BEST OF: Al on SNL’s 50th Anniversary
The Al Franken Podcast
The Al Franken Podcast
4.6 • 8.1K Ratings
🗓️ 19 April 2026
⏱️ 66 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
A little over a year ago, we celebrated the 50th anniversary of Saturday Night Live! For this Best Of episode, we revisit our February 2025 conversation when we switched things up a bit as Executive Producer Peter Ogburn asked Al about his history with the show.
We pull the curtain back on what a typical week looks like building up to the live show on Saturday and learn about how Al and his writing partner, Tom Davis, found themselves writing on the first season of the show.
We also chat about some iconic sketches and the birth of Al's legendary Stuart Smalley character.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hey, everybody. We've got a great one today, you know, for a change. And that's because this, this one is a best of. |
| 0:12.8 | I'm taking a little break from the podcast. I've been doing this show for seven years. And frankly, I deserve a break. |
| 0:22.1 | So I like to revisit my special S&L episode from February of last year. |
| 0:29.0 | You know when S&L celebrated its 50th. |
| 0:33.0 | It's Peter interviewing me about my 15 seasons at the show starting as one of the original writers back in 1975. |
| 0:43.0 | Yikes. |
| 0:44.1 | It really is a different one. |
| 0:46.4 | You know, for a change. |
| 0:49.2 | And I know you'll enjoy it. |
| 1:00.0 | So Peter, we're going to uh you're going to ask me questions about saturday night live right i have so many questions to ask you how did you get the job at sidel |
| 1:04.9 | at 75 so tom davis and i were a comedy team. We started in high school together. |
| 1:11.8 | We went to an all-boys school, really sick thing, I think. |
| 1:16.8 | And it started in the morning with Chapel. |
| 1:20.8 | Okay. |
| 1:21.3 | And during Chapel, we'd sing Protestant hymns. |
| 1:24.9 | We had to wear coats and ties. |
| 1:27.3 | That was the scene. When everything was done, |
| 1:30.1 | there'd be announcements, and Tom and I started doing announcements together in Chapel. So that's how we |
| 1:35.3 | started. We would do the Smothers Brothers or we do Karnak, the Magnificent, that kind of stuff. We'd do |
| 1:41.3 | schick. Yeah. And we would announce the, you know, that the Glee Club was |
| 1:45.9 | having a concert or that the chess club was meeting. And then in between my junior and senior |
| 1:52.1 | year in college, Tom didn't go to college, I did. We hitchhiked from Minneapolis to L.A. |
... |
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