Its the birthday of the man who created Saturday Night Live — Lorne Michaels, born in Toronto, Canada (1944). He formed a comedy duo with Hart Pomerantz. In the early 70s, they had their own television variety show, The Hart and Lorne Terrific Hour, on Canadian television. They also contracted their talents to comedic acts in the United States, writing for Phyllis Diller, Lily Tomlin, Joan Rivers, and Woody Allen. They wrote for the NBC show Rowan & Martins Laugh-In, and then NBC asked Michaels to come up with a comedy show to replace the Johnny Carson reruns that aired Saturday nights at 11:30 p.m. Michaels recruited talent from all sorts of places. Dan Aykroyd was a fellow Canadian, and Chevy Chase, John Belushi, and Gilda Radner had worked on the National Lampoon show. Muppet creator Jim Henson created sketches for the show, and recent Harvard grad Al Franken was signed on as a writer. Michaels put together the first season, 1975-1976, and won an Emmy for it.
Posted on: Mon, 17 Nov 2014 11:07:02 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015