Late Saturday night (aka early Sunday morning), NBC is rerunning the full, 90-minute version of the third-ever episode of Saturday Night Live. Actually, as you'll note from the above ticket, it was still called NBC's Saturday Night at the time. I believe this was the last episode before they changed the name.
This is the one hosted by Rob Reiner who, it is said, freaked out after a disastrous dress rehearsal and almost walked off the show. It was good he didn't because things miraculously came together for the live broadcast. It was not only a decent episode but it represented a giant step forward in the program finding its format and identity.
The first week was a jumble of disparate segments with occasional appearances by host George Carlin. The second week, Paul Simon hosted and it turned into a long Paul Simon special, including a reunion concert with Art Garfunkel. The third week, with Reiner, it actually began to look like a sketch comedy show.
There are some nice moments in there. Andy Kaufman does his "Pop Goes the Weasel" routine. John Belushi does his Joe Cocker impression. Near the end, there's a brilliant film by Albert Brooks in which he attempts to perform open-heart surgery on someone.
The Brooks film was the subject of much upset. He was contracted to produce films of a certain length and that week, he handed in one that was more than double the agreed-upon running time. No one at SNL questioned its cleverness but already, they were beginning to sense that long film pieces did not work on a live show, and members of the cast and writing staff resented that Brooks was usurping so much of their screen time.
There was a strong push to chop it down or even dump it but the host, Mr. Reiner, was one of Brooks's closest friends and he insisted it air without cuts…which it did. The whole matter pretty much soured the relationship between the show and Brooks, and one might note that after he delivered the remaining films on his contract, he disappeared from Saturday Night Live forever. He never appeared on it again, and has gone largely unmentioned in the various histories and retrospectives.
Anyway, you might want to catch the episode…or at least, Brooks trying to become a surgeon. It's buried at the end, right after a spot with the Muppets. Their "Land of Gorch" segments, though done live in the studio, were otherwise in the same category as the Brooks efforts — another good idea at the outset that didn't fit as the show found its form. As it did, everyone wanted to dump everything besides the host spots, the musical guests and the sketches. (John Belushi reportedly lobbied to dump the hosts and everything else that didn't feature John Belushi.)
I always thought it was a shame Jim Henson didn't do more with Gorch. The bits didn't fit into SNL but the characters were funny and oddly appealing. I'm guessing there was some contractual problem where he had to share revenues with NBC and/or Lorne Michaels, so he opted to invest his time and energy in projects he could own outright.