Saturday Night Live season 1

Saturday Night Live aired its first season during the 1975-76 television season on NBC. At the time, NBC aired reruns of The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson on Saturday night, but Johnny Carson wanted to have new programming on, in order to save reruns to air during his holidays.

NBC hired Lorne Michaels to be the executive producer of a late-night comedy/variety television series. Michaels wanted to call his show "Saturday Night Live," but ABC was already airing a similar series called Saturday Night Live with Howard Cosell. The show was named NBC's Saturday Night, and to mimic Cosell's "Prime-Time Players," Michaels called his cast "The Not Ready For Prime Time Players".

Certain elements exclusive to Season One included Jim Henson's Muppets in the Land of Gorch, short films by Albert Brooks, and live commercials for Polaroid played by the SNL cast.

The first season began on October 11, 1975 and ended on July 31, 1976.

Cast

Repertory cast members

• Dan Aykroyd
• John Belushi
• Chevy Chase
• Jane Curtin
• Garrett Morris
• Laraine Newman
• Gilda Radner

Featured cast members

• George Coe
• Jim Henson
• Michael O'Donoghue

Episodes

Episode Number	Date	Host(s)	Musical Guest(s)	Remarks
1	October 11, 1975	George Carlin	Billy Preston Janis Ian	During the opening credits, announcer Don Pardo flubbed the first-ever mention of the regular cast as "the Not For Ready Prime Time Players". According to the cast list shown on screen, the Players include George Coe and Michael O'Donoghue. Future cast member Billy Crystal was scheduled to appear, but his stand-up segment was cut when the dress rehearsal ran long. Andy Kaufman's segment, which consisted of him playing the Mighty Mouse theme on a record player, survived.
2	October 18, 1975	Paul Simon	Randy Newman Phoebe Snow Art Garfunkel Jesse Dixon Singers	This episode contains an all-time record 11 musical performances. Among the comedy pieces, only Weekend Update and a sketch in which Paul Simon tells the Bees their piece has been cut involve the Not Ready for Prime Time Players. Most of the sketches were cut in order to extend Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel's musical set. They performed "The Boxer", "Scarborough Fair" and their then-new single "My Little Town".
3	October 25, 1975	Rob Reiner	John Belushi as Joe Cocker	Rob Reiner is the first host to appear in full sketches with the regular cast. Denny Dillon appears as a "special guest" with Mark Hampton in a sketch as nuns running a parish talent show. Dillon would later become a cast member during the show's infamous sixth season. Rob Reiner's then-wife Penny Marshall makes cameo appearances in this episode.
4	November 8, 1975	Candice Bergen	Esther Phillips	Bergen is the first female host of the show
5	November 15, 1975	Robert Klein	ABBA Loudon Wainwright III	ABBA makes two appearances, set on board the sinking Titanic, and lip-synch their second number. Captions informed the audience that "It's not their fault. The tapes didn't arrive from Sweden".
6	November 22, 1975	Lily Tomlin	Tomlin with Howard Shore & the All Nurse Band	Lily Tomlin is the first host to interact with the Muppets. She is also technically the first to host and be in the musical act, but the show was listed without a musical act.
7	December 13, 1975	Richard Pryor	Gil Scott-Heron	This episode had the first seven-second delay for SNL. This episode had the first black celebrity to host SNL. The West Coast airing of this episode bleeped out Richard Pryor saying "ass" during one of his stand-up routines. It has since been shown intact.
8	December 20, 1975	Candice Bergen	Martha Reeves The Stylistics	Candice Bergen is the first person to host the show a second time. *She is also the first person to host more than once in the same season.
9	January 10, 1976	Elliott Gould	Anne Murray
10	January 17, 1976	Buck Henry	Bill Withers Toni Basil
11	January 24, 1976	Peter Cook Dudley Moore	Neil Sedaka	Don Pardo reads the names of the regular cast members during the opening credits for the first time.
12	January 31, 1976	Dick Cavett	Jimmy Cliff
13	February 14, 1976	Peter Boyle	Al Jarreau
14	February 21, 1976	Desi Arnaz	Desi Arnaz & Desi Arnaz Jr.
15	February 28, 1976	Jill Clayburgh	Leon Redbone The Singing Idlers
16	March 13, 1976	Anthony Perkins	Betty Carter	This is the first episode to feature pictures of the cast in the opening credits.
17	April 17, 1976	Ron Nessen	Patti Smith	Ron Nessen, press secretary for President Gerald Ford, is the first political figure to host the show. Ford himself appears in a filmed segment during the cold opening where he opens the show with "Live from New York, it's Saturday Night!"
18	April 24, 1976	Raquel Welch	Phoebe Snow John Sebastian	Lorne Michaels performs on air, famously offering the Beatles $3,000 to perform three songs.
19	May 8, 1976	Madeline Kahn	Carly Simon
20	May 15, 1976	Dyan Cannon	Leon and Mary Russell
21	May 22, 1976	Buck Henry	Gordon Lightfoot	Lorne Michaels appears again, offering the Beatles $3,200 and free hotel accommodations to perform three songs.
22	May 29, 1976	Elliott Gould	Leon Redbone Harlan Collins & Joyce Everson
23	July 24, 1976	Louise Lasser	Preservation Hall Jazz Band	Lasser was the first SNL host to be banned from ever hosting again. The episode was not shown in syndication until 2002.
24	July 31, 1976	Kris Kristofferson	Rita Coolidge