Happy 32nd birthday, Saturday Night Live!
Thirty-two years ago, at 11:30 PM Eastern Time, the National Broadcasting Company aired this live:
…and with that, a revolution was born. NBC’s Saturday Night premiered with George Carlin as the host, Janis Ian and Billy Preston as musical guests, Jim Henson’s Muppets, and Not Ready For Prime Time Players Dan Aykroyd, John Belushi, Chevy Chase, George Coe (remember him?), Jane Curtin, Garrett Morris, Laraine Newman, Michael O’Donoghue, and Gilda Radner. A few years later, it would be renamed to what we know it as today, Saturday Night Live.
Del Close, subject of last Friday’s Munden’s Bar story, was acting coach and rehearsal director of SNL in 1981 and 1982.