Jane Curtin (Kim Matula), Laraine Newman (Emily Fairn), Lorne Michaels (Gabriel LaBelle), Rosie Shuster (Rachel Sennott), and John Belushi (Matt Wood) in the Makeup Room in ‘Saturday Night’.Photo:Hopper Stone
Hopper Stone
Saturday Nightis a fast-paced, head-turning movie recounting the 90 minutes beforeSaturday Night Livefirst aired on Oct. 11, 1975, but not everything is 100 percent accurate in the film.
The movie recounts several stories that have since become notorious, including how the late comedianJohn Belushi(Matt Wood) still hadn’t signed his contract before the show and thatBilly Crystal(Nicholas Podany) was originally supposed to be in the first episode, but his scene got cut.
However, other stories were more fabricated, like Michaels heading to a bar and hiring a writer on the spot 20 minutes before the show went live. Reitman told PEOPLE that being entirely accurate wasn’t necessarily the goal. Rather, it was to encapsulate the moments before the show became the behemoth that it is.
“The chief takeaway was that on Oct. 11th, 1975, at 11:29 PM, none of these young people knew what was about to happen,” he said. “None of them knew that their lives were about to change, culture was about to change. They were just trying to put on a show.”
Now, the movie is streaming on Netflix in celebration of the 50th anniversary of the beloved comedy show.
So how much ofSaturday Nightis true? Here’s everything to know about which of the tales are fact or fiction.
Did the show really almost not go to air?
Dan Aykroyd, Gilda Radner, Jane Curtin, and John Belushi performed the Lupner skit on the set of Saturday Night Live in New York City in 1975.NBC Television/Getty Images
NBC Television/Getty Images
For the entire 90 minutes before the live performance portrayed inSaturday Night, Michaels faces the worry that the show won’t be ready to go to air between a battling cast, production mishaps and doubtful network executives. During the climax of the movie, Dick Ebersol (Cooper Hoffman), NBC’s vice president of late-night programming at the time, tells Michaels that the network is expecting the show to fail and does not have his back as much as Michaels thought they did.
Michaels also faces NBC head of talent David Tebet (Willem Dafoe), who seems to subliminally be threatening to pull the show the entire evening. In reality, Michaels recalled in theSNLoral history bookLive From New Yorkthat Tebet was much more supportive but was concerned about host George Carlin’s appearance as he refused to wear a suit.
“The major focus of the night, weirdly enough, was over a directive we got that Carlin had to wear a suit on the show,” Michaels said.“He wanted to wear a T-shirt. The directive came from Dave Tebet; he was head of talent and very supportive of the show, but he was also trying to anticipate.”
Did Garrett Morris really sing a song about killing White people at soundcheck?
Chevy Chase as Ramone Diarga, Elliott Gould as Moe Greenstein, Dan Aykroyd as Mr. Russo, and Garrett Morris as Johnny Sagpants in the “Foreign Card Playing” skit on May 29, 1976.NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal/Getty Images
NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal/Getty Images
Though this did not happen before the first show in real life, Morris did sing the song in episode 11 of the first season during a sketch in which he auditioned for a jailhouse production ofGigi.
Was Milton Berle walking around set and did he flash Chevy Chase after flirting with his fiancé?
Milton Berle stands at a microphone during the taping of his television program.Bettmann/Getty Images
Bettmann/Getty Images
“She opens the door to his dressing room just in time to see me looking into his d— saying, ‘Yeah, it’s really, really nice,’ " Zweibel said.
Did Chevy Chase and John Belushi actually get into a fight?
Chevy Chase and John Belushi take a break in the NBC Studios in 1976 in New York.Michael Tighe/Donaldson Collection/Getty Images
Michael Tighe/Donaldson Collection/Getty Images
Chase did get into a physical brawl before a show once — but it wasn’t with Belushi. InLive From New York, cast and crew members recalled how when Chase came back to host an episode of the show in season 2, after leaving following season 1, he got into a fight withBill Murray, who was new to the cast that season.
“I got in a fight with Chevy the night he came back to host [in 1978],” Murray recounted inLive From New York.“It’s almost like I was goaded into that. You know, I think everybody was hoping for it … I think they resented Chevy for leaving, for one thing. They resented him for taking a big piece of the success and leaving and making his own career go.”
Belushi did end up getting hit in the fight as he got in between the two men, and theCommunityactor even blamed him for starting the argument.
