NEW YORK – Following the much celebrated 40th anniversary of Saturday Night Live, it was revealed today that SNL like many in show business was lying about its age.
Although the official biography states that the popular Saturday evening sketch show from New York was first broadcast on October 11, 1975, the Studio Exec can EXCLUSIVELY reveal that the show had in fact been running six years prior to its official broadcast date. TV critic Harold Palstien spoke to Studio Exec:
Of course everyone remembers the 1975 show with John Belushi, Chevy Chase and Dan Aykroyd. What they don’t remember is that originally the show was produced with a different cast and Lorne Michaels was desperately trying to garner favor with an older demographic. In 1969 Saturday Night Live debuted with Trevor Howard, Gregory Peck, David Niven and Roger Moore. They were all fine comedians in their own way, but they just didn’t gel. Later Peck would make the hilarious Omen, but it was obvious he wasn’t read for the sketch show format and didn’t really understand it. Howard was drinking very hard at the time and it was affecting his performance. And David Niven had decided rashly to improvize and refused to learn any of the material.
The New York Times reviewing the show called it ‘By far the worse thing to happen to my eyes, since I was stabbed in one of them by a sharp pencil in 1954. And that at least had the positive side effect that it didn’t have to submit to the indignity of SNL.’ However, others believed that the vintage show was ‘much better than when Dana Carver or Eddie Murphy were in it’, as Mike Myers wrote
Saturday Night Live continues.