Saturday Night Live nearly got cancelled in 1981, then Eddie Murphy happened
When NBC's Saturday Night first aired on October 11, 1975, with George Carlin hosting, it could not even use its famous name: ABC already had a Howard Cosell show called that. Five decades and 1,008 episodes later, the live sketch show has collected 84 Primetime Emmys and survived several near-collapses.
The show grew out of a scheduling problem. In 1974 Johnny Carson asked NBC to stop airing weekend reruns of his Tonight Show so they could fill weeknights while he took time off. NBC president Herbert Schlosser handed the empty Saturday slot to Dick Ebersol, who brought in Lorne Michaels. Within three weeks the pair had shaped a variety format of high-concept comedy, political satire and music aimed at viewers aged 18 to 34. Michaels was given Studio 8H at 30 Rockefeller Center, an old radio studio once used for election and moon landing coverage, refitted for $250,000.
The first cast, nicknamed the Not Ready for Prime-Time Players by writer Herb Sargent, included Dan Aykroyd, John Belushi, Chevy Chase and Gilda Radner, with much of the talent drawn from The National Lampoon Radio Hour. They earned $750 an episode and, by Michaels' account, practically lived at the office. NBC bought the Saturday Night Live name after Cosell's programme was cancelled in 1976 and adopted it for the third season. Chase, the first breakout star, quit midway through season two for films and Bill Murray replaced him; Aykroyd and Belushi later left to make The Blues Brothers. Cocaine, one history says, was built into the working routine by the 1978–1979 season.
Michaels walked away in 1980, and almost everyone else went with him after the May 24 finale. His successor, Jean Doumanian, assembled a cast that critics and viewers rejected, and after Charles Rocket blurted an obscenity on air in February 1981 she was fired after only ten months. Some executives wanted the show scrapped. Ebersol took over instead, kept only Eddie Murphy and Joe Piscopo from the new cast, favoured broad comedy and largely avoided jokes about Ronald Reagan. Murphy's characters, such as Mister Robinson's Neighborhood, powered the recovery.
Michaels came back for 1985–1986 and has run the show ever since. After a shaky year built on established actors, he rebuilt around unknowns such as Dana Carvey and Phil Hartman, and the ratings and reviews returned. Sketches have become feature films, Wayne's World (1992) among them, and in 2000 the show joined the National Association of Broadcasters Hall of Fame. By 2022 it had earned more than 305 Primetime Emmy nominations, more than any other television programme.
Source: Saturday Night Live
