five-minuteSaturday Night Live’s 50th anniversary is a big deal, as over these last five decades the sketch show has become a cultural touchstone responsible for countless moments and catchphrases that we can all recall instantly. But how can you truly examine the different facets, successes and struggles of 50 years of SNL? Having one of the best documentary filmmakers around, Morgan Neville, overseeing a docuseries is a pretty good strategy.
Neville, the Oscar-winning filmmaker behind 20 Feet From Stardom, Won’t You Be My Neighbor?, Steve! (Martin) and Piece by Piece, is the executive producer of SNL50: Beyond Saturday Night, a four-part docuseries now streaming exclusively on Peacock, in which each episode focuses on a different component of SNL and its history. “Five Minutes” has many SNL greats recall their five minute auditions to be on the show; “Written By: A Week Inside the SNL Writers Room” is an embedded look at the process of creating a show each week; “More Cowbell” is a deep dive into one of SNL’s most iconic sketches; and “Season 11: The Weird Year” is an examination of the season that nearly brought SNL to an end.
