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The new film Saturday night attempts to capture the chaotic 90 minutes leading up to the very first

broadcast of Saturday Night Live. An untried producer and his cast of complete unknowns

prepared to make television history while network suits breathe down their necks.

And just about everything that can go wrong does.

Like completely, totally, it's bad.

I'm Aisha Harris.

And I'm Glenn Weldon and today we're talking about Saturday night on Pop Culture Happy

Hour from NPR. It's just the two of us today. Hey, hey, Aisha.

Hey, hey, hey, hey.

Let's do this. The movie Saturday Night stars Gabriel La Bell as

Lorne Michaels, whom we meet before the first episode of the brand new NBC comedy

variety show called Saturday Night goes live at 11.30 p.m. Eastern time on October 11th,

1975. In more or less real time we watch Chaos Rain. Some cast members fight, some go missing, and some get nearly crushed by lighting

grids. Individual jokes and entire sketches get tweaked or cut at the very last minute.

Again and again, the television establishment represented by

boosy old white guys from NBC clashes with the new shows young writers and cast

members. It is old versus new, safe versus risky, bourbon versus weed, as the seconds tick away to 1130,

with Michael's still struggling to define what the show will be, even as the network suits,

like the one played by Willem Defoe, keep threatening to pull the plug.

...