The 20 Most Memorable Moments In Saturday Night Live's 40-Year History

Saturday Night Livehas been a must-see TV show for over forty years, offering up gut-busting parodies of politics, sports, and celebrity stories with a unique brand of absurdity and satire. Over the years, Saturday Night Live has launched some of the biggest names in comedy, including Bill Murray, Eddie Murphy, Amy Poehler, and Kristen Wiig. During this time, the show has also been at the center of several headlines, such as those about backstage antics and televised controversies. Here are twenty of the most hilarious, surprising, controversial, and all-around memorable moments in Saturday Night Live's history.

The First Show

NBC’s Saturday Night premiered on October 11, 1975, after Johnny Carson asked to get Saturday nights off from The Tonight Show. The original roster of Not Ready for Primetime Players included Dan Aykroyd, John Belushi, Chevy Chase, Jane Curtin, Laraine Newman, and Gilda Radner. The episode was hosted by comedian George Carlin, who immediately pushed the boundaries of network censors with his provocative humor. The premiere also featured a now-infamous appearance from Andy Kaufman, who performed his famed Mighty Mouse bit. Over the course of the first season, the cast quickly became household names. In particular, Chevy Chase (who did the nightly “Live from New York, it’s Saturday Night!” opening and hosted Weekend Update), John Belushi, and Dan Aykroyd quickly rose to fame. Behind the scenes, Al Franken and creator Lorne Michaels were among the show's writers.

Bill Murray Joins The Cast

Chevy Chase’s exit was one of many shake-ups during the series’ second season. Just three episodes after he left, Bill Murray was brought in to replace him. The show was also officially renamed Saturday Night Live in March 1977, and Jane Curtin took over as the anchor of Weekend Update. Murray was an instant fan favorite, despite complaining at one point that he felt like none of his sketches made it to air. Chase returned to host during the third season, causing tension backstage. Before the end-of-the-show onstage goodbyes, an altercation broke out between Chase and Murray. After they exchanged several insults, they began to fight physically. John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd had to break it up.

Chevy’s Bad Behaviour

While Chevy Chase rose to fame based on his amusingly arrogant persona on the show, he also became known for how difficult he could be behind the scenes. Chase, both a writer and cast member, often clashed with just about everyone on set. After the first episode of Season 2, he was absent from two episodes due to an injury (which many believed was fake). He then returned for three episodes before exiting the series for good that November. Chase returned to host the show several times over the following decades, often with disastrous results. For example, in 1985, he suggested that the writers do a sketch focusing on how much weight openly gay cast member Terry Sweeny lost each week due to AIDS. He also slapped Cheri Oteri in the 90s while rehearsing. Despite being ‘banned' from the show, Chase has made several other cameos since then.

Eddie Murphy And SNL ‘80s

The new era of Saturday Night Live (dubbed SNL ‘80s) got off to a rocky start when the show's new cast and writers received an abysmal response from both viewers and critics. One of the few bright spots of the sixth season was the addition of comedian Eddie Murphy as a featured player. By the end of the season, NBC brought on yet another executive producer, Dick Ebersol, who let the entire cast go aside from Murphy and Joe Piscopo. Ebersol tinkered with several format changes during the seventh season but eventually decided to bring Saturday Night Live back to its roots. By Season 8, Murphy had become a huge star and the first cast member to simultaneously act as host, which angered other cast members. During his opening monologue, he famously declared, “Live from New York, it's the Eddie Murphy Show!”

John Belushi’s Passing

John Belushi had been aSaturday Night Livealumni by the seventh seasonfor several years, although he made one non-speaking cameo during a skit that season. Belushi’s film career had started to blossom even while he was on Saturday Night Live, with Animal House becoming a defining comedy of the era. He went on to star in several films, including the massively popular The Blues Brothers, a spin-off from a recurring Saturday Night Live skit with Dan Aykroyd. In March 1982, Belushi was found dead from a drug overdose at the age of thirty-three. His tragic passing had an impact on both current and former cast and crew of Saturday Night Live. In the years since Belushi's death, stories of drug abuse involving several cast members of the series have circulated. These include headlines about Chris Farley, who also died of an overdose at age thirty-three in 1997.

Lorne Michaels’s Return

At the beginning of Season 11, Lorne Michaels returned as Saturday Night Live's executive producer after NBC nearly canceled the series. Michaels hired a new cast, including Robert Downey Jr., but the season was still rocky. Madonna, pretending to read a statement from NBC during the Season 12 premiere, said in her monologue that Season 11 was “all a dream. A horrible, horrible dream." Again, nearly every existing cast member was fired before Season 12. At this point, future Saturday Night Live icons Dana Carvey, Phil Hartman, and Jan Hooks became cast members. They were joined by Mike Myers and Ben Stiller in Season 14. However, during Season 17, which began in 1990, the series featured its most exciting lineup of new talent since the original cast. Chris Farley, Chris Rock, Adam Sandler, and David Spade all joined the series. Onscreen, the early 90s was a defining era for Saturday Night Live, although the period was not without its difficulties and controversies for the show.