"SNL50: Beyond Saturday Night" A Review

As you probably already know, I am a huge "Saturday Night Live" fan and have watched every episode since the very first one in October 1975. I also host a podcast about SNL called "That Show Hasn't Been Funny in Years: An SNL Podcast" on the Radio Misfits Podcast Network.

Well, this year marks the 50th anniversary of the landmark sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live. In addition to great hosts, surprise guests, and memorable moments during the regular season, NBC and Peacock are celebrating the milestone with some special shows.

"SNL50: Beyond Saturday Night"

First is "SNL50: Beyond Saturday Night," a four-part docuseries that just dropped on Peacock. It gives viewers a detailed behind-the-scenes look at the legendary comedic institution.

Executive-produced by Academy and Emmy Award-winning filmmaker Morgan Neville, the program draws from decades of SNL shows and features interviews with more than 60 contributors who share their insights into SNL's deep and dynamic history.

I have seen all four episodes and thoroughly enjoyed each one. They are a must-see for any SNL fan, and I highly recommend them to anyone interested in television comedy and history.

The series owes much to the fine ESPN docuseries "30 For 30" in its structure, style, and content. Each episode is written and directed by a different crew and executed in a different style, making it unique, distinct, and surprising to watch.

As a fan, I couldn't wait to see what the next episode had in store, and I was surprised by how much new material each show offered.

I am rarely unfamiliar with any story about SNL before it unfolds, but surprises were aplenty in this series. That has everything to do with the thoroughness of the writing and research and the participation of so many key players in SNL history.

My only complaint is that the four parts don't add to a cohesive story with a solid arch. The chapters are disparate and disconnected, which would be fine if this were an ongoing series with no final episode in sight.

As a four-part piece, however, I wanted closure, connection, and an effort to fill the gaps between the stories told in each episode. That doesn't happen, and as a result, it feels a bit incomplete.

However, if "SNL50: Beyond Saturday Night" comes back as a regular series (which I think is a distinct possibility), then the rag-tag style will be fine, and the choppy message will be more forgivable.

But this is a quibble because the series is terrific, and I highly recommend watching it all. Below is a brief rundown of each episode.

Episode 1: "Five Minutes"

Will Ferrell's five-minute audition is one of many featured in the first episode of "SNL50: Beyond Saturday Night."

Directed by Emmy-winning filmmaker Robert Alexander, "Five Minutes" offers an inside look at the SNL audition process. The documentary unveils never-before-seen audition footage and features personal stories from some of the show's most legendary cast members, sharing how they prepared for their big moment and what happened when they stepped on that stage.

It's solid, smart, and filled with memorable moments and priceless reactions from former cast members watching their auditions in real-time. Amy Poehler and Tracy Morgan provide the best moments in this very entertaining hour.

Episode 2 - "Written By: A Week Inside the SNL Writers Room"

The SNL writers' room in February of 2024, featured in episode 2 of "SNL50: Beyond Saturday Night."

What is it like to write for "Saturday Night Live?" This episode, directed by Academy Award winner Marshall Curry, reveals the creative process – and occasional chaos – as a sketch journeys from a pitch to a performance watched by millions.

This is the best episode of this series as it beautifully captures the insanity of doing "Saturday Night Live" from the Monday pitch meeting to the live broadcast. Chronicling the week in February 2024 when Ayo Edebiri hosted an excellent show with terrific sketches and wonderful moments, this outstanding chapter is packed with insight, laughs, and incredible detail.

It's all documented brilliantly in a suspenseful, educational, and hilarious fashion. Watching it feels like you're in the room, studio, or filming location during every step of the week's production. Outstanding television.

Episode 3 - "More Cowbell"

Episode 3 of "SNL50: Beyond Saturday Night" focuses solely on the legendary More Cowbell sketch.

This episode, directed by Neil Berkeley, looks inside one of SNL's most legendary sketches and how close it came to landing on the cutting room floor. Let's just say if you have a fever, the prescription might just be this episode.

I'm not sure that More Cowbell is the 'Greatest Sketch of All Time' as this episode insists, but it is great and funny, and so is this look back. Everyone involved in the creation, execution, and performance of the sketch is brought back—except Horatio Sanz (for complicated reasons) and Christopher Walken because the sketch kind of ruined his life—and tells fabulous stories about Cowbell.

But for me, the highlights involve the members of Blue Oyster Cult talking about "Don't Fear the Reaper" and the track's engineers and producers, who insisted that they played the Cowbell on the original recording.

It's an entertaining look at a classic sketch and an enlightening examination of what goes into creating a sketch that catches fire on the show.

Episode 4 - "Season 11: The Weird Year"

The cast of the weirdest year in SNL history, the topic of the final episode of "SNL50: Beyond Saturday Night."

