Lorne: The Man Who Invented Saturday Night Live

A Wednesday on SNL begins quietly after the all-night writing sprint, then snaps to life when assistants announce “rounding,” summoning every department to the writers’ room for the four-hour table read. Michaels, arriving mid-afternoon, presides as host Jonah Hill and the cast work through 38 draft sketches—dinner-party bits, ad parodies, an Obama rally, a ventriloquist misfire, and Hill’s proposed Late 90s sequel. Michaels’s audible laughs, or silence, signal a sketch’s fate: By evening, only a dozen cards remain on his bulletin board. In a smaller culling meeting, he weighs host preferences, cast balance, technical limits, and network sensitivities, ultimately choosing pieces like the Five-Timers monologue, “America’s Got Talent,” “Benihana,” and the Quebec-motorcycle gang, while shelving others and still hunting for a stronger cold open. Production teams now race overnight to design sets, source music, and prep costumes, transforming the selected ideas into Saturday’s live show.

This chapter recounts the chaotic, nerve-racking lead-up to the very first broadcast of Saturday Night in October 1975. Michaels faced mounting pressures, from technical failures and unresolved contracts to nervous performers and intrusive network executives. George Carlin, the first host, was high on cocaine throughout the week and proved unreliable, while the Muppets and cast failed to gel.