Lorne Michaels

Sunday Sitdown with Willie Geist

NBC News

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4.7 • 3.7K Ratings

🗓️ 18 October 2020

⏱️ 29 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

45 years ago, a new era of American comedy began with the premiere of Saturday Night Live and a young producer named Lorne Michaels calling the shots. In this week’s “Sunday Sitdown,” Willie Geist gets together with the SNL creator and executive producer in famed Studio 8H to talk about the show’s legacy, and how they put on a live production in the middle of both a pandemic and a presidential election.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey guys, Willie Geist here with another episode of the Sunday Sit Down Podcast.
0:06.2	My thanks as always for clicking and listening along.
0:09.4	Got a great one for you and I'm excited because it's the first in-person interview we've
0:14.3	done since March.
0:16.2	My guest this week is SNL creator and executive producer Lauren Michaels, the mastermind
0:22.2	behind Saturday Night Live, who created this show that launched 45 years ago this month.
0:27.7	The first show was October 11th, 1975 hosted by George Carlin.
0:32.8	The last in-person interview we've done for the Sunday Sit Down Podcast and for Sunday
0:37.3	today on NBC was with Octavia Spencer on March the 12th.
0:41.6	Remember what was going on on March the 12th?
0:43.5	It was sort of the day before the world kind of shut down.
0:46.6	So we were happy to get in person.
0:49.2	Doing an in-person interview these days does not come without layers of precautions, especially
0:54.2	when you go up to SNL.
0:55.9	So I work just to give you some perspective.
0:58.8	We do the Morning Joe program on MSNBC that I host on the third floor.
1:02.8	My office on the second floor at 30 Rock.
1:05.3	They shoot SNL in studio 8H on the eighth floor.
1:09.1	So Lauren and I got together and we sat up in the bleachers, overlooking that famous
1:13.6	stage, overlooking all those sets.
1:15.9	It was on a Thursday night of a show week.
1:18.6	Bill Burr was the host.
	...

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