Saturday Night

A Backstage History of Saturday Night Live

Non-Fiction - Music/Entertainment
500 Pages
Reviewed on 11/26/2024
Buy on Amazon

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    Book Review

Reviewed by Philip Zozzaro for Readers' Favorite

In Saturday Night by Doug Hill and Jeff Weingrad, NBC wasn’t exactly sure what they were getting when they heard the pitch for a late-night comedy/variety show from an up-and-coming writer/producer named Lorne Michaels. The network was struggling against CBS and ABC in the ratings and needed a spark. Michaels and Ebersol assembled a team of writers and talent to cobble together a program that would air on Saturday night. The show would be launched from 30 Rockefeller Plaza in Fall 1975. The stakes were high for Michaels, Ebersol, and NBC President Herb Schlosser. Various NBC executives were anticipating an abysmal failure. Within weeks of its premiere, the show began generating buzz and would pull in the 18-34 year old demographic. Despite ups and downs, the show has remained a bedrock of late-night television for nearly 50 years.

Saturday Night: A Backstage History of Saturday Night Live is an exhaustive but significant history of the first decade of Saturday Night Live. Authors Doug Hill and Jeff Weingrad have assembled a fascinating array of information culled from various publications along with probing interviews conducted with SNL cast and crew members. The crux of the narrative lies within the first five years as the show developed, audiences were generated, and stars were born. The compelling nature of the book is often what transpired behind the scenes as actors struggled for air time, writers lobbied to get Lorne’s ear, and accountants and censors sought to curb the show’s excesses. Hill and Weingrad elucidate how the show remained on the brink for large segments of its initial run. This is a valuable history of a much-beloved television institution.