From KCRW in Santa Monica, this is The Treatment.

Welcome to the treatment. I'm Elvis Mitchell in New York. My guest, writer Anne Beetz,

is the KCRW in Santa Monica. In the 1975, the phrase live from New York,

it's Saturday Night, was not yet a catchphrase on NBC's Saturday Night, as it was then called.

It's not called Saturday Night Live. Anne Beetz was a writer for the first five seasons of the show.

She also probably brought a young actress named Sarah Jessica Parker to most people's attention

in the show called Square Pegs in the early 80s.

She's my guest.

The first season of Saturday Night Live is now on DVD, and Ann's going to talk about that along

with a bunch of other things.

Anne, thanks so much for doing this first of all.

Hi.

Thanks a lot.

I'm very happy to be here.

I've got to ask you about what it was like in those early days of the show when it was just inventing itself.

I mean, just looking at these episodes now, there's a really kind of amazingly intense quality to a lot of the stuff.

Yes, intense is a good word. People often ask me what that experience was like,

and I say, you know, just could look in the dictionary and pick any adjective,

and it probably would apply because, you know, it was frustrating, it was satisfying.

It was fabulous. It was horrible.

It was boring.

But, you know, the funny thing about the first season was that people generally would keep

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