Saturday Night Live
American late-night live television sketch comedy show
Saturday Night Live (SNL) is an American late-night live sketch comedy variety show created by Lorne Michaels and developed by Michaels and Dick Ebersol that airs on NBC and Peacock. The show's premiere was hosted by George Carlin on NBC on October 11, 1975, under the original title NBC's Saturday Night. The show's comedy sketches are performed by a large and varying cast of repertory and newer cast members. Each episode is hosted by a celebrity guest, has a musical guest, and is broadcast live with a studio audience.
The host usually delivers a comedic monologue toward the start of the show and then performs in sketches with the cast, and introduces featured performances by a musical guest. An episode normally begins with a cold open sketch that is usually based on current political or pop cultural events and ends with someone breaking character and proclaiming, "Live from New York, it's Saturday Night!", before moving to credits and introduction of the guest host.
In 1980, Michaels left the show to explore other opportunities. He was replaced by Jean Doumanian, who was then replaced by Ebersol after a season of poor reviews. Ebersol ran the show until 1985, when Michaels returned. Since then, Michaels has served as showrunner.
The public source identifies “Saturday Night Live” as american late-night live television sketch comedy show. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Saturday, Night and Live.
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Attribution, date and provenance are strongest when supported by the original work, a catalogue record and documented transmission. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 20, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q13979. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1975, 1980 and 1985.
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This entry incorporates text from “Saturday Night Live” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.