Trivia for
"Saturday Night Live" (1975) More at IMDbPro »

• There have been three sets of brothers who have been cast members on "Saturday Night Live" (1975), John Belushi and James Belushi, Dan Aykroyd and Peter Aykroyd, Bill Murray and Brian Doyle-Murray.
  
  
• The word "fuck" has been said several times live on the air: during a sketch in 1980, Paul Shaffer said "fuckin'" instead of "floggin'"; in 1981, Charles Rocket, said "I'd like to know who the fuck did it" during a "Who Shot JR?" parody and on the same night Prince sang the lyric "Fightin' war is such a fuckin' bore"; in 1990, singer Morris Day of The Time said "Where the fuck this chicken come from?" and Steven Tyler of Aerosmith sang "feedin' that fuckin' monkey on my back" during their performances; in 1994, Michael Stipe of R.E.M. sang "Don't fuck with me" and Adam Horovitz of Beastie Boys sang "So won't you fuckin' listen" in their performances and in 1997, Norm MacDonald accidentally said, "The fuck was that?" after flubbing a line during "Weekend Update". In 2009, Jenny Slate accidentally said, "You know what, you stood up for yourself and I fucking love you for that."
  
  
• Christopher Reeve appeared as himself as an audience member in a skit, a few weeks before he hosted the show.
  
  
• Janeane Garofalo was a cast member during the 1994-1995 season. She left before the end of the season due to creative differences.
  
  
• Darrell Hammond holds the record for the number of seasons as a cast member (14), and the number of times saying "Live from New York, it's Saturday night!" (69).
  
  
• The shows that were hosted by Louise Lasser and Milton Berle have never been seen in reruns since their original air date, at Lorne Michaels' insistence. Lasser refused to do all skits, and locked herself in her dressing room just before airtime, coming out just in time to do the opening monologue. Berle called everyone "Booby" and impressed no one but John Belushi with his mugging, racist jokes, and egomania.
  
  
• Don Pardo's announcing booth is located in the exact same spot on which legendary conductor Arturo Toscanini's podium once stood, when he conducted the NBC Symphony Orchestra in his famous and long-running series of radio concerts.
  
  
• Contrary to popular belief, Steve Martin was never a cast member on the show. The misconception stems from the fact that he has hosted the show 13 times, in addition to doing occasional surprise appearances.
  
  
• Tim Meadows and Chris Parnell are the only cast members to be fired and then rehired the following season (Meadows was fired between seasons and didn't miss any episodes). James Belushi was fired during his tenure but was rehired the following month. Announcer Don Pardo was also fired before the seventh season in an effort to revitalize the show. He was replaced by Mel Brandt, but Pardo was rehired the following season.
  
  
• Lorne Michaels left the show after the fifth season as did the remaining cast members. For the 1980-1981 season, the show was revamped with a new cast and new producer Jean Doumanian. The sixth was so disastrous that director Dave Wilson called in programming executive Dick Ebersol (one of the creative masterminds of the original show) to save the show. Ebersol fired Doumanian and the rest of the cast except Eddie Murphy and Joe Piscopo. He hired a new cast and the show eventually regained its ratings mainly due to Murphy's popularity. When Michaels returned in the 1985-1986 season, he wanted his own cast so the remaining members were fired. This season was low-rated putting the show on the brink of cancellation. But Michaels convinced executive Brandon Tartikoff that he could revive the show with a better cast. The show regained popularity and Michaels has stayed with the show ever since. He later claimed that leaving SNL, was the biggest mistake of his life.
  
  
• When the show first debuted, it did not air every weekend. The news magazine show "Weekend" (1974) aired "the first Weekend every month" (except when it was delayed one week for Eric Idle's first SNL appearance).
  
  
• When Eddie Murphy was first hired, he was not a regular cast member, he was a guest performer who was given nothing to do. He threatened to quit until he was given a segment of Weekend Update to perform. He was so funny, he eventually appeared in sketches and became a regular cast member.
  
  
• Several episodes were not performed in Studio 8H in Manhattan. On October 16, 23 and 30, 1976, the show moved to a Brooklyn studio because the NBC News election unit used Studio 8H for 1976 election coverage. Several episodes in 1984 were produced in RCA Bldg Studios 8G and 3A due to election coverage. The February 20, 1977 episode was performed live in New Orleans on a Sunday.
  
