Word: saturday
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Saturday Night Live was not just another television show; it was the show that changed television. When it made its debut in October 1975, Carol Burnett and Sonny and Cher were still the definition of hip TV comedy. NBC's new late- night series burst onto that scene with a countercultural whoop. It brought to TV, for the first time, the comic sensibility of the '60s generation: anti- Establishment, idol-smashing, media savvy. The show seemed to break new ground almost weekly: pushing the boundaries of permissible language and subject matter, rejuvenating political satire, breaking the "fourth wall" to make...
...last of the original cast members, as well as Michaels, left at the end of the 1980 season, and Saturday Night Live was forced to rebuild from scratch. In the next few seasons -- the Dark Ages -- the show managed to unearth one superstar (Eddie Murphy) but a lot of also-rans (Charles Rocket, Mary Gross). One year it brought in seasoned ringers like Billy Crystal and Martin Short (no fair -- they were ready for prime time); then Michaels returned with an all new cast that ranged from teen flashes-in-the-pan like Anthony Michael Hall to Hollywood veteran Randy...
...show, in short, is once again delivering laughs. So why, for a veteran fan, does the new Saturday Night Live still seem like a pale imitation of its old self? For one thing, the most popular bits -- Carvey's Church Lady, the body-building brothers Hans and Franz -- are the weakest parts of the show, crowd pleasers that depend on makeup gimmicks rather than nimble gags. Too many sketches are pat and obvious in ways that the old group wouldn't have tolerated (a team of ad executives, marooned on an island, worries more about meetings and market surveys than...
...those days, SNL writers would sometimes reject comic ideas with the put- down "That's Carol Burnett." It was their code language for material that was too broad, too mainstream. Saturday Night Live may not quite have become the Carol Burnett Show of the '80s, but complacency has crept in. Perhaps it was inevitable. TV anniversaries, after all, serve another important function. They remind us that shows grow...
...edge of willpower -- risk taking at its safest, with fantasy and freebies thrown in. "Atlantic City is a better break than Wall Street, and you can put the money in your pocket," says William A. Fountain, a food salesman who heads for Harrah's Marina Hotel Casino every Saturday...