Saturday Night Live

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There have been three sets of brothers who have been cast members on Saturday Night Live, John Belushi and James Belushi, Dan Aykroyd and Peter Aykroyd, Bill Murray and Brian Doyle-Murray.
The word "fuck" has been said several times live on the air: during a sketch in 1980, Paul Shaffer said "fuckin'" instead of "floggin'"; in 1981, Charles Rocket, said "I'd like to know who the fuck did it" during a "Who Shot JR?" parody and on the same night Prince sang the lyric "Fightin' war is such a fuckin' bore"; in 1990, singer Morris Day of The Time said "Where the fuck this chicken come from?" and Steven Tyler of Aerosmith sang "feedin' that fuckin' monkey on my back" during their performances; in 1994, Michael Stipe of R.E.M. sang "Don't fuck with me" and Adam Horovitz of Beastie Boys sang "So won't you fuckin' listen" in their performances and in 1997, Norm MacDonald accidentally said, "The fuck was that?" after flubbing a line during "Weekend Update". James Hetfield of Metallica sang "Fuck 'em man, white knuckle tight" during their performance in 1997. In 2009, Jenny Slate accidentally said, "You know what, you stood up for yourself and I fucking love you for that."
Christopher Reeve appeared as himself as an audience member in a skit, a few weeks before he hosted the show.
Janeane Garofalo was a cast member during the 1994-1995 season. She left before the end of the season due to creative differences.
Darrell Hammond holds the record for the number of seasons as a cast member (1995-2009), the oldest cast member (53 in his final season), and the number of times saying "Live from New York, it's Saturday night!" (70). Hammond continued to make guest appearances in the 2009-2010 season and also on "Saturday Night Live: Weekend Update Thursday" (2008).
The shows that were hosted by Louise Lasser and Milton Berle have never been seen in reruns since their original air date, at Lorne Michaels' insistence. Lasser refused to do all skits, and locked herself in her dressing room just before airtime, coming out just in time to do the opening monologue. Berle called everyone "Booby" and impressed no one but John Belushi with his mugging, racist jokes, and egomania.
Don Pardo's announcing booth is located in the exact same spot on which legendary conductor Arturo Toscanini's podium once stood, when he conducted the NBC Symphony Orchestra in his famous and long-running series of radio concerts.
Contrary to popular belief, Steve Martin was never a cast member on the show. The misconception stems from the fact that he has hosted the show 15 times, in addition to doing occasional surprise appearances.
Tim Meadows and Chris Parnell (ii) are the only cast members to be fired and then rehired the following season (Meadows was fired between seasons and didn't miss any episodes). James Belushi was fired during his tenure but was rehired the following month. Announcer Don Pardo was also fired before the seventh season in an effort to revitalize the show. He was replaced by Mel Brandt, but Pardo was rehired the following season.
Lorne Michaels left the show after the fifth season as did the remaining cast members. For the 1980-1981 season, the show was revamped with a new cast and new producer Jean Doumanian. The sixth was so disastrous that director Dave Wilson called in programming executive Dick Ebersol (one of the creative masterminds of the original show) to save the show. Ebersol fired Doumanian and the rest of the cast except Eddie Murphy and Joe Piscopo. He hired a new cast and the show eventually regained its ratings mainly due to Murphy's popularity. When Michaels returned in the 1985-1986 season, he wanted his own cast so the remaining members were fired. This season was low-rated putting the show on the brink of cancellation. But Michaels convinced executive Brandon Tartikoff that he could revive the show with a better cast. The show regained popularity and Michaels has stayed with the show ever since. He later claimed that leaving SNL, was the biggest mistake of his life.
When the show first debuted, it did not air every weekend. The news magazine show Weekend aired "the first Weekend every month" (except when it was delayed one week for Eric Idle's first SNL appearance).
When Eddie Murphy was first hired, he was not a regular cast member, he was a guest performer who was given nothing to do. He threatened to quit until he was given a segment of Weekend Update to perform. He was so funny, he eventually appeared in sketches and became a regular cast member.
Several episodes were not performed in Studio 8H in Manhattan. On October 16, 23 and 30, 1976, the show moved to a Brooklyn studio because the NBC News election unit used Studio 8H for 1976 election coverage. Several episodes in 1984 were produced in RCA Bldg Studios 8G and 3A due to election coverage. The February 20, 1977 episode was performed live in New Orleans on a Sunday.
Ray Romano was originally scheduled to host the show for the second time in April 2002 but had to drop out due to a busy schedule. He was replaced by "The Rock" aka Dwayne Johnson (aka The Rock).
Steve Martin is the only person to host a season premiere, a season finale, and a Christmas show and is the only person to host the show three times in a single season.
Will Ferrell became the highest paid cast member in SNL history in 2001. He received a salary of USD 350,000 (USD 105,000 in 1975 prices) for the 2001-2002 season.
Tina Fey is the first female head writer in the show's history.
John Goodman hosted the show 11 years in a row.
John Goodman, a frequent guest host had auditioned for the show in 1980 when he was starting out as an actor.
Randy Quaid is the only cast member to be nominated for an acting Academy Award before joining the show.
As of today, all of the main Friends cast members but Matt LeBlanc hosted.
The show has only had four directors in its history: Dave Wilson, Paul Miller, Beth McCarthy-Miller and Don Roy King
In 2001, NBC aired two live 30-minute special episodes in primetime slots to fill airtime. Jennifer Lopez, who was hosting the regular show that week, made a cameo in the second special. In 2003, a live "Weekend Update" special was aired during the Superbowl halftime.
Mike Myers' English character Simon was a spoof of the UK TV children's series "Simon in the Land of Chalk Drawings" (1976). His character of Linda Richman was based on his mother-in-law.
The balcony level studio audience seats in Studio 8H, where Saturday Night Live is broadcast from, are actually seats on-loan from Yankees Stadium in the Bronx, New York. NY Yankees owner George M. Steinbrenner III loaned them out in 1975 with the assumption that Saturday Night Live wouldn't stay on the air long (they were expected back upon cancellation of the show). Partly out of both tradition and superstition, the seats are still in use to this day. Since then, NBC has had to pay out annual fines to the city of New York (a relatively minor business expense, all things considered). In addition, any time repair work is needed, repair people are sent directly to the studio to do work there, which is more expensive than taking seats to a repair shop.
Anthony Michael Hall was the youngest member of SNL at 17 years old.
'Conan OBrien appeared uncredited in many sketches from 1988 to 1991 while he was a writer for SNL. Writer and former cast member Tom Davis appeared uncredited in many sketches from 1988 to 1994.
Beginning in 1995, the Saturday Night Live logo used the abbreviation SNL, which became how the show was known.
Despite the show's core theme of live comedy, on a few rare occasions stand-up segments weren't truly "live", but broadcast on a 7-second tape-delay: 13 December 1975 (Richard Pryor), 15 November 1986 (Sam Kinison), and 12 May 1990 (Andrew Dice Clay), each time to allow censoring any "accidental" expletives.
When Eric Idle hosted on 20 October 1979, a clip was shown from Idle's project Rutland Weekend Television (UK) of his Beatles parody The Rutles. The success of the clip led to Lorne Michaels co-producing the movie version, The Rutles: All You Need Is Cash (1978) (TV), which includes appearances by numerous SNL alums and regulars.