As SNL continues to bring in hosts and musical guests for Season 50 and fans get excited for the 50th-anniversary special that is set to air on the 2025 TV schedule, there’s plenty of Studio 8H lore surfacing. So, it comes as no surprise that Lorne Michaels would have plenty to share about his late-night sketch show. However, I was not expecting to find out that he coined the phrase “cold open,” and learning this information has left me absolutely floored.
The skit performed before the opening credits of the long-running NBC show has been a signature of theirs for all 50 years. It’s brought plenty of memorable viral internet moments along with historic ones too, and the top SNL cold opens are like nothing else. And while the show didn’t invent the format of adding a skit or scene before the opening titles, it wasn’t as common as it is today.
Michaels adopted the style because he knew from the beginning he wanted viewers to know instantly what they were watching. He also claims that he coined the term used to describe this action, as The New Yorker reported:
The first segment is now known as a ‘cold open.’ Michaels told me, ‘I made that phrase up.'
It’s incredibly impressive if he is the one who invented the title, especially since it's a term that's used all the time today. It also reminds me just how effective SNL's format is, since they've been rocking with basically the same one since day one. With Michaels as the constant driving force, he’s continued to level up SNL to the laugh factory it is today, and he's developed a timeless format while constantly evolving the show to fit modern times too.
Well-known and veteran comedians took note of the sketch show’s format, too. Steve Martin shared that he was doing sketch-forward-then-introduction work for his shows and felt ahead of the curve. He stated that he was shocked to see the historic television premiere doing the same, saying:
I felt like I was the avant-garde. I was the one doing the new comedy. I thought, 'Oh, fuck—they did it. They had gotten there first.’
For that order of operations to be relatively new in the seventies, and for a network show to formulaically weave that into its structure, is pretty badass. Plus knowing that so many of the best sitcoms and shows in general -- like Parks and Rec and Abbott Elementary -- also use it makes this knowledge even more mindblowing.
Honestly, learning about Michaels’ claim on the cold open is stellar and an incredible easter egg to get amid Saturday Night Live’s 50th Season. Here’s hoping that more insightful and shocking BTS stories continue to rise as we near the reunion and the second half of this historic season.
Saturday Night Live returns on the titular night, January 18th at 11:30 p.m. on NBC. Stream it the following day with a Peacock subscription.
