Before creating Saturday Night Live, Lorne Michaels starred in and co-wrote an obscure early ‘70s Canadian sketch show called The Hart and Lorne Terrific Hour with then-comedy partner Hart Pomerantz, and here are some rare excerpts from it via a recently-unearthed 1986 retrospective special that was uploaded to YouTube. Before Michaels ended up working mostly behind the scenes, he was a sketch comedy performer and, as he recalls, was described as “the tall, good-looking one.†Although it only lasted 10 episodes and is rarely talked about today, The Hart and Lorne Terrific Hour ended up having an indelible impact upon modern comedy in that it was a precursor to SNL in many ways. The show featured future SNL performer Dan Aykroyd and writer Rosie Shuster, combined comedy and rock music, and was the first TV show that Lorne Michaels ever had creative control of.
