THE 'TRAUMA' OF SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE 50 YEARS AGO TODAY (SATURDAY OCTOBER 11, 1975) AND THE PARODIES OF PRESIDENTS THAT SUCKED ME IN

 

                               (SOME MATERIAL MAY BE DISTURBING OR OFFENSIVE)

          "They're taking Lloyd Dobyns off"

That's how I felt about the move by NBC to introduce its new live Saturday late night show bi-weekly alongside the newsmagazine "Weekend".

"Weekend" was a show I had enjoyed during the previous 1974-75 season every week.

I liked watching Lloyd Dobyns and his attempt to bring some attitude to television news and he had some edgy stories like the controversial children's author Judy Blume.

She wrote stories for kids about kids having sex with themselves among other things.

Here's a jumpy example of what "Weekend" looked like in December of 1975 it was still airing every other week at that point.   The show would be pulled to other time slots as the popularity of "SNL" jumped off.

His "leisure suit" opening monologue seems a bit like social media posting in the here and now right on the money about the honesty of politicians, the economy and exports going out of the United States...

I read about this newfangled NBC Saturday Night Live show in the newspaper much hype about the reunion of Simon and Garfunkel which came on the second show in the series later in October.

In all honesty I didn't watch the first show and wouldn't watch "SNL" until I got bored watching the other material on late night Saturday television in the months ahead.

One deciding factor that sucked me in was Chevy Chase parodying the then President of the United States Gerald Ford.

For Chevy and the people around him working on the show like future Democrat US Senator Al Franken Ford was to be ridiculed for being 'too conservative' IMHO.

But as I saw it Mr. Ford and his wife Betty seemed to be coming out 'too liberal' and eventually Ronald Reagan would figure that out putting up a stiff challenge to Mr. Ford in the 1976 Republican presidential contest.

In the "Weekend Update" mock newscast of the first show Chevy Chase would take on Gerald Ford.   Was a young Donald Trump watching this (25:35 Into Video)?

Eventually Chase would do skits of a bumbling, stumbling President Ford they would be staples of the show's first two seasons.

In the next year Dan Aykroyd would also end up making fun of Jimmy Carter hooking me in further.

There's been an awful lot of "SNL" since then but for me the first five years were the best the original cast members the greatest.

This show has meant a lot for what followed including the work of Rush Limbaugh in the decades that followed.

A box was opened up leading us to where we are today for better or worse...

Video Of First Saturday Night Live October 11. 1975 Hosted By George Carlin