Saturday Night Live

Not ready for prime time players

Season 1 (1975-1976)

The first show aired on October 11, 1975, with George Carlin as its host, it was called NBC's Saturday Night, because ABC featured a program at the same time titled Saturday Night Live with Howard Cosell. After ABC cancelled the Cosell program in 1976, the NBC program changed its name to Saturday Night Live and has never looked back. They also picked up a young comic from Cosell's show, Bill Murray. The lead in announcement for the first show introduced the cast as the "Not for ready, prime time players" instead of their actual name as "Not ready for prime time players."

The original concept was for a comedy-variety show featuring young comedians, live musical performances, short films by Albert Brooks, and segments by Jim Henson featuring atypically adult and abstract characters from the Muppets world. Rather than have one permanent host, Michaels elected to have a different guest host each week. The first episode featured two musical guests (Billy Preston and Janis Ian), but over the course of the first season, sketch comedy would begin to dominate the show and SNL would more closely resemble its current format.

Original cast members

The original (1975-1980) repertory company was called the "Not Ready for Prime-Time Players."

The first cast members were Second City alumni Dan Aykroyd, John Belushi, and Gilda Radner and National Lampoon "Lemmings" alumni Chevy Chase (whose trademark became his usual falls and opening spiel that cued the show's opening), Jane Curtin, Laraine Newman, and Garrett Morris. The original head writer was Michael O'Donoghue, a writer at National Lampoon who had worked alongside several cast members while directing The National Lampoon Radio Hour. The original theme music was written by future Academy Award-winning composer Howard Shore, who--along with his "All Nurse Band"--was the original band leader on the show. Paul Shaffer who would go on to lead David Letterman's band on Late Night and then The Late Show, was also band leader in the early years.