In Spain we were discovering television when in the United States it was already used to laugh at night. The machinery of the Late Night Show (SNL), whose origins date back to the 1950s, is a Swiss watch in the hands of professionals who have inherited the formula to increase its relevance, impact and profitability without hardly touching it
The 50th birthday of Saturday Night Live, this Sunday, is a new milestone in the history of television entertainment. The motto chosen by the NBC network for the occasion is “One night 50 years in the making”, a night that has been 50 years in the making. The list of guests who will parade through the celebration is the crop that confirms it: from Chevy Chase to Kim Kardashian.
The party started this Friday, with a concert that brought together Cher, Miley Cirus, Arcade Fire, Backstreet Boys and Bad Bunny, to choose a sample. The host is the soul of SNL (the show’s world-famous initials), its creator and producer, Lorne Michaels, an unavoidable name in the saga of television pioneers along with Steve Allen, Ed Sullivan and Johnny Carson.
Every Saturday since 1975, a guest has been in charge of presenting the show. He introduces it with a monologue in which he usually laughs at himself and ends with an unalterable line of script: “Live from New York, it’s Saturday Night!”. There is not a star in the United States who does not dream of saying those words. The latest has been the fashionable actor, Timothée Chalamet, nominated for an Oscar for his role as Bob Dylan in A Complete Stranger. It goes without saying that SNL is a space that catapults any promotion.
However, the presenter does not limit himself to reading some introductions. Dressed up as whatever happens and willing to take artistic risks, he also participates in the sketches. He does so alongside the cast of actors of the program, who display their talent and that of the team of scriptwriters to which they also belong.
It’s no coincidence that Chalamet stressed that he was hosting the show for the third time. At SNL, times count. There is a select club, the Five Timers Club, which has become a running joke and occasionally generates high-profile sketches like this one in which Justin Timberlake enters as a new member and reunites with some veterans like Paul Simon, Steve Martin, Candice Bergen or Tom Hanks.
CREDITS:
Director: Alejandro Bernal
Text: Mas Hackenbroich