Did John Belushi actually refuse to sign his contract until he was on ice at Rockefeller Center?
John Belushi, in a bumble bee costume, skates at the Rockefeller Center Ice Rink for a skit on Saturday Night Live.Owen Franken/Corbis via Getty Images
Owen Franken/Corbis via Getty Images
“He said, ‘Okay, I’ll sign the contract if you manage me,’ " Brillstein said. “I swear to God, it was five minutes before showtime … At that time, I didn’t know how great Belushi was, so I just said yes to get him to sign the goddamned contract.”
In the movie, Belushi exits the studio only for Michaels to find him on the ice skating rink in Rockefeller Center, attempting a tricky skating move while decked out in his bee costume. It was only after he fell and Michaels rushed to help him that Belushi signed the contract. While that story is untrue, Belushi was part of the Bees skit, one of SNL’s first recurring characters, which did appear in an ice skating sketch later in the season.
Was Dan Aykroyd actually having an open affair with Lorne Michaels' wife Rosie Shuster?
Dan Aykroyd and Rosie Shuster attend the premiere of “Manhattan” on April 18, 1979 at the Ziegfeld Theater in New York City.Ron Galella/Getty Images
Ron Galella/Getty Images
Michaels was married to Rosie Shuster (Rachel Sennott) for nine years before their divorce in 1980, and their relationship was mostly accurately captured inSaturday Night. Though the two were married in 1975, they were more childhood friends than husband and wife, with Shuster even struggling to decide whose last name she’d use in the opening credits of the show (which did not happen in real life).
In both the movie and real life, Shuster was having an open affair withDan Aykroyd(Dylan O’Brien), who was also dating Laraine Newman after previously going out with Gilda Radner.
Director John Landis reflected on the nature of the relationships on theSNLset inLive From New York, recalling how, after seeing an attractive woman, he asked Belushi who she was.
“John says, ‘That’s Rosie Shuster. That’s Lorne’s wife and Danny’s girlfriend.’ Which is true. It was wild,” Landis said.
Did Lorne Michaels leave the set covered in blood and go to a bar where he hired a writer on the spot?
Lorne Michaels during “The New Beatles Offer” skit on May 22, 1976.NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal/Getty Images
In a moment of desperation and seeming failure in the movie, Michaels leaves the NBC studio entirely — covered in fake blood after a trick exploded on him — and goes to a bar across the street, hoping to find Belushi but also with a desire to drown away his sorrows. Sitting next to him, he finds comedic writer Alan Zweibel who tells Michaels he’d written the jokes for the stand-up comedian performing on stage now and only got paid if the audience laughed.
In reality, Michaels did meet Zweibel at a bar, but it was the writer who was performing the awful stand up set and it took place a year before the premiere. Michaels approached him and told him his material was “not bad,” and Zweibel went home and wrote up “1,100 of my best jokes” which he presented to Michaels two days later, he toldThe New York Timesin 2004.
Michaels hired him after reading just the first one, as he did in the movie, and the iconic Chase joke was used in the premiere episode.
Was Big Bird actually hung in Jim Henson’s dressing room?
Ken Regan /American Broadcasting Companies/Getty Images
Though this didn’t happen in the premiere episode, it is true that the writers hated coming up with material for Henson because of how protective he was of the Muppets and how much he argued about what they would or wouldn’t say, Zweibel recalled inLive From New York.
And though Big Bird was never hung in Henson’s room specifically, Zweibel said head writer Michael O’Donoghue did indeed mockingly behead the character when they first met.
“He had taken Big Bird, a stuffed toy of Big Bird, and the cord from the Venetian blinds, and he wrapped the cord around Big Bird’s neck,” he said. “He was lynching Big Bird. And that’s how we all felt about the Muppets.”
Was Lorne Michaels originally supposed to be the Weekend Update anchor instead of Chevy Chase?
Chevy Chase during “Weekend Update”.NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal/Getty Images
Originally set to perform one ofSNL’smost iconic sketches to this day, Weekend Update, Michaels is awkward and not very funny in the movie as he rehearses it. At the last minute, he tosses it over to Chase, who famously performed it throughout the season.
However, in real life, Michaels knew he was handing over the bit to Chase ahead of time — though he did originally conceive it with himself in the role.
“I’d done the equivalent of Weekend Update in Canada,” Michaels toldDeadlinein 2014. “But as we got closer to the air show, I began to realize that I didn’t think I could be the person who cut other people’s pieces and left my own in.”
source: people.com
