The first season of Saturday Night Live, the weekly late-night 90-minute American sketch comedy/variety show on NBC, aired during the 1975–1976 television season. Saturday Night Live premiered on October 11, 1975 and consisted of a total of 24 episodes, the last of which aired on July 31, 1976.
Prior to the show's debut, NBC Owned & Operated stations aired reruns of The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson on Saturday night, but Johnny Carson wanted t...
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The first season of Saturday Night Live, the weekly late-night 90-minute American sketch comedy/variety show on NBC, aired during the 1975–1976 television season. Saturday Night Live premiered on October 11, 1975 and consisted of a total of 24 episodes, the last of which aired on July 31, 1976.
Prior to the show's debut, NBC Owned & Operated stations aired reruns of The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson on Saturday night, but Johnny Carson wanted to have new programming on, in order to save reruns to air during his holidays.
NBC TV hired Lorne Michaels to be the executive producer of a late-night comedy/variety television series. Michaels wanted to call his show Saturday Night Live, but ABC TV was already airing a similar series called Saturday Night Live which was hosted by Howard Cosell. The show was named NBC's Saturday Night , and to mimic Cosell's "Prime-Time Players," Michaels called his cast "The Not Ready For Prime Time Players".
The series was originally intended to have just...
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