Looking back at 50 years of "Saturday Night Live" - CBS Sunday Morning

[Rhiannon12866]

On October 11, 1975, people tuning into the debut of a late-night comedy show saw something unlike any TV variety extravaganza they'd ever seen. Fifty years later, "Saturday Night Live," produced almost continuously by Lorne Michaels, is now an entrenched part of pop culture – 90 minutes of live comedy sketches, commercial parodies and musical acts, headlined by a different celebrity host each week.

Correspondent Mo Rocca talks with former cast members Rachel Dratch and Fred Armisen, writers Alan Zweibel and Paula Pell, and with Susan Morrison, author of "Lorne: The Man Who Invented Saturday Night Live," about the creation of a television landmark. - Aired on 02/16/2025.

[AZJonnie]

1. There were way fewer 'highlights' than I was hoping for

All in all, very meh, and I say that as someone who's watched on and off for 50 years. I was definitely hoping for better. Almost every sketch fell flat, Lil Wayne is, I dunno, really not my thing, wish it had just been The Roots doing a couple of their songs, I like a lot of theirs. Miley and Brittney Howard were good, Sir Paul was nice at the end. The sketch in the police station with Jason Sudeikis was absolutely in terrible taste, and worse, very unfunny. Really hoped they'd bust out some really funny stuff and do the show's legacy proud, but it was a lame as any particular bad SNL episode I've ever seen (and I've seen A LOT of those) has been.

The MUSIC show last night, OTOH, that was pretty cool.