LT and I watched the first season on DVD a little while ago, and found it both funny and really interesting historically.

That's the episode that's running it in its normal time slot? If so, I might just have to stay awake....

Yup. Normal time.

It was weird to see Janis Ian singing At Seventeen while looking so gorgeous.

I learned the truth at seventeen. . .

A girl must keep her privates clean. . .

Sorry. I'll just sit over here now.

I remember where I was when it debuted... at the college radio station hanging out with the DJ who was doing a Big Band show (and who went on to become a radio newscaster in LA and now runs a little station in NorthernNorthernCal owned by his father), and he had brought in a little portable TV. We watched the opening sketch, looked at each other and said (in unison) "Wolverine?!?" Then Carlin came on and kicked comedy ass... Billy Preston and Janis Ian were great, Andy Kaufman and the monster Muppets were further WTF? material, Albert Brooks was almost as good as when he'd done "The Famous Comedians School" for a PBS show the year earlier (when I first discovered him), and the sketches were way too short... but when Gilda Radner did that long take at the end of the "Jury" sketch, I fell in love. "Who is that woman? I want her!!!" Carlin's two-line bit about "jumbo shrimp" and "military intelligence" got me interested in Oxymorons (which I didn't even know were called Oxymorons at the time) and his bit on Religion near the end of the show annoyed my Catholic DJ friend, which just got me thinking about it more...

And the rerun hasn't aired in my timezone yet. That's how vividly I remember it all.

Ooh, thanks for the heads-up... just set the DVR!

I imagine if you were not there to see it, that it must be hard to understand just how new and subversive it was at the time.

I imagine if you were not there to see it, that it must be hard to understand just how new and subversive it was at the time.

WORD. I remember when SNL debuted, and we thought it was like nothing that had ever been on TV before.

Laugh-in and The Smothers Brothers had pushed political boundaries as had All in the Family and Maude. Flip Wilson had pushed racial boundaries. But nothing on TV had been just so friken odd.

Oh man, I wish I'd seen this in time. I definitely would have watched. I wonder if it's available online anywhere.

The Not-Ready-For-Primetime-Players intended for SNL to destroy television when they agreed to do it. They wanted it to the be the most subversive thing anyone had ever seen. Belushi especially - he hated the idea of doing television.

It's weird to see what it's morphed into now - it's as corporate as IBM.

But good on' em - the Madeleine Kahn episodes are pheonomenal from the first season. Also - true then as now - the women of SNL have always been the funniest and most pointed satirists on the show.

Yeah, we watched, and the most different part was the way they handled the music. It was cool, if maybe a ratings grab, but still, neat to see.

The three blade commercial made me think of "Fuck Everything, We're Doing Five Blades." (http://www.theonion.com/content/node/33930)

Three blades. So quaint.

And we're what? Up to six blades now? And it vibrates?

These are universal truths: Media will consolidate. Anything awesome and subversive will be co-opted. And you can always add more blades.

But, lordy lordy, George Carlin had some awesome hair when he had hair.

Just realized how many of the participants in that show besides Carlin are no longer with us...
John Belushi
Gilda Radner
Andy Kaufman
Billy Preston
JIM HENSON...

I just hope Albert Brooks and Janis Ian are taking good care of themselves.

And how could I have not remembered the 3-blade shaver commercial? When they came out in real life, I was telling everyone I knew "THIS IS NOT A REAL PRODUCT... THIS IS A SNL PARODY!!!"