About
" It reads like a thriller, and may be the best book ever written about television." Associated Press" A chilling real-life cliffhanger." Washington Post" An anthropological masterpiece." Vanity FairSaturday Night is the intimate, original history of Saturday Night Live, from its beginnings as an outlaw program produced by an unruly band of renegades from the comedy underground to a TV institution that made stars of John Belushi, Dan Aykroyd, Bill Murray, Chevy Chase, Gilda Radner, Jane Curtin, Laraine Newman, Garrett Morris, Joe Piscopo and Eddie Murphy.This is the book that revealed to the world what really happened behind the scenes during the first ten years of this groundbreaking program, from the battles SNL fought with NBC to the battles fought within the show itself. It's all here- the love affairs, betrayals, rivalries, drug problems, overnight successes, and bitter failures, mixed with the creation of some of the most outrageous and original comedy ever.This reissue features nearly fifty photographs of cast, crew and sketches.Doug Hill and Jeff Weingrad covered television for a wide variety of popular and professional organizations and publications, including The Associated Press, The New York Times, the New York Daily News, the New York Post, TV Guide, Broadcasting/Cablecasting, and Advertising Age.
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Reviews
"Thorough and nonpartisan… a paradigmatic morality tale."
Frank Rich, The New Republic
"In this riveting account of the people, pressures, and sometimes bizarre process that produced the hit show, the authors explain Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About SNL."
Newsweek
"A splendidly informative and entertaining book [that] succeeds admirably from a multiplicity of perspectives: critical, historical, sociological… Hill and Weingrad even meticulously trace the show's genesis and sometimes precarious survival amid the treacherously conservative jungle of NBC's corporate politics."
Washington Post Book World