SNL Anniversary Special Writer's Room Is Packed With Legends

SNL50 writers — Photos: NBC, Netflix, Everett Collection

Saturday Night Live has added an all-star lineup of former writers to its ranks for its 50th anniversary special.

Tina Fey, Paula Pell, Emily Spivey, John Mulaney, and Seth Meyers are all among the team working on Sunday night’s three-hour primetime event.

Fey revealed the arrangement during a visit to The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon last night—an appearance that also saw her reunite with fellow “Weekend Update” anchors Fallon, Meyers, and Amy Poehler.

“I know a little bit about what’s taking shape, because I am working on it as a staff writer, which I’m pretty excited about,” Fey divulged when asked what she knows about SNL50: The Anniversary Special.

All five of the former SNL staffers held the title of Writing Supervisor or higher at some point during their tenure on the show. While a slew of other Saturday Night Live alumni from both behind and in front of the camera are participating in the special in some way, these five heavy-hitters are a part of the team helping to shape the content of the entire event.

“Going back to being on the writing staff, basically I immediately regressed. I just was like so grouchy,” Fey joked to Fallon.

“By the way,” she told the audience, “I’m responsible for, like, two minutes of content.”

Fey also recounted how the pressures of writing were lifted by a moving speech from an SNL legend who wandered into the writers room with some impromptu inspiration for the scribes.

“An angel appeared in the form of Bill Murray,” Fey recalled. “He was in this incredibly wonderful mood, and he just was like, ‘Hey guys. What’s going on in here? Maybe open a window. You seem like you’re all about to cry.’”

“He gave us this pep talk, and I could have started crying,” Fey continued, “because this is the pep talk that I’ve been dreaming of since I was a kid watching Meatballs.”

“I kept waiting for it to turn into a bit, and it never did,” she added of Murray’s sincere speech.

In a photo posted to SNL’s social media accounts Thursday, the five returning writers were seen at a read-through for the show, alongside a host of other SNL luminaries past and present, including Kate McKinnon, Kenan Thompson, Amy Poehler, and Colin Jost.