SPOILER WARNING: The following article gives away several pivotal moments from Saturday Night, so proceed with caution if you have not yet seen the dramedy.
As a lifelong fan of Saturday Night Live, I had a feeling that Saturday Night would be one of my favorite 2024 movies, and I was correct. However, there were also several moments throughout Jason Reitman’s dramatization of the first SNL episode when I found myself wondering, How much of this is real?
As it turns out, while there are many embellished details in Reitman and Gil Kenan’s screenplay, there is a fair amount of truth behind the 90-minute whirlwind of backstage chaos that is Saturday Night. Take a look at these facts from the history of the groundbreaking sketch comedy TV show to learn what is real and what is merely based on reality in the biopic.
John Belushi's Bee Costume Protest
To die-hard SNL fans, it is no secret John Belushi (portrayed by Matt Wood) indeed hated dressing up as a bee for the show, which was then called NBC’s Saturday Night. However, one-time Studio 8H bandmate Paul Schaffer recalls in his book We'll Be Here For The Rest of Our Lives: A Swingin' Showbiz Saga that the costume eventually led to the creation of the Blues Brothers. Belushi and Dan Aykroyd debuted as Jake and Elwood while dressed as the insects before later donning their signature look and eventually inspiring one of the best moves based on SNL characters in 1980.
Lorne Michaels Almost Hosted Weekend Update
Showtime is just minutes away when Saturday Night creator Lorne Michaels (Gabriel LaBelle) passes the responsibility of hosting “Weekend Update” to Chevy Chase (Cory Michael Smith), who would retain the gig until he left SNL not long after completing one season. In 2014, Michaels told Deadline he was the original host, but Chase was ultimately selected much earlier and, in fact, before he was added to the cast, having originally been hired as a writer.
NBC's Tonight Show Back-Up Plan
The film sees Saturday Night under the threat of being replaced with a rerun of The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson (which is what NBC normally played during Saturday’s 11:30 p.m. timeslot at the time) if it does not make it to air. As mentioned in the acclaimed book Live From New York: The Complete, Uncensored History of Saturday Night Live as Told by Its Stars, Writers, and Guests, it was actually Michaels himself who pushed for a backup plan, asking executives to have a movie ready in case things did not go according to plan.
Romance Between SNL Cast Members
It is implied in Saturday Night that Laraine Newman (played by Emily Fairn) was romantically linked to Dan Aykroyd (Dylan O’Brien), who later played her father in the “Coneheads” sketches. The SNL stars did share a fling, as Newman recalled in her memoir May You Live in Interesting Times, but, as the film also subtly hints, Aykroyd had an additional affair with producer Rosie Shuster (played by Rachel Sennott). That juicy detail comes from the firsthand testimony of Paula Davis (an assistant from those days), according to the Los Angeles Times.
Hiring Alan Zweibel
A Saturday Night moment I was especially skeptical of is when Michaels stops by a comedy club, meets Alan Zweibel (Silicon Valley cast member Josh Brener), and hires him on the spot with roughly 30 minutes to spare. While the Emmy winner was not added to the SNL writing staff so soon before the premiere, Zweibel (as he shared with Variety) did make a living writing for stand-up comedians prior. In fact, the joke he hands Chevy Chase to read on “Update” in the film is the joke that got him hired and was actually used in the segment.
The Writers Bullying Jim Henson
In addition to playing Andy Kaufman, Succession cast member Nicholas Braun also portrays Jim Henson, who discusses with Lamorne Morris as Garrett Morris (no relation) that the writers rebelled against his Muppet-starring segment, “The Land of Gorch,” by hanging Big Bird outside his dressing room door. Alan Zweibel recalled in Live from New York that the writers did hate “writing for felt,” as then-head writer Michael O’Donahue famously proclaimed. In fact, while Tommy Dewey’s portrayal of O’Donahue sarcastically apologizes about Big Bird on the writers’ behalf, Zweibel claims it was him who performed that very "lynching" using a Venetian blinds pull string in the writers’ room.
Cutting Billy Crystal's Segment
Before Billy Crystal spoke some of his best quotes as an SNL cast member in the ‘80s, he was scheduled to appear on the first episode. However, he was ultimately cut, just as Saturday Night depicts with Nicholas Podany delivering a pitch-perfect impersonation of the then-up-and-coming comedian. As he recalled in Live from New York, Crystal was initially upset he could not perform his safari-inspired bit, while fellow comedian Valri Bromfield (Corine Britti) was allowed a few minutes to show her material.
Laying Bricks On The SNL Stage
According to Doug Hill and Jeff Weingrad’s Saturday Night: A Backstage History of Saturday Night Live, the bricks that made up Studio 8H’s “home base” arrive a day before the premiere and had to be laid overnight – a detail that Jason Reitman told ScreenRant largely inspired his approach to making the film. While home base was not single-handedly constructed within an hour of the premiere broadcast, much of the set still was. So the image of production designer Akira “Leo” Yoshimura (who once made Chris Pine laugh in a Star Trek sketch, and is played here by Abraham Hsu) is a semi-accurate reflection of the painstaking work done that night.
John Belushi's Late Contract Signing
John Belushi causes trouble in Saturday Night in a number of ways, including waiting until the last minute to sign his contract with the show. According to Live From New York, while not depicted exactly as it happened, this is one of the film’s more accurate details. Bernie Brillstein, Lorne Michaels’ manager at the time, said in the book that he had to agree to be Belushi's manager in order to get him to sign the contract literally five minutes before air.
George Carlin's Alexander The Great Sketch Refusal
The premiere of Saturday Night Live was hosted by George Carlin – whom you will notice, if you watch the episode with a Peacock subscription, does not appear in any sketches. Saturday Night explains that he was set to play Alexander the Great in one segment until it was dropped when the comedian (played by Matthew Rhys) decided, between the dress rehearsal and the live broadcast, that he did not want to do it. Despite some clear dramatic exaggeration in the film, that is exactly what happened, as recalled in Saturday Night: A Backstage History of Saturday Night Live.
Milton Berle Flashing Chevy Chase
While Milton Berle was not even at Studio 8H the night of the SNL premiere, there is some truth to the scene when the comedy legend (played by Academy Award winner J.K. Simmons) whips out his member in front of Chevy Chase. Alan Zweibel claimed in Live From New York that on the night of Berle’s 1979 hosting gig, he made a joke about the comedian's size and he responded by exposing himself to him on the spot right as Gilda Radner walked in.
Well, it looks like even when this film is stretching the truth, it is not too far off from it either. In some cases, this sort of approach results in the most fun kind of biopic and I believe that the critically acclaimed Saturday Night is a lively example of that.
