For almost 50 years, Saturday Night Live has been run by the steady hand of its creator, Lorne Michaels. Save for a period of time when he left the series in the 1980s, the Canadian comedy mogul has been at the head of this landmark NBC program, and continues to do so throughout the 2025 TV schedule. That being said, I imagine it would surprise the world to learn that there was a point when the network tried to replace Michaels, and an equally stunning candidate was apparently among the prospective hires.
On behalf of the 50th anniversary of SNL, and the release of the new book Lorne: The Man Who Invented Saturday Night Live, I reached out to author Susan Morrison to discuss the tome in question. When asking her about what she felt were the most surprising stories in the book, both of her answers had to do with Lorne Michaels’ very stewardship. One story was about how the father of Saturday Night Live almost didn’t do the show, simply because he didn’t want to do it in New York.
However, the more shocking story shared with CinemaBlend is the anecdote on how control was almost taken from him, with Judd Apatow apparently considered as a replacement. Susan Morrison started that tale with this recollection:
I didn't know that the network had gone so far as to interview people to maybe replace him. You know, I didn't know that they had reached out to Judd Apatow, who was just in his twenties and had these kind of, you know, very vague conversations with him about, you know, maybe coming in in a producer role and who knows what would happen next. And because they were really thinking of firing Lorne.
To further set the scene, Morrison shared that this course of action was apparently being considered after the time period of Adam Sandler and Chris Farley’s SNL departure. At that point, NBC and producer Don Ohlmeyer spurred the higher-ups to conduct secret interviews, which included the eventual writer/director of The 40 Year Old Virgin and Knocked Up.
This wasn't the first or last time that the Michaels/Ohlmeyer conflict would lead to firings, as anyone who's seen Norm MacDonald's SNL hosting gig from the year after his firing could tell you. At this specific point in time, It's no surprise why Apatow was considered to take over, as he had both The Ben Stiller Show andThe Larry Sanders Show’s run under his belt by time Saturday Night Live Season 20 ended in 1995.
In her research for Lorne: The Man Who Invented Saturday Night Live, Susan Morrison also learned how Mr. Apatow felt about both the show, and the process that led to him being interviewed to possibly run things. Sharing those details with CinemaBlend, here’s the rest of how that tale shook out:
Judd loved the show. It was always his dream to work at the show, and [Adam] Sandler was his roommate. He knew the show well, and so he was intrigued, but he was so put off by the sneaky back channel behavior of these guys that I think he felt that karmically it would just be so wrong and so disrespectful of Lorne, and what Lorne had created, that he told them, ‘Forget it.’ I don't think it's widely known that he was really on the ropes there.
Lorne is a book that came along at the right time, with its release arriving just two days after Saturday Night Live’s 50th anniversary special. So learning new stories about the series’ progress through five decades of history is something fresh in everyone’s minds. It sees Susan Morrison’s unique position in that firmament offering a convenient window into the anxiety-ridden history of SNL.
The current articles editor for The New Yorker, Morrison actually has a claim to fame that most devotees of the series would readily cite. As a writer’s assistant on the ill-fated NBC series The New Show, she worked with Lorne Michaels in those wilderness years.
Just like any SNL star whose made an epic return after they’ve left, Michaels’ mark on the series going forward can still be felt to this day. Recognizing that truth only makes this story all the crazier to consider, as who knows if the series would have made it to its 25th anniversary, much less the era of the Peacock subscription, without him.
For more stories like this, I recommend checking out Susan Morrison’s Lorne: The Man Who Invented Saturday Night Live, which is currently available at all fine booksellers. Meanwhile, the upcoming SNL hosts and musical guests can still be found at the usual time and place: 11:35 PM ET, every Saturday night, on NBC.
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