Saturday Night Live Is How We Talk With America

The first episode of NBC’s Saturday Night aired live from New York on October 11, 1975, and looked like literal trash — gray, brown, muted, somehow both dusty and wet, with sets that appeared to have been left on the sidewalk for a few days. The center stage was paved in real brick, as if the show were being performed not just in New York but on it as well. “It’s what New York was at that time and still is,� creator Lorne Michaels told Rolling Stone in 1979. “Deteriorated, run-down, and loved because of it.�

In This Issue

Reasons to Love New York 2024

• Why We Love New York Right Now
• Why the Cast of SNL Loves New York
• Play an SNL-Themed Edition of Cinematrix

It probably would be easier to make Saturday Night Live in Los Angeles. It definitely would be cheaper. No longer would the crew need to cram about a dozen sets into a paltry 6,000 square feet of valuable Manhattan real estate every week. But SNL isn’t easy. It’s cramped. It’s indulgently difficult to produce. New York and SNL were made for each other. They were made by each other by reverently mythologizing their history while also irreverently demolishing it to make way for whatever was new and next, like a postwar building that’s periodically renovated to keep up with trends. Later this winter, the show will be throwing itself a series of birthday parties celebrating 50 years on the air. The stamina required to do the same show, at the same place, at the same time, 20-odd times a year is unfathomable in the modern TV landscape. It’s even more extraordinary as far as New York institutions go. In the same stretch of time, Studio 54 went from a chic nightlife spot to a generic rock venue to a Broadway theater, and CBGB went from a punk-rock breeding ground to a store selling $1,900 studded “Alice Cooper� leather biker jackets. SNL, meanwhile, has become so interwoven into the pace of New York City and how we organize its place in the culture that it feels unbound by time, as if it had always existed and always will.

In the 1970s, the culture was not lacking for depictions of New York. So many iconic movies were made during this time, about this time, that its version of the city as dangerous, depraved, and degraded lingered for decades. SNL started from the same image, but where the movies wallowed in darkness, SNL found a joke, acting as a built-in end-of-week release valve to the tension of living in this city and in this country. When Mayor Adams was indicted this fall, SNL had Devon Walker impersonate him days later, defending himself for accepting flights from Turkish-government officials. (“New York City needs me in first class: Shoes off. Tie off. Bracelets on. Getting my shoulders rubbed by a nice Turkish lady named Bahar.�) When Steve Buscemi was punched by a stranger last spring, six days later on SNL an NYPD sergeant (played by Jake Gyllenhaal) held a press conference to say “Stop punching character actors in the face.� To say nothing of the years of sketches and jokes about rats, pigeons, and lanternflies. SNL has built a reputation as the way New York sees America, but it’s also always been the way America sees New York.

By design, as a variety show, it does not require any one person to like every sketch. Take a November episode in which host John Mulaney performed his sixth musical parody about hyperspecific New York curiosities. Previous installments have covered subway churros and Times Square gift shops that sell I �� NY tighty-whities. The latest one was about milk sold at the Duane Reade in Port Authority. The morning after it aired, my colleagues picked it apart like callers into a New York sports-radio show. We all agreed that 2018’s “Diner Lobster,� about ordering lobster at a Greek diner, is still the best of the set. It had focused on one musical (Les Misérables) and an observation that could only have been made by someone living here, while increasingly these sketches have become musical pastiches of tourist-level observations. Sure, this made us the 50,000,000th New Yorker to say SNL was funnier in the past. But like all of our institutions, SNL exists partly to be argued over and complained about, mirroring the love-hate relationship the rest of the country has with New York.

SNL is less the Yankees than the Knicks; following it means hoping that one of these days, they are going to figure it all out and create a full season of perfect sketch comedy. But such perfection is both impossible and wrongheaded, as it wouldn’t properly reflect the reality of existing in this city. Instead, we enjoy that the show captures the feeling of making the show, of anxiously, hurriedly, ambitiously trying to figure it all out in real time. Every week, they fail to do so, and yet it airs anyway. Isn’t that special?

IN THE PORTFOLIO:
Fred Armisen, cast (2002–13)
Alec Baldwin, 17-time host (1990–2017)
Vanessa Bayer, cast (2010–17)
Candice Bergen, five-time host (1975–90)
Aidy Bryant, cast (2012–22)
Dana Carvey, cast (1986–93)
Chevy Chase, cast and writer (1975–76)
Michael Che, writer (2013–present), cast (2014–present)
Ellen Cleghorne, cast (1991–95)
Billy Crystal, cast (1984–85)
Jane Curtin, cast (1975–80)
Pete Davidson, cast (2014–22)
Rachel Dratch, cast (1999–2006)
Nora Dunn, cast (1985–90)
Jimmy Fallon, cast (1998–2004)
Tina Fey, writer (1997–2006), cast (2000–6)
Will Forte, cast (2002–10)
Janeane Garofalo, cast (1994–95)
Ana Gasteyer, cast (1996–2002)
Bill Hader, cast (2005–13)
Darrell Hammond, cast (1995–2009), announcer (2014–present)
Marcello Hernández, cast (2022–present)
James Austin Johnson, cast (2021–present)
Leslie Jones, cast and, writer (2014–19)
Colin Jost, writer (2005–present), cast (2014–present)
Chris Kattan, cast (1996–2003)
Julia Louis-Dreyfus, cast (1982–85)
Steve Martin, 16-time host (1976–2022)
Kate McKinnon, cast (2012–22)
Tim Meadows, cast (1991–2000)
Seth Meyers, cast (2001–14), writer (2003–14)
Tracy Morgan, cast (1996–2003)
Garrett Morris, cast (1975–80)
John Mulaney, writer (2008–13), six-time host (2018–24)
Mike Myers, cast (1989–95)
Laraine Newman, cast (1975–80)
Don Novello, writer (1978–80 1985–86), cast (1979–80, 1985–86)
Cheri Oteri, cast (1995–2000)
Chris Parnell, cast (1998–2006)
Nasim Pedrad, cast (2009–14)
Jay Pharoah, cast (2010–16)
Joe Piscopo, cast (1980–84)
Amy Poehler, cast (2001–8)
Maya Rudolph, cast (2000–7)
Andy Samberg, cast (2005–12)
Molly Shannon, cast (1995–2001)
Sarah Sherman, cast (2021–present)
Martin Short, cast (1984–85)
Sarah Silverman, cast and, writer (1993–94)
David Spade, writer (1990–91), cast (1990–96)
Cecily Strong, cast (2012–22)
Jason Sudeikis, writer (2003–5), cast (2005–13)
Julia Sweeney, cast (1990–94)
Terry Sweeney, writer (1980–81 1985–86), cast (1985–86)
Kenan Thompson, cast (2003–present)
Christopher Walken, seven-time host (1990–2008)
Kristen Wiig, cast (2005–12), five-time host (2013–24)
Casey Wilson, cast (2008–9)
Bowen Yang, writer (2018–19), cast (2019–present)
Sasheer Zamata, cast (2014–17)

More Reasons to Love New York

• Cinematrix No. 252: December 3, 2024
• 60 Stars, 50 Seasons, 5 Panels
• 39 Reasons to Love New York Right Now

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