  
• Ray Romano was originally scheduled to host the show for the second time in April 2002 but had to drop out due to a busy schedule. He was replaced by "The Rock" aka Dwayne Johnson.
  
  
• Steve Martin is the only person to host a season premiere, a season finale, and a Christmas show and is the only person to host the show three times in a single season.
  
  
• Will Ferrell became the highest paid cast member in SNL history in 2001. He received a salary of USD 350,000 (USD 105,000 in 1975 prices) for the 2001-2002 season.
  
  
• Tina Fey is the first female head writer in the show's history.
  
  
• John Goodman hosted the show 11 years in a row.
  
  
• John Goodman, a frequent guest host had auditioned for the show in 1980 when he was starting out as an actor.
  
  
• Randy Quaid is the only cast member to be nominated for an acting Academy Award before joining the show.
  
  
• As of today, all of the main "Friends" (1994) cast members but Matt LeBlanc hosted.
  
  
• The show has only had four directors in its history: Dave Wilson, Paul Miller, Beth McCarthy-Miller and Don Roy King
  
  
• In 2001, NBC aired two live 30-minute special episodes in primetime slots to fill airtime. Jennifer Lopez, who was hosting the regular show that week, made a cameo in the second special. In 2003, a live "Weekend Update" special was aired during the Superbowl halftime.
  
  
• Mike Myers' English character Simon was a spoof of the UK TV children's series "Simon in the Land of Chalk Drawings" (1976). His character of Linda Richman was based on his mother-in-law.
  
  
• The balcony level studio audience seats in Studio 8H, where Saturday Night Live is broadcast from, are actually seats on-loan from Yankees Stadium in the Bronx, New York. NY Yankees owner George M. Steinbrenner III loaned them out in 1975 with the assumption that Saturday Night Live wouldn't stay on the air long (they were expected back upon cancellation of the show). Partly out of both tradition and superstition, the seats are still in use to this day. Since then, NBC has had to pay out annual fines to the city of New York (a relatively minor business expense, all things considered). In addition, any time repair work is needed, repair people are sent directly to the studio to do work there, which is more expensive than taking seats to a repair shop.
  
  
• Anthony Michael Hall was the youngest member of SNL at 17 years old.
  
  
• Conan O'Brien appeared uncredited in many sketches from 1988 to 1991 while he was a writer for SNL. Writer and former cast member Tom Davis appeared uncredited in many sketches from 1988 to 1994.
  
  
• Beginning in 1995, the Saturday Night Live logo used the abbreviation SNL, which became how the show was known.
  
  
• In a 1980 Playboy magazine interview, John Lennon stated that he & Paul McCartney were at his New York City apartment watching SNL the night Lorne Michaels made his famous attempt to bribe The Beatles into reuniting on the show as musical guests. Lennon claimed they seriously considered catching a taxi to the studio and performing but that they were too tired.
  
  
• Despite the show's core theme of live comedy, on a few rare occasions stand-up segments weren't truly "live", but broadcast on a 7-second tape-delay: 13 December 1975 (Richard Pryor), 15 November 1986 (Sam Kinison), and 12 May 1990 (Andrew Dice Clay), each time to allow censoring any "accidental" expletives.
  
  
• When Eric Idle hosted on 20 October 1979, a clip was shown from Idle's project "Rutland Weekend Television" (1975) of his Beatles parody The Rutles. The success of the clip led to Lorne Michaels co-producing the movie version, The Rutles: All You Need Is Cash (1978) (TV), which includes appearances by numerous SNL alums and regulars.
  
  
• Jim Henson created new adult Muppets who appeared in every episode of the first season. The Muppets sketches were unpopular with the audience and the writing staff so they were dropped.
  
  
• Prior to the 83/84 season, Eddie Murphy agreed to appear in ten live broadcasts, and via a taped sketch in ten others. Those ten sketches were taped in September of 1983 and were alternated with Eddie Murphy's live appearances throughout the season.
  
  
• Prior to joining the cast, Dennis Miller won a Gabriel Award for his work as the host of "Punchline", a children's TV show.
  
  
• Mike Myers based the character 'Dieter' on a student he met in art college. The real Dieter would often say things like "I once had a course where we had to touch tapioca, styrofoam and monkeys. Michael, perhaps we can go to the zoo and touch monkeys." (Thus giving rise to Myers's character constantly saying, "Would you like to touch my monkey?")
  
