This short 1975 interview from Tom Synder’s Tomorrow Show with Lorne Michaels and the original SNL cast is fascinating to watch, if only because no one knew how culturally iconic SNL would become when this interview took place or the levels of fame some members of the cast would go on to achieve. It’s hard to imagine a time when most people didn’t know who Chevy Chase, Dan Ackroyd and John Belushi were, but that was indeed the case at this time.
The Tomorrow Show ran a special Saturday evening edition on October 4th with the single guest of Jerry Lewis to fill the time slot. SNL was originally set to air that evening but wasn’t ready. Tom Snyder brought the cast on at the end of his show and introduced them to America. Chevy Chase, Dan Ackroyd, Jane Curtin, Garrett Morris, Gilda Radner, Laraine Newman and (a surprisingly quiet) John Belushi appeared.
The references you’ll hear to Howard Cosell’s show are due to the fact that he currently had his own series entitled Saturday Night Live running on ABC.
As an added bonus, here’s John Belushi’s SNL screen test…
And here’s Ackroyd’s, which contains a particularly terrible impression of a Cajun crabber from the Louisiana town of Dulac….
(Open Culture via Laughing Squid)
