SNL was developed by Dick Ebersol with producer Lorne Michaels in 1975 in response to NBC's search for a show for its Saturday late-night slot. The network had long enjoyed dominance of the weekday late-night slot with The Tonight Show and sought to continue that success in the unused weekend time period. With the approval of Johnny Carson, whose influence at the net­ work was strong, Ebersol and Michaels debuted their show, which was intended to attract 18- to 34-year-old viewers.

The regulars on the show have almost always been relative unknowns in the comedy field. The first cast (the Not Ready for Prime Time Players) included Chevy Chase, Dan Aykroyd, John Belushi, Jane Curtin, Gilda Radner, Laraine Newman, and Garrett Morris, all from the New York and Toronto comedy scenes. Featuring a different guest host each week (co­ median George Carlin was the first) and a different musical guest as well, SNL reflected a nontraditional approach to television comedy from the start. The cast and writers combined the satirical with the silly and nonsensical, not unlike Monty Pythons Flying Circus, one of Michaels's admitted influences.

The program is produced live from NBC's studio 8-H for 90 minutes. This difficult schedule and pressure-filled production environment has resulted in some classic comedy sketches and some abysmally dull moments over the years. Creating comedy in such a situation is difficult at best, and the audience is al­ways aware when the show is running dry (usually in the last half hour). However, this sense of the immediate and the unforeseen also can give the show its needed edge. By returning to TV's live roots, SNL gives its audiences an element of adventure with each program. It has acquainted the generations who never experienced live television programming in the 1950s with the sense of theater missing from prerecorded programming.

For the performers, crew, and writers. the show is a test of skill and dedication. The show has undergone several major changes since its beginning. The most obvious of these have been cast changes. SNL's first "star," Chevy Chase, left the show in the second sea­ son for Hollywood. Aykroyd and Belushi followed in 1979. The rest of the original cast, including Bill Mur­ ray, who replaced Chase. left when producer Michaels decided to leave the show after the 1979-80 season. Michaels's departure created widespread doubt about the viability of the show without him and his cast of favorites. Jean Doumanian was chosen as producer. but her tenure lasted less than a year. With the critics attacking the show's diminished  satirical  edge  and the lackluster replacement performers, NBC enticed Ebersol to return as producer in the spring of 1981. Ebersol managed to attract some of the original staff for the 1981-82 season. particularly writer Michael O'Donoghue. With the addition of Eddie Murphy, the show began to regain some of its strength, always based in its focus on a young audience and the use of timely material.

Michaels rejoined the show as producer in 1985 and oversaw a second classic period of SNL. With talented performers such as Dana Carvey, Jon Lovitz, Jan Hooks. and Phil Hartman. the program regained much of its early edge and attitude. However. the nature of the program is that the people who make it funny (the performers and writers) are the ones who tend to move on after a few years of the grind of a weekly live show. The steady turnover of cast and writers continues to af­ fect SNL's quality, for better and for worse. However. Michaels's presence as producer has established a con­tinuity that reassures the network and provides some stability for the audience.

From its inception, SNL has provided U.S. televi­sion with some of its most popular characters and catchphrases. Radner's Roseanne Roseannadana ("It's always something") and Emily Litella ("Never mind"), Belushi's Samurai, Aykroyd's Jimmy Carter, Murphy's Mr. Robinson, Billy Crystal's Fernando ("You look mahvelous"), Martin Short's Ed Grimley. Lovitz's pathological liar, Carvey's Church Lady ("Isn't that special?"), Carvey and Kevin Nealon's Hans and Franz, and Mike Myers's "Wayne's World" and Dieter all left marks on popular culture of the late 20th cen­tury. In the 1990s and early 2000s, cast members continued to add new voices to the SNL pantheon. In par­ticular, political humor has been among the greatest strengths of recent seasons, with Darrell Hammond's caricature of a leering Bill Clinton during the Monica Lewinsky scandal and Will Ferrell's imitation of a befuddled George W. Bush continuing a tradition of presidential satirization established by earlier SNL per­ formers, such as Chase (as Gerald Ford). Phil Hartman (Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton), and Carvey (most notably. George Bush. Sr.).

The program's regular news spot, Weekend Update, has been done by Chase, Curtin, Aykroyd, Nealon, Dennis Miller, Norm MacDonald, Hammond, Ttna Fey, and Jimmy Fallon among others. and, at its best, the mock newscast has provided sharp comic com­mentary on current events.

SNL has seen many of its cast members move on to other venues. Chase. Aykroyd, Murray. Murphy. Crys­tal, Myers. Chris Rock. and Adam Sandler have all en­ joyed considerable success on the big screen, with many other former cast members also making films, including many based on SNL characters. Indeed, at times it has seemed that nearly every character from the SNL roster has been featured in a Hollywood fea­ture.  However,  for  every  SNL-based  box  office (or home video release) winner, such as The Blues Broth­ers  or  Wayne s World,  there  have  been  several  busts (The Coneheads, Its Pat, Stuart Saves His Family, Blues Brothers 2000, A Night at the Roxbury, and The ladies Man).

Among the SNL alumni who have moved from late­ night to prime-time sitcoms are Curtin (Kate and Allie and Third Rock from the Sun). Julia Louis-Dreyfus (Seinfeld and Watching Ellie), Hartman (News Radio). MacDonald (Norm), and Jim Belushi (According to Jim). Still others have, with varying degrees of suc­cess, tried their luck with other TV genres. Rock won critical acclaim and an Emmy for his Home Box Office (HBO) talk show The Chris Rock Show, whereas Car­vey tried but failed to revive the prime-time variety show format, and Miller fared poorly both as late-night talk show host and as a commentator on Monday Night Football.

As a stage for satire. few other American programs match Saturday Night live. As an outlet for current music, the show has featured acts from every popular musical genre and has hosted both established  and new artists (from Paul Simon, the Rolling Stones, and George Harrison to R.E.M., Sinead O'Connor, Brit­ ney Spears, and Eminem). Because of its longevity, SNL has crossed generational lines and made the cul­ ture of a younger audience available to their elders (and the opposite is also true). Ultimately, Saturday Night live must be considered one of the most distinctive and significant programs in the history of U.S. television.