I can count on one hand the number of full episodes of Saturday Night Live I’ve ever watched…well maybe two hands. Conceptually I like the show, but I was always doing other things on Saturday nights that kept me from watching. I’d maybe watch a re-run back in the day and in recent years would catch a sketch or two online. But I do my part for king and country to keep up. It’s almost an American phenomenon.
In a couple weeks, SNL will start its 40th season with Chris Pratt as host who’s still riding the success wave from Guardians of the Galaxy. Let that sink in a moment because that’s older than many of my colleagues here and possibly older than you. I’ve not checked to see if it’s a record but off the top the only shows that I can think of that come close are The Price is Right and Family Feud.
Being the curious sort, I was able to find this infographic (which brings us up to season 37) to more history about the show since it’s inaugural run October 11th, 1975 with host, George Carlin. It’s a good-sized graphic given the history, but here are a couple interesting tidbits I’m glad that CableTV.com was able to pull from the archives.
- SNL has had 11 spin-off films based on show sketches with Wayne’s World being the most successful.
- Alec Baldwin has hosted SNL a record 16 times. Steve Martin comes in 2nd with 15. Also interesting to note is that Steve Martin was never a regular show member – but given the number of times he hosted, maybe he should have been.
- Betty White is the oldest person to have ever hosted the show. This was due in part to a viral online campaign that started in early 2010.
I mentioned recently how cool it is to look at data in a fun, interesting way. It doesn’t always have to be about metrics and analytics, you know. Take a look at the infographic and comment below – which season had your favorite SNL cast.
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