On Oct. 11, 1975, George Carlin hosted the first episode of what was then called “Saturday Night,”
Credit...Herb Ball/NBCU Photo Bank, via Getty Images

‘Saturday Night Live’: Here’s What Critics Thought of the First Episode

The late-night institution begins its 50th season on Saturday. Here’s how The New York Times and others covered its debut in 1975.

by · NY Times

It is strange to read the early press coverage of “Saturday Night Live.” No matter how much the show has changed over the years, the focus of the criticism is still much the same.

“Saturday Night,” as it was known when it premiered on Oct. 11, 1975, was considered to be … rather uneven. Some saw this as a flaw, others as an endearing element. Many saw the ragtag show’s potential to change TV forever.

With “Saturday Night,” which recreates the run-up to the first episode, currently in theaters and the show’s 50th season beginning — when else? — Saturday night, here is a look back at how the world greeted the arrival of “S.N.L.”

‘Simon and Garfunkel Reunion on NBC’s “Saturday Night”’

The New York Times, Oct. 20, 1975

The Times did not review the first episode. But the critic John J. O’Connor did write about the second, and he included his thoughts about the premiere. He disliked the inaugural host George Carlin’s “pretentious comedy lectures” and the juxtaposition of fake and genuine commercials. “Even an offbeat showcase needs quality, an ingredient conspicuously absent from the dreadfully uneven comedy efforts of the new series,” he wrote. O’Connor admitted that he missed the first hour of the second episode because of “an unusually good dinner on Long Island” and travel challenges. So he highlighted a Simon and Garfunkel reunion on the show, which he did see. Lorne Michaels complained about this in “Live from New York,” a 2002 oral history of the show.

‘Sprightly Mix Brightens NBC’s “Saturday Night”’

The New York Times, Nov. 30, 1975

By the fifth episode, with Lily Tomlin hosting, O’Connor changed his tune. The format now worked, more of the humor was now “on target,” and the Not Ready for Prime Time Players were “incredibly adept” at going live. The show had become “the most creative and encouraging thing to happen in American TV comedy since ‘Your Show of Shows,’” he wrote. Could Tomlin’s hosting have anything to do with that assessment? Perhaps. In the spirit of full disclosure, O’Connor confessed to being “helplessly in love” with the comedian. (“It’s best to get that kind of thing out in the open.”)

‘Flakiest Night of the Week’

Time, Feb. 2, 1976

That unevenness that some derided is what endeared “Saturday Night” to Time — the disorganized format, the off-balance sketches, the unpredictable nature of live television. Four months into the first season, the magazine wrote “sometimes SN is awful,” citing the Muppets sketches, but applauded the barbed humor “throwing the airwaves into disorder.” Time agreed with The New York Times in that Lily Tomlin’s appearance on the fifth show made “Saturday Night” a “smash.”

‘How “Saturday Night Live” Breaks the Mold’

The New Yorker, Nov. 17, 1975

While also recognizing the uneven nature of the program, Michael J. Arlen did a deep dive into the comedy vision of “Saturday Night,” contrasting it with the carefully controlled style of the older generation of comic performers, who were either detached and disconnected from their jokes or created synthetic personalities to sell their bits. Most notably, he praises the show for breaking free of the entrenched self-congratulatory Hollywood culture. His analysis reads just as much as a history of comedy trends, and why they matter, as it does an appreciation of “Saturday Night.”

‘Original 1975 Review of “Saturday Night Live”’

New York, Oct. 27, 1975

Jeff Greenfield glanced at the departures from the TV-comedy norm, finding much of the same fault with the show as other critics — the Muppets, the Albert Brooks films. He talked to cast and producers about how the show being produced in New York shaped both its outlook and its costs (40 percent more than doing it in Burbank, where NBC’s “Tonight” show was based). He concluded that the price was worth it: “The promise of ‘Saturday Night’ is enormous.”

‘New Fall TV Season Worst in Decade’

Chicago Tribune, Oct. 13, 1975

Gary Deeb, in a mini-review at the bottom of a column disparaging of many other new shows, reserved his praise for “Saturday Night,” which he wrote “premiered in superb fashion.” Deeb saw the show as a mix between “Laugh-In” (for its “experimental aura”) and Sid Caesar programs (for its “off-the-wall hilarity.”)

‘Bright and Bouncy but Past the Prime’

The Los Angeles Times, Oct. 13, 1975

Dick Adler recommended that the network rethink its late-night time slot. He considered the whole show, contrary to the company’s name, to be ready for prime-time. “Imagine what a smash it would be at 9 p.m.,” he suggested. Then again, some of the very material he praised — including “one absolute filthy (and hilarious) joke” in Weekend Update — would have been likely censored.

‘Review’

TV Guide, Jan. 3, 1976

Cleveland Amory believed early “Saturday Night” was better than “Monty Python” and that Chevy Chase was the best in the regular cast. Despite being sometimes “tasteless or close to it,” Chase got the laughs. “Taste in humor is perilous territory,” Amory noted. “There are those who may take offense at the man who presents the news for the hard of hearing — he screams the headlines — but to us, at least, it’s very funny when he hollers.”

‘“Saturday Night Live” First Episode’

The Hollywood Reporter, Oct. 14, 1975

Richard Hack wrote that the live element was lost, and not just because the technical elements were handled so well that at-home audiences couldn’t tell if it had been taped in advance or not. The threat and promise of a live show is the unpredictable spontaneity, but Hack felt there wasn’t any of that. He also took issue with, well, the rest of it, writing that the first episode “was plagued throughout with a lack of exciting guests and innovative writing, helping to keep the debut at a lackluster pace.”

‘“Saturday Night” — Live!’

Rolling Stone, July 15, 1976

“No one was prepared for it,” Tom Burke wrote. The live broadcast, with a studio audience providing genuine laughter, the cold open, the baked-in resistance to traditional television. At the same time, Burke claimed, NBC knew based on market research that there would be a weekend audience among the 25-40-year-old crowd, who would watch a “head show, one to get high before, during and on, as high as its actors clearly are.” Burke examined the show’s most common criticisms — self-indulgence, overconfidence, inconsistency — during candid conversations with the cast, some of whom were already starting to outgrow the show itself and causing even more internal issues. Decades later, it is still more evidence that the promise and problems of “Saturday Night Live” were baked into it from the beginning.

Explore More in TV and Movies

Not sure what to watch next? We can help.