  
• The characters "The Coneheads" were ranked #15 in TV Guide's list of the "25 Greatest Sci-Fi Legends" (1 August 2004 issue).
  
  
• The map of the world on Weekend Update during the show's first years (1975-1980) shows Vietnam split into the pre-1975 North and South.
  
  
• As of 2008, the only female former cast members to return to the show as hosts have been Julia Louis-Dreyfus (May 13, 2006 & March 17, 2007), Molly Shannon (May 12, 2007), and Tina Fey (February 23, 2008).
  
  
• The first "Weekend Update" anchor, Chevy Chase, has said that he modeled his catchphrase "Good evening, I'm Chevy Chase and you're not" after "Eyewitness News" (1968) anchor Roger Grimsby's opening line "Good evening, I'm Roger Grimsby, here now the news." However, Chase's successor as "Update" anchor, Jane Curtin, would go on to use Grimsby's original intro to open the newscast, and once, on the 22 April 1978 edition, ended that night's "Update" with Grimsby's closing line, "Hoping your news is good news."
  
  
• John Candy was offered a chance to join the cast for the 1981-1982 season. But he turned it down to stay with "SCTV Network 90" (1981).
  
  
• When Harry Shearer left the show during the 1984-1985 season he cited "creative differences." Shearer would later remark, "I was creative... and they were different."
  
  
• As of 2008, there have been only 7 SNL regulars who received Oscar nominations. Dan Aykroyd, Robert Downey Jr., Joan Cusack, Bill Murray, Michael McKean, and Eddie Murphy were nominated for Oscars after they were SNL regulars. Randy Quaid received an Oscar nomination before becoming an SNL regular.
  
  
• The following performers are all alumni of the famed Groundlings Theater in Los Angeles, California: Laraine Newman, Jon Lovitz, Phil Hartman, Jan Hooks, Will Ferrell, Jimmy Fallon, Chris Kattan, Cheri Oteri, Chris Parnell, Julia Sweeney, Will Forte, Maya Rudolph, Kristen Wiig and Siobhan Fallon. The following performers are all alumni of the famed Second City Theater in Chicago, Illinois: John Belushi and his younger brother James Belushi, Bill Murray, Brian Doyle-Murray, Danitra Vance, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Tim Kazurinsky, Mary Gross, Tim Meadows, Chris Farley, David Koechner, Ana Gasteyer, Nancy Carell, Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, Rachel Dratch and Horatio Sanz. The following performers are all alumni of the famed Second City Theater in Toronto, Ontario, Canada: Dan Aykroyd, Peter Aykroyd, Gilda Radner, Mike Myers, Tony Rosato, Robin Duke, and Martin Short. Bruce McCulloch and Mark McKinney from the comedy troupe "The Kids In the Hall" both wrote and performed for the show after "The Kids in the Hall" (1988) TV show ended production.
  
  
• Eddie Murphy, Adam Sandler, David Spade, Rob Schneider, A. Whitney Brown, Billy Crystal, Denny Dillon, Michael McKean, Terry Sweeney, Alan Zweibel, Al Franken, Tom Davis, Paul Shaffer, Brian Doyle-Murray, James Downey, Tom Schiller, Yvonne Hudson, Don Novello, Tina Fey, Jason Sudeikis, Rob Riggle and Ben Stiller had all appeared on the show before becoming cast members.
  
  
• Candice Bergen was the first female host, the first person to host the show for a second time, and the first woman to host five times. Drew Barrymore has also hosted five times, her first being in 1982.
  
  
• The following people are members of the Five-Timers Club: Steve Martin (14 times), Alec Baldwin (13 times), John Goodman (12 times), Buck Henry (10 times), Chevy Chase (9 times), Tom Hanks (8 times), Christopher Walken (7 times), 'Elliot Gould' (6 times), Danny DeVito (6 times), Candice Bergen (5 times), Bill Murray (5 times), Drew Barrymore (5 times).
  
  
• In November 2007, the cast, excluding Maya Rudolph, gave a live unaired performance of SNL at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre in New York City as a result of the WGA Strike. The show featured old and rejected sketches with the proceeds going to the show's production staff. The host was Michael Cera and the musical guest was Yo La Tengo. Rachel Dratch, Horatio Sanz, and Norah Jones made cameo appearances.
  
  
• While most of the musical performances on the show are indeed live, quite a few have been lip-synced, and several have been taped in advance. The first lip-sync was Abba on 15 November 1975. The first prerecorded performance was Carly Simon on 08 May 1976, because she was nervous to sing in front of a live audience.
  
