Like “Saturday Night Live,” I turn 50 this year. In fact, I was born only one week after its premiere, which means that along with being a comedy revolution, a career launchpad and a pop culture juggernaut, the show is also a good way for me to keep track of time.
Every cast represents a different era in my life. I missed the storied original group — including Chevy Chase and Jane Curtin, both of whom will appear on a prime-time 50th anniversary special tonight — as I was busy learning how to walk, talk and eat solid food. And yet its jokes (“It’s a floor wax and a dessert topping”) were repeated in my house enough to make their way into my consciousness.
It wasn’t until I was 10 that I stayed up to watch “S.N.L.,” during the strange and spectacular season starring Billy Crystal and Christopher Guest. I was the perfect age to appreciate Martin Short’s Ed Grimley, a giddy, prancing innocent who exuded the nervous energy of childhood. But it was the next hit era, featuring Phil Hartman, Jan Hooks and Dana Carvey, that got me hooked on sketch comedy. The cable-access spoof “Wayne’s World” showed up just after puberty. Perfect timing.
Just as teenagers rebel against their parents, “S.N.L.” fans eventually start rolling their eyes at the show. In my 20s, I first indulged in the popular tradition of loudly lamenting that it wasn’t as funny as it used to be. I stopped watching and missed some of the best years of Chris Farley and Adam Sandler. I returned for the Tina Fey era, which ended in my 30s, and became a devoted fan of the cast that featured Bill Hader, Kristen Wiig and Andy Sandberg. In recent years, the perspective and mellowing of middle age have helped me enjoy some less-than-perfect seasons. Yet my kids watch those same episodes with an excited fandom and snorting exasperation that I can no longer muster.
The celebration of half a century of “Saturday Night Live” is a major event because the show transcends comedy. More than 26 million people watched its 40th anniversary special. This one feels even more significant, one of the last gasps of the monoculture. “S.N.L.” has been culturally relevant for so long that it’s woven into the background of our lives — continually reinventing itself, always there. The New York Times has tried to capture its impact on the culture in the past few weeks. We’ve singled out the show’s 13 greatest ad parodies, its 38 most important musical moments and 50 catchphrases it has ushered into our vocabulary. I explored how its cast members’ extensive history of breaking character has become an unlikely signature of its sketch comedy.
“S.N.L.” spans generations, and tonight’s anniversary show reflects that. The special will feature former cast members Eddie Murphy, Will Ferrell and Bill Murray; guest hosts Dave Chappelle, Kim Kardashian and Robert DeNiro; and musical guests Bad Bunny, Paul McCartney and Sabrina Carpenter. And these are just the announced stars. Expect familiar characters (fingers crossed for Ed Grimley) and surprises. I doubt Donald Trump will show up, but I bet there will be at least one impression of him.
Last night, NBC aired the first-ever episode of “Saturday Night Live” from Oct. 11, 1975. It made for a revealing bookend, an illustration of how a scrappy, countercultural show has become the sturdiest, most powerful comedy institution in the history of television.
Other Big Stories
TRUMP’S ACTIONS
It can be hard to keep up with the deluge of news from the White House. The Times has created a page to track the Trump administration — including its major executive orders, memos, lawsuits and social media posts. Here are some from the past week:
-
Sunday: Trump ordered the Treasury secretary to stop producing new pennies (though it’s not clear the president has that power).
-
Monday: The White House shielded Musk’s government-slashing DOGE program from having to comply with public-records requests.
-
Tuesday: Trump fired the inspector general for U.S.A.I.D., whose office had just warned that staffing cuts at the agency could lead to the waste of hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayer money.
-
Wednesday: The attorney general sued New York over its immigration policies, citing a law that permits noncitizens to get driver’s licenses.
See the full list here.
THE SUNDAY DEBATE
Was Trump’s call to Vladimir Putin to negotiate a cease-fire in Ukraine appeasement?
Yes. Similarly to how Britain gave Czechoslovakia’s territory to Germany without Czech participation in negotiations, Trump’s phone call with Putin made Ukraine an afterthought. “The U.S. president wants to get credit for a peace deal even if it kills Ukraine,” The Philadelphia Inquirer’s Trudy Rubin writes.
No. A peace deal would allow Ukrainians to rebuild, and Trump and the Americans are offering Russia a draw, not a victory. “A cease-fire does not require, as the Russians expect, that it abandon hopes of recovering its lost territory forever,” Lawrence Freedman writes for The Financial Times.
FROM OPINION
Trump has room to negotiate with China on trade and nuclear weapons, but he shouldn’t concede anything on Taiwan, Bonnie Glaser writes.
The 14th Amendment was not intended to give birthright citizenship to children born to illegal migrants, Randy Barnett and Ilan Wurman argue.
Here’s a column by Nicholas Kristof on Trumpism.
MORNING READS
Stimulation Clicker: This game turns internet brain rot into a joyous pastime.
Parties: For these 20-somethings, Trump is “making it sexy” to be Republican.
Vows: She was the female lead in his film. Now she’s his leading lady.
Lives Lived: Nelson Johnson, a labor activist in North Carolina, was injured in a 1979 shooting by white supremacists in Greensboro that killed five protesters. He later formed a commission to help his community process the tragedy. He died at 81.
BOOK OF THE WEEK
“Stone Yard Devotional” by Charlotte Wood: You know the impulse to walk away from it all and go hibernate somewhere peaceful? That’s what Charlotte Woods’s narrator does in “Stone Yard Devotional,” her Booker-shortlisted novel about an atheist who seeks refuge at a convent in New South Wales. This meditative (but by no means uneventful) account includes a mouse infestation, a celebrity nun, a pair of complicated homecomings and countless reminders that the sacred and the profane not only coexist but complement one another. As our reviewer put it, “Activism, abdication, atonement, grace: In this novel, no one of these paths is holier than another.” Does our narrator find what she’s looking for? The answer to this question turns out to be less important than how she contributes to her community. (Read our review of “Stone Yard Devotional.”)
This week’s subject for The Interview is Arizona’s junior senator, Ruben Gallego, whose win over Kari Lake was one of the few bright spots for Democrats in November. Gallego had plenty to say about where Democrats went wrong and how they can win over Trump voters while also standing up to Trump.
I want to talk through some demographic groups that Democrats really need to win back if they want to be competitive.
Everybody?
Men, for example.
Yep.
You’ve been described to me as a bro. And not in a bad way.
[Laughs.]
You won Latino men by 30 points in an election in which Trump dominated that group. I know men are a very broad group, but what do you think Democrats have misunderstood about them?
That we could be working to make the status of men better without diminishing the status of women. A lot of times we forget that we still need men to vote for us. That’s how we still win elections. But we don’t really talk about making the lives of men better, working to make sure that they have wages so they can support their families. I also think some of this is purely psychological — like we just can’t put our finger on it. During my campaign, I noticed when I was talking to men, especially Latino men, about the feeling of pride, bringing money home, being able to support your family, the feeling of bringing security — they wanted to hear that someone understood that need. And a lot of times we are so afraid of communicating that to men because we think somehow we’re going to also diminish the status of women. That’s going to end up being a problem.
Read more of the interview here.
THE NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE
In this week’s Five Weeknight Dishes newsletter, Mia Leimkuhler suggests easy and quick pasta recipes for when you’re running on fumes, including ones for shrimp scampi with orzo, tobiko pasta and rice noodles with spicy pork.