Reflecting on 50 Seasons of "SNL"

How many of you are old enough to contemplate where you were 49 years ago tonight?

If you were lucky, and not too tired or stoned or drunk, you turned on your TV at 11:30 p.m. and saw something fresh, funny, and, as it turned out, historic.

Here came George Carlin climbing down out of the balcony amid a live audience to do a monologue, the opening of the first “Saturday Night” (later changed to “Saturday Night Live.”)

Where was I? Funny you should ask: ensconced in a room at The Hotel Easton in Easton, PA with my girlfriend Betsy. I was showing her around that beautiful (?) downtown and Lafayette College, my alma mater (although in my junior year I decided to escape Easton and transfer to Boston University).

How did we stumble across that show on the TV set in our little hotel room? Nobody knows. I can’t ask Betsy because I lost track of her many moons ago. But I do know we realized it was different. It made us sit up and take notice. Something was happening.

Here came the Not Ready For Primetime Players: Dan Aykroyd, John Belushi, Chevy Chase, Jane Curtin, Garrett Morris, Laraine Newman and Gilda Radner. We had never heard of any of them but they were entertaining, charismatic.

And who was this odd duck Andy Kaufman? Stiff, awkward, wide-eyed, putting a tiny record on a turntable, then lip syncing the “Mighty Mouse” theme — “Here I am to save the day!”

Janis Ian sang “At Seventeen,” sounding great despite having strep throat and a fever of 104 degrees. Then there was Billy Preston, singing “Nothing From Nothing.” And Chevy Chase, alone at the anchor desk for something called “Weekend Update,” cracking irreverent jokes about President Ford’s motor skills.

From that night on, I tried to arrange it so I could watch that show on Saturday night. Twice I made it to the Rockefeller Center studio to see it put on, yes, live. I was there April 15, 1978 for the show hosted by Michael Sarrazin. The musical guest was pianist Keith Jarrett. I remember being disappointed it wasn’t a musician on my hit parade. And who has vivid memories of Michael Sarrazin?

But when I got back there, on Dec. 12, 1981, I saw a much better and dramatic show. Bill Murray was the host and the Spinners were the music act. The famous Yale singing group the Whiffenpoofs performed too. I was covering it as the Yale beat reporter for the New Haven Register.

On live TV anything can happen. You just roll with it. At the end of the show Murray announced: “The Soviet Union just took over Poland. Those poor stiffs from Yale think it’s one of the biggest nights of their lives. Now they’ve got to go into the Army!”

The audience reacted with confused, nervous laughter. Was he joking? None of us knew that in fact martial law had been imposed on Poland; Soviet tanks were in the streets. I must have gotten backstage access because I do remember seeing Eddie Murphy sitting there stunned, shaking his head over this news.

For decades afterward, my wife and I continued to treat “SNL” as essential viewing. It was topical, cutting edge, “must viewing.”

But over the years we began to find the jokes less and less funny — or we no longer “got” them. Often we had never heard of the musical acts; sometimes we didn’t dig them.

And so we fell away. We stopped watching it. Now it’s on too late for us! Past our bedtime! We try to hit the sack by 11:00 at the latest, since we’re pulled into action every morning at 6:00 by our hungry cat and dog. There’s no “sleeping in” anymore.

In this, the 50th anniversary season of “SNL,” we watch the highlights a few days later on youtube.

Maybe you’re doing the same?