  
• Kris Kristofferson was reportedly so drunk before his appearance on 31 July 1976 that the crew were concerned he might not be able to perform. Somehow, he managed through the 90 minutes.
  
  
• The Folksmen (a folk music group seen in A Mighty Wind (2003)) was formed in the mid-1980s when Michael McKean hosted the show, and Christopher Guest, and Harry Shearer were cast members.
  
  
• Cast members Bill Murray, John Belushi, Dan Aykroyd, Phil Hartman and Mike Myers all won Emmys for helping write the show.
  
  
• Michael McKean and Dan Aykroyd are the only people to host, be musical guests (as Spinal Tap and "The Blues Brothers", respectively) and be cast members.
  
  
• Some celebrities who were almost cast members on the show were Jim Carrey (1980), John Goodman (1980) Robert Townsend (1980), Catherine O'Hara (1981) Paul Reubens (1981), Geena Davis (1982), Lisa Kudrow (1990), Jennifer Aniston (1990), and Dane Cook (2002).
  
  
• Catherine O'Hara was going to join the cast for the 1981-1982 season but she backed out after Michael O'Donoghue screamed at the cast and crew during a meeting. She recommended her "Second City TV" (1976) co-star Robin Duke to replace her.
  
  
• Studio 8H where SNL is filmed is not connected to the GE Building (NBC Studios) at Rockefeller Center, but is suspended by wires from the next floor. Arturo Toscanini, the director of the NBC orchestra, performed on radio from studio 8H and did not want the vibrations from the New York City subway to disturb his radio broadcasts so his studio was isolated from the rest of the building.
  
  
• Amy Poehler's 2008 Emmy-nomination as Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series made her the first cast-member to be nominated in a category that is usually reserved for traditional comedy series.
  
  
• Don Pardo retired in 2009.
  
  
• Dwayne Johnson was scheduled to host on November 10, 2007 with Amy Winehouse as musical guest. But the 2007 writers' strike caused this episode to be canceled.
  
  
• In 1995, Steve Carell auditioned for the show along with his wife, Nancy Carell. She was cast but he was not. The following season Carell was cast as the voice of Gary in the recurring animated segment "The Ambiguously Gay Duo". When he hosted the show in 2005, Carell stated he was beat out for the spot by Will Ferrell.
  
  
• Playwright Garrett Morris was originally hired as a writer. But he submitted sketches that were deemed too long and dramatic. Chevy Chase suggested that he join the cast as a performer instead.
  
  
• According to writer Larry David, he stormed into executive producer Dick Ebersol's office and angrily quit the show. When David realized how much money he would be losing, he decided to return to the show and pretend that nothing happened. Ebersol never confronted him about it and David stayed for the rest of the season. David used this experience as the basis for the "Seinfeld" (1990) episode "The Revenge".
  
  
• Guest performances were recurrent in the show's first years, mostly by Andy Kaufman, Al Franken and Tom Davis (who joined the cast in late 1979 as featured players), Michael O'Donoghue (one of the first cast members), Michael Davis, Harry Anderson (who hosted in early 1985), Steven Wright, Penn Jillette and Teller and Sam Kinison. However, by the late 1980s, guest performances became very rare.
  
  
• Jennifer Tilly auditioned to join the 1985-1986 cast.
  
  
• During the 2007-2008 season, Wyatt Cenac, Jordan Carlos, Donald Glover, and Jordan Peele auditioned to join the cast and play Barack Obama. But Fred Armisen, who is not African-American, was cast as Obama.
  
  
• Abby Elliott, daughter of Chris Elliott, is the first cast member to be the child of a former cast member. Her grandfather, Bob Elliott, made a guest appearance in the fourth-season. At 21 years old, she is the youngest female cast member in the show's history.
  
  
• Liz Cackowski and Maribeth Monroe are among the women who auditioned for the 2005-2006 season but both lost out to a newcomer, Kristen Wiig.
  
  
• Prior to joining the SNL band, G.E. Smith was the guitarist for Daryl Hall and John Oates.
  
  
• Roseanne is the only host to appear under different names (Roseanne Barr, Roseanne Arnold and Roseanne). John Mellencamp is the only musical guest to appear under different names (John Cougar, John Cougar Mellencamp and John Mellencamp).
  
  
• The series was originally commissioned to have just six episodes.
  
  

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