Over the weekend, 30 Rock was filled with celebrities who were celebrating Saturday Night Live’s 50th. What happens if you put a lot of people in a packed room these days? COVID! And SNL was no different.
Steve Martin revealed two of the people who came down with it. “Maya had Covid. Marty has Covid. I wonder why? The SNL 50th Covid curse is real.”
Because Short tested positive, they have to reschedule this weekend’s date until October. It is not all bad news for those who were supposed to because Steve promised them, “I think we’ll be funnier then, anyway.” As if they could get any funnier than they already are.
When it comes to “the SNL 50th COVID curse,” Martin has not said anyone else who got it. But with so many older legends there, like Garrett Morris, Cher, Lorne Michaels, Jack Nicholson, Paul Simon, Paul McCartney, Meryl Streep, Jane Curtain, Bill Murray, Billy Crystal, and Steve Martin, who were there, I hope it was none of them.
In 1975, at the age of 38, Garrett Morris signed on to a brand new show called Saturday Night Live. No one knew how it would do, and little did anyone expect that 50 years later, it would still be airing at the same timeslot on NBC. But it is.
Because it has reached that milestone, NBC asked the surviving original Not Ready For Primetime Players to come back and celebrate. And Bill Murray, Chevy Chase, Lorraine Newman, Jane Curtain, and Morris said yes!
The 88-year-old, who is still acting, did a little introduction of a sad but famous short that aired in 1978. In that intro, the actor shared something he didn’t expect would happen after all of these decades. He told the audience, “And way back then, when I joined the cast of Saturday Night Live. I had no idea y’all that I would be required to do so many reunion shows. But here I am, OK!”
See you at the 60th! Unless you can come up with a good excuse like Dan Aykroyd.
Now, let’s talk about the Tom Schiller film Don’t Look Back in Anger, which starred the late comedic genius John Belushi. In it, the comedian goes and visits the graves of his castmates and says that everyone thought he would be the first one to go, but he is the only one who is still alive. Sadly, four years later, he would be the first one to go. Seven years later, he was joined by the hilarious Gilda Radner. But the rest of them are still here, celebrating the show that made them household names for 50 years and counting.
Yesterday, on Saturday Night Live’s 50th during Black Jeopardy, none of the contestants had ever heard of the variety show.
While that was SNL, would the contestants on Jeopardy do a better job answering the clues to questions about the comedy show? They did! However, there was one question that they all got wrong, and I think White Doug would’ve gotten correct!
Now that SNL is 50! Jeopardy could’ve had a whole board dedicated to the series. Lord knows, there are enough factoids for 30 clues. For example, This current SNL player hosts Pop Culture Celebrity.
Yesterday, Saturday Night Live celebrated its 50th Anniversary, so NBC threw the Variety show a huge party. How big? They were able to coerce Jack Nicholson to come out of wherever he has been hiding to introduce his Anger Management co-star, Adam Sandler.
This is the first time we have seen Jack on camera (that wasn’t a basketball game) since SNL’s 40th celebration!
Therefore, NBC needs to keep SNL going for another ten years, so we can see the legendary actor at the 60th when he is 97 years young! Because I am sure he will still be sexy in his own special way.
Yesterday was Saturday Night Live’s first episode during his second term as president. So, of course, they started off the episode by tackling his frightening first week in office again.
They did that by taking it back to 1776, when the Founding Fathers signed the Declaration of Independence. And if you do that, you need Alexander Hamilton. So, Lorne Michaels asked Lin-Manuel Miranda to reprise his most famous role 24 hours before the show went live. And the musical genius said yes.
And we are happy Lin-Manuel Miranda Cosgrove did because his appearance made a spot-on sketch even funnier! Especially when he broke. But he did try his best not to laugh. It was just too hard not to.
