On February 16, the Saturday Night Live 50th anniversary celebration was held at Studio 8H, located in 30 Rockefeller Plaza, in New York City. With about 15 million viewers, the celebration marked NBC’s most-watched prime-time entertainment telecast in five years.
Even though the 3.5-hour-long special, branded both Saturday Night Live 50 and SNL50: The Anniversary Season, aired live at 8 p.m. on NBC and Peacock, the red carpet coverage started earlier, with many celebrities being interviewed on the carpet at around 7 p.m. The night’s theme was the ephemeral nature of time—how it always passes very quickly with or without you catching it.
“I was not born then and neither were my parents,” Sabrina Carpenter, an American singer and songwriter, said. She referred to the longevity of SNL’s appearance on air. The milestone event reintroduced several SNL alums: Adam Sandler, Amy Poehler, Andy Samberg, Chris Rock, Tina Fey, and Molly Shannon. The special was also packed with numerous specials that provided a variety of comedic relief, and some of the skits and sketches from the show received frequent applause from the audience.
Steve Martin was the first of many comedians to take their place in the event. “I can’t believe I made it here in time. It was only a few days ago that [I was informed of doing the monologue], and I was actually vacationing on a friend’s boat down in the Gulf of Steve Martin,” Martin said, attempting to bring laughter to the audience. “Saturday Night Live, as you know, turned 50 years old this year, and I turned 79. But I feel like I’m 65, which is also not good.” Once again, this comment by Martin reflected the transient nature of time.
However, the anniversary was not completely without mistakes. During a recent episode of The Lonely Island and Seth Meyers Podcast, Andy Samberg, the performer of the song “Anxiety” was “informed of the mistake several viewers had caught after the show,” according to Entertainment. Instead of the building’s marquee flashing with the name “Rockefeller” in neon, there was an “a” instead of an “e.” This caused the screen to flash with 30 Rockafeller Plaza. “It was really very funny in the SNL 50th that your short misspelled ‘Rockefeller Plaza’; the building has housed SNL’s Studio 8H for the last five decades,” Seth Meyers, the host of the podcast, said. The comment allowed a mistake to be viewed through a comedic lens, reflecting the nature of SNL.
Some segments allowed individuals to be reintroduced to the historical context of SNL, one being the Weekend Update. In October 1975, the Weekend Update was created in the middle of SNL’s first broadcast. The Weekend Update is a “satirical news segment and… a fundamental part of the series for virtually all of its 50 years,” according to The New York Times. The appearance of the Weekend Update in the SNL 50th anniversary celebration led viewers to remember where SNL had first started. This piece of SNL’s historical significance links back to the airing of a few SNL episodes that first appeared back in 1975—the show’s first year of live entertainment. The airing of the once-forgotten episodes caused many to wonder whether the long-lasting segments will continue to exist and preserve the initial comedic style of SNL or be modified to embrace the future.
The last SNL major celebration was 10 years ago, which marked the show’s 40th anniversary. SNL marketed the event as “one night 50 years in the making,” and the result seemed to resonate with many viewers. Whether the performance was viewed from the the performers on stage, or from the comfort of one’s home, the SNL 50th anniversary celebration allowed a huge audience to reminisce on the last 50 years of SNL, all while also glimpsing into the future of comedy.
