| Saturday Night Live with Howard Cosell | |
|---|---|
 Advertisement forSaturday Night Live with Howard Cosell | |
| Genre | Variety show |
| Presented by | Howard Cosell |
| Starring | Bill Murray Brian Doyle-Murray Christopher Guest |
| Country of origin | United States |
| No. of seasons | 1 |
| No. of episodes | 18 |
| Production | |
| Executive producer | Roone Arledge |
| Producer | Rupert Hitzig |
| Running time | 48 minutes |
| Production company | ABC |
| Original release | |
| Network | ABC |
| Release | September 20, 1975 (1975-09-20) – January 17, 1976 (1976-01-17) |
Saturday Night Live with Howard Cosell is an American televisionvariety show that aired onABC from September 20, 1975, to January 17, 1976, hosted byHoward Cosell and executive-produced byRoone Arledge. The series ran for 18 episodes before being cancelled.[1] The show was later remembered by its directorDon Mischer as "one of the greatest disasters in the history of television", largely because Cosell and Arledge—both veterans of sports broadcasting—did not have any experience with comedy and variety programming.[1]
Despite having highly notable celebrities both as cast members and guests,Saturday Night Live with Howard Cosell has never been made available on home video.
Saturday Night Live with Howard Cosell is consistently confused with thesketch comedy programSaturday Night Live. In October 1975, rival networkNBC began airing thelate night comedy showNBC's Saturday Night, the creation of producerLorne Michaels. The shows did not compete for the same time slot. Cosell'sSaturday Night Live aired at 8 p.m.ET/PT, whereasNBC's Saturday Night aired at 11:30 p.m. After Cosell's show was cancelled, the NBC show adopted theSaturday Night Live name (although that show continued to be introduced on camera as "Live from New York, it's Saturday Night").[2]
The premiere episode featured celebrity guestsFrank Sinatra,Shirley Bassey,Paul Anka,Siegfried and Roy,Yogi Berra, and the cast of theBroadway musical ofThe Wiz, who opened up the show as they danced out of theMajestic Theatre onto a yellow brick road as they sang their pop hit "Ease on Down the Road" straight to theEd Sullivan Theater as they met and escortedHoward Cosell on stage, tennis proJimmy Connors (who sang, while profusely sweating, Anka's "Girl, You Turn Me On" as a dedication to his girlfriendChris Evert. Anka played the piano to accompany Connors), andJohn Denver.[3] The episode's musical guest was theBay City Rollers, from Scotland, whom Cosell dubbed "the next" British phenomenon.[4]
The show featuredBill Murray,Brian Doyle-Murray, andChristopher Guest as regular comedy performers, dubbed "The Prime Time Players". In response, NBC's showSaturday Night called its regular performers "The Not-Ready-for-Prime-Time Players" (especially since the show didn't air in prime time, but late-night). Eventually, Murray, Doyle-Murray, and Guest would all work on the NBC program.[5]Billy Crystal, who appeared on the premiere episode of Cosell's program, was also scheduled to appear on the premiere episode of the NBC show, but was bumped when the show ran long; he later joined the NBC program's cast, along with Guest, duringSeason 10 a decade later. Also that season, Cosell himself guest-hosted the NBC program in its season finale on April 13, 1985.
Mischer described the show as chronically hectic and unprepared. He recalled one particular episode wherein executive producer Roone Arledge discovered that jazz musicianLionel Hampton was inNew York City and invited him to appear on the show an hour before airtime.[1]
The show fared poorly among critics and audiences alike, withTV Guide calling it "dead on arrival, with a cringingly awkward host".[6]Alan King—the show's "executive in charge of comedy"—later admitted that it was difficult trying to turn Cosell into a variety show host, saying that he "madeEd Sullivan look likeBuster Keaton".[6]
ABC announced the cancellation ofSaturday Night Live with Howard Cosell in November 1975, becoming the first casualty of the1975-76 season.[7] The eighteenth and final episode was aired on January 17, 1976.[1] A year later, in 1977, NBC'sSaturday Night addedLive to its name.[2]
In 2002,TV Guide ranked the series number 37 on its "50 Worst TV Shows of All Time" list.[8] In his bookWhat Were They Thinking? The 100 Dumbest Events in Television History, author David Hofstede ranked the series at #30 on the list.[9]
Only three episodes are known to survive on video:[citation needed]