SNL’s 1975 Premiere to Air Night Before 50th Anniversary Special 

Saturday Night Live is rewinding all the way back to the beginning on its anniversary celebration weekend. The night before the show’s 50th anniversary special, NBC is set to re-air the show’s first-ever episode.

The show’s premiere episode will air Saturday February 15th in the show’s regular 11:30pm timeslot, and will serve as a centerpiece of the network’s weekend-long SNL50 celebrations. The night before, SNL is holding its Homecoming Concert at Radio City Music Hall, which will streamed on Peacock and beamed live to Regal IMAX theaters. And on Sunday, the show’s highly anticipated live three-hour primetime special will air on NBC.

SNL’s inaugural episode has seen renewed interest this year, and not just because the sketch show is in a milestone season. The behind-the-scenes story of the premiere was depicted in Jason Reitman’s film Saturday Night.

The episode—originally broadcast on October 11th, 1975—features host George Carlin and musical guests Janis Ian and Billy Preston. That double bill of musical guests may sound unusual to those who haven’t caught an early-era SNL before, but it’s only one of quite a few differences between SNL past and present.

Despite being host, Carlin doesn’t appear in any sketches. Instead, he contributes four standup monologues throughout the show. Even the opening credits were different—unlike now, the cast members weren’t spotlighted with individual introductions. (Sharp-eared fans will also note announcer Don Pardo’s flub of announcing the cast as the “Not For Ready Primetime Players.”) Even the show’s title—Saturday Night—is different.

Still, many elements of the format will be instantly familiar to fans—clear seeds of what the show would grow into. The monologue is still there, as is “Weekend Update” (hosted then by Chevy Chase). Commercial parodies and pre-taped shorts, too. There’s even a “cold open”—the now oft-used term that Lorne Michaels recently revealed he invented for the show. And, yes, the credits kick off with that now iconic phrase: “Live from New York, it’s Saturday Night!”

The series premiere of SNL (re-)airs on Saturday, February 15th at 11 :30pm ET/PT on NBC. It will be preceded earlier in the evening by a rebroadcast of the three-hour NBC documentary Ladies & Gentlemen…50 Years of SNL Music, which will air at 8pm.

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