Lorne Michaels isn’t the funniest person at “Saturday Night Live.” But he’s likely the greatest incubator of comedic talent in TV history. And for more than five decades, his real superpowers – editing, producing, channeling anarchy into 90 minutes of live television, surviving in the same time slot since 1975 – have been on display at 11:30 p.m. most Saturday nights.
Perhaps no show has launched more never-ending debates: When the show was truly great, when the show stopped being funny, whether there’s anything worth watching after Weekend Update and before the truly weird sketch comes on at 10 of 1. The best cast, of course, tends to be your first. It’s never as good as it was when you needed your parents to stay asleep during the local news so you could watch way too late. Maybe that’s just me. But probably not. The catch phrases lodge in your brain, like it or not. The clips boomerang around the internet and get analyzed and recapped for everyone by Sunday morning. Podcasts, good hangs, and Late Night shows feed a never-ending amount of backstage drama and tales of never-seen sketches.
