Starring: Dan Aykroyd John Belushi Chevy Chase George Coe (last: 10/18/75) Jane Curtin Garrett Morris Laraine Newman Michael O'Donoghue (last: 10/18/75) Gilda Radner

Written by: Anne Beatts Chevy Chase Tom Davis Al Franken Lorne Michaels Marilyn Suzanne Miller Garrett Morris Michael O'Donoghue Herb Sargent Tom Schiller Rosie Shuster Alan Zweibel

Episodes

10/11/75: George Carlin / Billy Preston, Janis Ian 10/18/75: Paul Simon / Randy Newman, Phoebe Snow 10/25/75: Rob Reiner 11/08/75: Candice Bergen / Esther Phillips 11/15/75: Robert Klein / ABBA, Loudon Wainwright III 11/22/75: Lily Tomlin 12/13/75: Richard Pryor / Gil Scott-Heron 12/20/75: Candice Bergen / Martha Reeves, The Stylistics 01/10/76: Elliott Gould / Anne Murray 01/17/76: Buck Henry / Bill Withers, Toni Basil, The Blues Brothers 01/24/76: Peter Cook & Dudley Moore / Neil Sedaka 01/31/76: Dick Cavett / Jimmy Cliff 02/14/76: Peter Boyle / Al Jarreau 02/21/76: Desi Arnaz / Desi Arnaz, Jr. 02/28/76: Jill Clayburgh / Leon Redbone, The Singing Idlers 03/13/76: Anthony Perkins / Betty Carter 04/17/76: Ron Nessen / Patti Smith 04/24/76: Raquel Welch / Phoebe Snow, John Sebastian 05/08/76: Madeline Kahn / Carly Simon 05/15/76: Dyan Cannon / Leon & Mary Russell 05/22/76: Buck Henry / Gordon Lightfoot 05/29/76: Elliott Gould / Leon Redbone, Harlan Collins & Joyce Everson 07/24/76: Louise Lasser / Preservation Hall Jazz Band 07/31/76: Kris Kristofferson / Rita Coolidge

Summary

Lorne Michaels had a vision: to bring live late-night comedy/variety to television. NBC was playing reruns of "The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson" on Saturday nights, but wanted to feature new programming instead. And so, "Saturday Night Live" was born, albeit under the name "NBC's Saturday Night", since sportscaster Howard Cosell was already using the name for his prime-time comedy/variety show. To mock him even further, Michaels dubbed his cast members "The Not Ready For Prime Time Players", after Cosell's own "Prime Time Players".     Despite the overabundance of material for the first show (which included two musical guests, an Albert Brooks film, a Muppets piece and several commercial parodies), "SNL" found a vacancy in viewers' eyes. As standard throughout the years that followed, "SNL" beat the competition, and the only thing to survive Cosell's show was a young comedian named Billy Murray, who would join the successful NBC comedy program during its second season.