The final episode, directed by Jason Zeldes, takes an in-depth look at SNL's 11th season, which Peacock describes as "the pivotal year that reset the show's direction and cemented its enduring DNA with Lorne Michaels at the helm."

This episode offers an excellent overview of the tumultuous year when Lorne Michaels returned after a five-year hiatus and brought unexpected cast members like Randy Quaid, Joan Cusack, Robert Downey Jr, and Anthony Michael Hall on board.

During this season, Jon Lovitz emerged as the standout star, and his catchphrase "That's the ticket" became the catchphrase of the year. It also featured Madonna kicking off the season with a notoriously poor episode.

Notably, this was the year when Francis Ford Coppola (?!?!) actually took over the show's direction, appearing in and directing an episode that resulted in a surreal 90 minutes of television that must be seen to be believed.

It was a wild ride through a tumultuous season in which the show faced potential cancellation after nearly every episode.

I highly recommend "SNL 50: Beyond Saturday Night." It is an exceptional piece of documentary television currently available on Peacock.

SNL50: The Anniversary Special 

In addition to this docuseries, there will also be a three-hour live special on NBC, airing on Sunday, February 16. I'm hosting a LIVE CHAT on Patreon for my paid subscribers with trivia, commentary, SNL Bingo, and more, so become a Patron today!

Ladies & Gentlemen...50 Years of SNL Music

Last but not least, "Ladies & Gentlemen...50 Years of SNL Music," a documentary about SNL's musical guests co-directed by Questlove and Oz Rodriguez, will air on NBC on January 27.

Thanks for reading, and please SUBSCRIBE to my weekly NEWSLETTER!

 And join me on Patreon as a paid subscriber to help keep this thing going.

Thanks again!

GOLDEN GLOBES 2025: A Recap and Review

Awards Season officially kicked off with the 82nd Annual Golden Globe Awards, which took place this past Sunday night.

The Globes are widely considered a joke because the Hollywood Foreign Press has such a moronic reputation, and the awards have been given to some questionable winners in the past.

Because of past controversy, the HFP nearly disbanded a few years back, and the awards were almost completely canceled. But they made some huge alterations in the organization, and they are back now in all of their dumbass glory.

Julie and I had a watch party with some friends, and I hosted a live interactive chat on Patreon during the whole ceremony. 

We had a blast, even though a local outage meant no Wi-Fi internet in Julie's apartment. We had to rig up a "hot spot" with a cell phone and watch the damn thing on a laptop during our -first-ever- LIVE chat on Patreon. FUN!. Oh yes, wonderful technology.

Watching on a latop because TECHNOLOGY

Anyway, let's get to my thoughts and some of the results.

Nikki Glaser, one of the funniest comedians working today, hosted for the first time and knocked it out of the park. Within two minutes, she completely erased any memory of Jo Koy and his disastrous hosting job last year. Her monologue was hilarious. It mixed insults (which she is known for) and political commentary with the usual jokes about showbiz, movies, and TV.

Most of her jokes hit their mark perfectly, even though some celebrities weren't pleased—especially the always pissed-off and hilarious Harrison Ford, whose bit as a presenter with Anthony Mackie was a riot.

My favorite part of Glaser's monologue was the bit where she imitated Adam Sandler saying Timothee Chalamet's name and then got Sandler to join in.

The telecast was loaded with the usual mixture of fun, boredom, obnoxiousness, and cliches that you expect from a stupid awards show, along with some technical gaffes.

Overall, there were some memorable moments.

I loved, loved, LOVED that Glaser gave a nice, much-deserved shout-out to the servers and bartenders on site and that craft services got more gratitude mentions in speeches than ever before (thanks to Colin Farrell starting that trend). Absolutely terrific!

Many of the presenters were quite good, but I most enjoyed Seth Rogen and Catherine O'Hara's X-rated Canadian interplay. It went far too long, but it was funny as hell, and as it went on and on, it just got more absurd, uncomfortable, and hilarious.

As far as the winners go, I predicted many of them, and there were only a few surprises, like Fernanda Torres's win for Best Actress in a Motion Picture Drama for "I'm Still Here," which was easily the biggest shocker of the night.

The speeches ranged from completely idiotic (Jon Chu endlessly accepting the absurd and meaningless Box Office Award for "Wicked" is at the top of that list), to hilarious (Ali Wong), to sincere and charming (Colin Farrell), to much too long (pretty much every other speech of the night).

Most of the TV awards went to "Shogun" and "Hacks," as expected, with very few surprises on that side. On the movie side, awards went to Demi Moore for "The Substance," who gave an impassioned speech that was better than anything she did in that Goddamn movie.

In a huge and delightful surprise, the great and incredibly underrated Sebastian Stan won for his magnificent work in "A Different Man" and gave a terrific speech.

But "The Brutalist" took the big awards Sunday night, almost guaranteeing that it will be a frontrunner for some major prizes at the Oscars, which is not only disappointing but also kind of troubling.

