I’m all in on anything related to Saturday Night Live’s lore and history, so I was most excited to learn that SNL 1975, a movie that takes place on the night the iconic late night sketch comedy show premiered on October 11th, 1975, is gearing up under the helm of director Jason Reitman.
One of the most challenging things here will be both the casting itself – they’re going with relatively unknown actors to play the likes of Chevy Chase, John Belushi, Gilda Radner, Dan Aykroyd, Jane Curtain, Lorne Michaels, and more – and then of course the writing and performances.
I think going with a “relatively unknown” cast is smart so that as an audience we won’t get overly distracted by thoughts like, “Isn’t Jon Hamm a little old to play young Chevy, and wasn’t he just in that Fletch reboot thing as well?” and so on.
The SNL 1975 cast includes:
- Dylan O’Brien as Dan Aykroyd – Best known for playing Stiles Stilinski on the Teen Wolf TV series and his role as Thomas in The Maze Runner trilogy.
- Kim Matula as Jane Curtain – No can say that Matula doesn’t have acting experience: she was on 907 episodes of The Bold and the Beautiful.
- Matt Wood as John Belushi – Okay, this one is mostly unknown. If he nails Belushi though it could be the launchpad for a tremendous career.
- Cory Michael Smith as Chevy Chase – Best known as playing The Riddler on Gotham, let’s hope that he can riddle us some of the wild charisma and ego that made Chevy Chase Chevy Chase.
- Lamorne Morris as Garrett Morris – As it happens there’s no relation between these two, just coincidence on the last name. This Morris is arguably one the most famous in the cast from his role as Winston Bishop on New Girl and recent appearance on shows like Fargo and Solar Opposites.
- Ella Hunt as Gilda Radner – I somehow knew that a Brit would find his or her way onto the SNL 1975 cast, and here we go!
- Gabriel LaBelle as Lorne Michaels – He’s been in movies ranging from The Fabelmans to The Predator. Playing the SNL mastermind is a particularly tough role, so let’s hope he’s got the chops.
- Emily Fairn as Laraine Newman – She was in the excellent Black Mirror episode called “Demon 79” but with apologies, I don’t recall the character she played (Suzie) offhand.
No word yet on SNL 1975’s premiere date, but I’d imagine it’ll be in conjunction with Saturday Night Live’s upcoming 50th season(!).
Here’s more from the movie’s press release:
This is the true story of what happened that night behind the scenes in the moments leading up to the first SNL broadcast, retelling chaos and magic of a revolution that almost wasn’t, counting down the minutes in real time to the infamous words, ‘Live from New York, it’s Saturday Night!
If you’re into comedy and Saturday Night Live lore as much as I am, I can’t recommend a podcast called Fly On The Wall more. It’s hosted by SNL and comedy legends Dana Carvey and David Spade, and each episode they interview a comedian or comedy world related-person, and typically those with deep SNL roots. Carvey and Spade are also simply a delight together, and consistently hilarious.
I’ll also mention another TV show, called I’m Dying Up Here, that somewhat recently made a go at fictionalizing a pivotal period in comedy. In this Showtime show’s case, it’s a fictional show about stand up comics, centered around The Comedy Store in LA in the mid-1970s. I’d call it a good but not great show, though it definitely had its moments (more on the dramatic versus comedy end of the spectrum), but only ran for two seasons in all.