Saturday Night
A Backstage History of Saturday Night Live
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4.2 • 59 Ratings
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- $6.99
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- $6.99
Publisher Description
Saturday Night is the intimate history of the original 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, 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. "It reads like a thriller," said the Associated Press, "and may be the best book ever written about television."
Available for the first time in ebook format, this edition features nearly fifty photographs of cast, crew and sketches.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Bold and irreverent, NBC's Emmy-winning Saturday Night Live produced many stars (Chevy Chase, John Belushi, Gilda Radner, Jane Curtin and others) and redefined the limits of TV comedy. In this absorbing account, based on 250 interviews, the authors successfully recreate the chaotic backstage scene where writers and performers from the comedy underground of the 1970s created an "outlaw'' show for a generation raised on TV and rock 'n' roll. The on-air shenanigans pale in comparison to much of the manic behavior reported here: frantic last-minute changes in sketches; rivalries between stars; battles with censors; run-ins with more conventional network crews and security guards. At once serious (explaining how ``amateurs'' managed to break TV's comedic rules) and gossipy (drugs, brawls, etc.), this bright history is bound to please many. Hill and Weingrad have written individually about TV for numerous publications. 100,000 first printing; $100,000 ad/promo; author tour.
Customer Reviews
Illuminating
Wonderful, educational and occasionally shocking. Probably the definitive book on at least the first ten years of the landmark show. Far superior to the Shales book insofar as it is written in a narrative format. Only quibble is that there are several easily verifiable facts that are misreported which, even for the 2011 digital edition, have not been corrected.
A great read
An exhaustively detailed look at the early days of the show. Highly entertaining.