It is a ridiculously over-praised piece of pretentious nonsense that starts out mediocre and slowly becomes unwatchable by the time it reaches its 2nd hour (when there are still another 105 endless minutes to go).

I was hoping that people would see through this movie's flimsy facade and acknowledge the sheer emptiness underneath, but nope. This thing is probably going to win Best Picture at the Oscars.

Even more disappointing is that Adrien Brody won the Best Actor Globe over Chalamet (who is so much better than Brody that it shouldn't even be a contest), which means Brody will probably take the big prize in March. Ridiculous.

Adrien Brody's dumbass, inexplicable brooch was much more interesting than anything he said during his endless speech... so it was a welcome distraction.

But the most irritating speeches and moments of the night belonged to Brady Corbet, the once unbearably obnoxious actor and now unbearably obnoxious writer/director, who took the stage twice to accept undeserving awards for "The Brutalist."

His speeches were longwinded, annoying, pompous, and self-serving (precisely like his film). He rambled on and on about how he represents filmmakers who have been shafted, that he had to fight to make his film, that he bravely wants directors to have the final cut, etc., blah, blah, blah.

Corbet mentioned how he fought to shoot his film on 70mm and how he battled for the long running time and the intermission, making some attempt to prove what a hero he is when, in fact, he just came off as a loudmouth with an enormous ego who wants to be thanked for blessing us with his lousy movie.

Me during Brady Corbet's endlessly annoying, ego-maniacal, self-congratulatory speeches.

It's the worst kind of egomaniacal pandering from an awards stage that you can imagine. It's further proof that just because some directors (like Corbet and similar blowhard Christopher Nolan) use the best equipment, shoot on film, and insist on movie theater experiences for their movies, does NOT automatically make them visionaries or good filmmakers because, guess what? They are not.

OK, rant over.

The show still went about 15 minutes over, even though it had no musical numbers, special tributes, or lifetime achievement award presentations. There wasn't even an "In Memoriam" segment to push the running time along. It just went long because of people like Corbet and Chu babbling on endlessly and a few wacky bits (none of them Glaser's) that went on too long.

This year's Golden Globes presentation was exactly what I expected: a dumb awards show with highlights, lowlights, and everything else in between.

A fun night with good food, great company, Golden Globes Bingo, a couple of cool dogs, and more.

We had fun watching it, making fun of it, and especially hosting the LIVE chat on Patreon. We will do this for every award show this season, leading up to the granddaddy of them all: The Academy Awards on March 2nd.

Thanks for reading, and please SUBSCRIBE to my weekly NEWSLETTER!

 And join me on Patreon as a paid subscriber to help keep this thing going.

Thanks again!

Watch the 2025 Golden Globes with Me!

The 82nd Annual Golden Globes are this Sunday, January 5th — let’s watch them together!

I’m especially excited about this year’s ceremony because Nikki Glaser, one of the funniest and sexiest women on the planet, is hosting (she’s the main reason I’m watching the show).

Below are some GREAT activities I've put together so you can participate in this year’s awards ceremony without leaving your house. Check them out and see you Sunday!!

GUESS THE WINNERS!

Click here for your own special 2025 Golden Globes ballot to play along! And hey, subscribe to my Patreon for a chance to win prizes!

PLAY GOLDEN GLOBES BINGO!

Get your own free bingo card(s) by clicking this link here!

Create your own unique Bingo card HERE!

JOIN ME LIVE ON PATREON!

I’m hosting a LIVE Patreon chat for my paid Patreon subscribers during the entire broadcast beginning with the red carpet at 5pm CT.

Join me LIVE on Patreon this Sunday, Jan 5th starting at 5pm Central!

Join this exclusive LIVE interactive community chat during the entire broadcast, which will feature updates, photos, winners.... and YOUR bingo and ballot results! 

Who will wear the best dress? Who will give the best speech? Who’s the most obnoxious? And who will Nikki Glaser offend? We’ll all find out together… LIVE on Sunday night! 

I’ll also be giving away some special prizes, including a chance for my Top-Tiered Patrons to appear on The Nick D Podcast!

It’s going to be a blast!

---

ATTENTION: Paid Patreon Subscribers!

Submit your ballot by Sunday at 5 pm Central Time for a chance to win a $25 Royce Chocolate online gift card! 

For my All-Access and VIP Patrons, submit your ballot by Sunday at 5 pm Central Time to win a guest spot on The Nick D Podcast! 

---

SO, MARK YOUR CALENDARS!

The Red Carpet @ 5pm Central Time

E! Channel or Paramount+, ETOnline.com, ET’s YouTube Channel

The Awards Ceremony @ 7pm Central Time

CBS and Paramount+ 

---

Thanks, and please SUBSCRIBE to my weekly NEWSLETTER!

 And join me on Patreon as a paid subscriber to help keep this thing going.