Insiders dish on how Saturday Night Lives first season was fueled bydrugs and booze: High from New York
“Saturday Night Live,” now in its 50th season, kicked off broadcast life with a blast – of illicit behavior.The 17th floor offices at 30 Rock in Midtown Manhattan were rife with drug use and casual sex among the cast and crew.Pot smoke permeated the air, dressing rooms were used for quickies and at least one cast member, Garrett Morris, came to maintain a not-so-funny freebase-cocaine addiction.
Fittingly, sketches often referenced recreational drugs.Some members of the “SNL” band, led by Howard Shore — who told The Post that he does not recall anything about outrageous behavior on the show — knew which substances were best tolerated by the program’s brass.“They used to smoke weed on the bandstand during the show,” a former SNL staffer told The Post, adding that some of the musicians indulged in alcohol as well.“Then they got a memo from [show creator] Lorne Michaels one day.
It said, ‘From now on there will be no drinking on the bandstand.It sets a bad precedent for the union stagehands.
Stick with the drugs.’”When the first episode dropped in October 1975, it was the start of a show that nobody could have imagined would become the longest running hit on television.“We thought it could be one and over,” a guest who appeared during the first season of “SNL,” told The Post.
“There was a lot of stress and tension over how well it would be received.”The cast of that first season on opening night was made up of: Chevy Chase, John Belushi, Dan Aykroyd, Gilda Radner, Garrett Morris, Jane Curtin, Laraine Newman and Michael O’Donoghue.The lead up to the first show was so loaded with drama Jason Reitman took the 90 minutes before curtain time and made it into the new movie “Saturday Night,” appearing in theaters on October 11.“The dress rehearsal ran way over-length” Jeff Weingrad, coauthor, with Doug Hill, of “Saturday Night: A Backstage History of Saturday Night Live,” told The Post.“Billy Crystal was going to ...