast number of awards, including 93 Primetime Emmy Awards, six Writers Guild of America Awards, and three 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 over 305 Primetime Emmy Award nominations, the most received by any television program.[2] The live aspect of the show has resulted in several controversies and acts of censorship, with mistakes and intentional acts of sabotage by performers as well as guests.
Extracted from: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturday_Night_Live]
Mnemonic
Saturday Night Live Mnemonic - Original Cast Members – CLoGGeD up with Jocular Jokes
(Picture the Cast of SNL having joke constipation due to, too many jokes)
1. Chevy Chase
2. Laraine Newman
3. Gilda Radner
4. Garrett Morris
5. Dan Aykroyd
6. John Belushi
7. Jane Curtin
Five Fun Facts
1. SNL was originally called NBC’s Saturday Night because there was already a show titled Saturday Night Live with Howard Cosell on ABC. In 1976 Cosell’s show ended and they took the name.
2. Chevy Chase was originally hired as a Saturday Night Live writer.
3. Jim Carey auditioned for SNL twice and was rejected twice.
4. Will Ferrell was SNL’s highest-paid cast member ever when he signed a contract for $350,000 per season.
5. Eddie Murphy was desperate to be cast on SNL. So much so that he called the talent coordinator Neil Levy every day for a week. He gave him a job as an extra and also an audition, after which he was signed.
And it would be remiss of me not to mention when Eddie Murphy made his SNL return after 35 years where he said and I quote “But if you would have told me 30 years ago that I would be this boring, stay-at-home ... house dad and Bill Cosby would be in jail.” Then he paused for a second then said “Even I would have took that bet!”
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Three Question Quiz
Q.1. Did the Beatles reunite as musical guests on SNL? True or False
Q.2. Who holds the record for the greatest number of times they have hosted SNL?
Q.3. Sinead O’Connor ripped up a picture of who at the end of her musical performance to everyone’s surprise or horror!
Mnemonic Recap
Saturday Night Live Mnemonic - Original Cast Members – CLoGGeD up with Jocular Jokes
(Picture the Cast of SNL having joke constipation due to, too many jokes)
1. Chevy Chase
2. Laraine Newman
3. Gilda Radner
4. Garrett Morris
5. Dan Aykroyd
6. John Belushi
7. Jane Curtin
Three Question Quiz
Q.1. Did the Beatles reunite as musical guests on SNL? True or False
A. False. An offer of $230 million was made by Sid Bernstein in 1976 to reunite, which was unfortunately declined. Creator Michaels made an offer of $3,000 authorised by NBC, and apparently, Paul and John were watching the show and actually considered going down to the studio as a gag, but they were unfortunately too tired.
Q.2. Who holds the record for the greatest number of times they have hosted SNL?
A. Alec Baldwin with 17 times followed by Steve Martin on 15
Q.3. Sinead O’Connor ripped up a picture of who at the end of her musical performance to everyone’s surprise or horror!
A. The Pope. Now the Pope being the Pope, being the altruistic, forgiving, and magnanimous sort of guy, gifted her a special bag of peanuts which he had especially blessed.
Now, apparently, Sinead rejected them outright saying, “She hates religious nuts!”
Word of the Week
babushka
[ buh-boosh-kuh ]
noun
an elderly Russian woman, especially an elderly grandmother.
Example
Kate McKinnon plays Olya Povlatsky the hottest babushka in the village.
Extracted from: [https://www.dictionary.com/]
https://www.themnemonictreepodcast.com/
https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/the-mnemonic-tree-podcast/id1591795132
https://open.spotify.com/show/3T0LdIJ9PBQMXM3cdKd42Q?si=fqmaN2TNS8qqc7jOEVa-Cw
References
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturday_Night_Live
https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/69730/facts-about-saturday-night-live