Saturday Night Live (Season 1)

"Saturday Night Live" aired its first season during the 1975-76 television season on NBC. At the time, NBC aired reruns of "The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson" on Saturday night, but Johnny Carson wanted to have new programming on, in order to save reruns to air during his holidays.

NBC hired Lorne Michaels to be the executive producer of a late-night comedy/variety television series. Michaels wanted to call his show "Saturday Night Live," but ABC was already airing a similar series called "Saturday Night Live with Howard Cosell". The show was named "NBC's Saturday Night", and to mimic Cosell's "Prime-Time Players," Michaels called his cast "The Not Ready For Prime Time Players" (which was mistakenly called the "Not For Ready Primetime Players" on the first episode).

Certain elements exclusive to Season One included Jim Henson's Muppets in the Land of Gorch, short films by Albert Brooks, and live commercials for Polaroid played by the SNL cast.

The first season began on October 11, 1975 and ended on July 31, 1976.

Cast

Repertory cast members

*Dan Aykroyd
*John Belushi†
*Chevy Chase
*Jane Curtin
*Garrett Morris
*Laraine Newman
*Gilda Radner†
*George Coe (Final Episode: October 25, 1975)
*Michael O'Donoghue† (Final Episode: October 25, 1975)

Featured cast members

There were no featured cast members during the first season.

† Performer is deceased.

Episodes