SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
One way to gauge the impact of "Saturday Night Live" is just think of all the catchphrases and classic comedic moments the show has brought to America over the last half-century.
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STEVE MARTIN: (As Georg Festrunk) We are...
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MARTIN: ...(As Georg Festrunk) Two wild and crazy guys.
(LAUGHTER)
EDDIE MURPHY: (As Gumby) I am Gumby, dammit. You don't talk to me that way.
DANA CARVEY: (As Church Lady) Well, isn't that special?
DANA CARVEY AND MIKE MYERS: (As Wayne and Garth) Wayne's World. Wayne's World. Party time. Excellent.
CHRISTOPHER WALKEN: (As Bruce Dickinson) I got a fever, and the only prescription is more cowbell.
(LAUGHTER)
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: Live from New York, it's Saturday night.
SIMON: The show celebrates its golden anniversary with a primetime special Sunday, following a long stretch of commemorations, including a music documentary and a concert. NPR TV critic Eric Deggans joins us. Eric, thanks so much for being with us.
ERIC DEGGANS, BYLINE: I think we are two wild and crazy guys, right?
(LAUGHTER)
SIMON: Yeah. They meant someone else? I don't know.
DEGGANS: Exactly, exactly.
SIMON: Yeah. Now, you wrote a piece I enjoyed very much for npr.org earlier this week. You said there were two key decisions in the early days of "Saturday Night Live" which contributed to its longevity, including when they decided not to have a permanent host.
DEGGANS: Right. They wanted a permanent host at first - Albert Brooks, who was then this rising star as a new comedic voice. But he turned down the offer, and instead, he suggested they have rotating guest hosts. And this allowed the show to feel like an event every week with a new celebrity coming in as the star. And the second decision was when creator and executive producer Lorne Michaels decided not to be anchor of the show's newscast parody Weekend Update himself. He handed the job off to this talented newcomer.
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CHEVY CHASE: Good evening. I'm Chevy Chase. The top story is, of course, the good news that President Ford is over that weeklong bout with that stubborn cold. White House physicians say that after a mild cold of that sort, it will take the president a few days to recover his motor skills fully, citing the period after his last cold when he tied his shoe to his hair blower and inadvertently pardoned Richard Nixon.
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DEGGANS: And, of course, you know, Weekend Update's the one feature that you see in every episode, so it's no wonder that Chase became SNL's first big star. And it left Lorne Michaels, the creator and executive producer, the room to focus on leading the show mostly as an off-screen guru.
SIMON: And tell us about Lorne Michael's eye for talent over five decades. He didn't just raid Second City.
DEGGANS: No. No, he established himself as an authority/father figure for the show almost right away. And he had a talent for creating these collections of performers who were on the show, or who were friends of the show, and then he would kind of give them space to create great comedy. So "SNL" started as a voice for comedic performers that challenged comedy culture, like George Carlin or Richard Pryor. And then eventually, the show began to rotate out its regular cast members, too, which helped to keep the program's comedy kind of fresh, you know, as times changed, even when Michaels wasn't leading the show.
So for example, Eddie Murphy was hired during the time when Michaels wasn't at "SNL." The show was floundering. There were real questions about whether it could go on, but then Eddie Murphy comes in and brings all this fresh energy. He created these classic sketches that seemed rooted in Black culture, which "SNL" kind of needed because it was often so bad with diversity. Let's listen to one that I really like - the James Brown Celebrity Hot Tub bit.
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MURPHY: (Singing as James Brown) Hot tub, full of water. I said, hot tub. (Vocalizing) hot. Said, hot tub. Hot tub.
DEGGANS: See, that almost makes you wish that James Brown actually hosted a celebrity hot tub special, right? And that sketch, which Murphy initially resisted doing, became a classic TV moment.
SIMON: Eric, even people who don't watch "Saturday Night Live" usually are familiar with the impressions of political figures. How did that work?
DEGGANS: Well, from the beginning, not only did the show satirize important political events, like the Watergate scandal; but they did these impressions which could define politicians in the public mind. So Chevy Chase presented Gerald Ford as this clumsy, dim-witted guy, and Tina Fey offered this devastating portrayal of former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin as a font of word salads and empty bromides.
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TINA FEY: (As Sarah Palin) Gwen, we don't know if this climate change whosey-what's it (ph) is man-made...
(LAUGHTER)
FEY: ...(As Sarah Palin) Or if it's just a natural part of the end of days.
DEGGANS: And they've had problems with recent politicians, like Donald Trump, who is so good at presenting this amped up definition of himself to the public that it's tough to find ways to satirize him.
SIMON: Eric, Lorne Michaels is one of the most influential figures in American culture. How do they replace him when he finally steps down?
DEGGANS: Yeah, I know. That is going to be a tough task. I mean, Michaels wasn't involved with early movies featuring "SNL" actors or characters like "The Blues Brothers" movie, so he made sure he was executive producer on a ton of projects from "SNL" alums after that. And they shaped comedy outside "SNL, " like "30 Rock," which has this character played by Alec Baldwin, who may even have been inspired by Lorne Michaels, with a unique way of telling employees that they might be dressing badly.
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ALEC BALDWIN: (As Jack Donaghy) I'm Jack Donaghy, new VP of development for NBC-GE-Universal-Kmart.
SCOTT ADSIT: (As Pete Hornberger) We own Kmart now.
BALDWIN: (As Jack Donaghy) No. So why are you dressed like we do?
DEGGANS: Now, "SNL" has been the farm team for a huge section of America's comedy establishment. But more recently, I think the show's kind of struggled to develop a distinct comedy voice. And it's tough to know if that's going to improve if and when Michaels, who is age 80, ever steps back from running the show. I mean, it's tough to imagine "SNL" without him, but it may have to learn to grow beyond his vision if the program's going to survive for many more years.
SIMON: Eric, we need more cowbell. Sorry (laughter).
DEGGANS: I got a fever.
SIMON: NPR TV critic Eric Deggans. Thanks so much.
DEGGANS: Thank you.
(SOUNDBITE OF DELVON LAMARR ORGAN TRIO'S "FRIED SOUL")
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