In tribute to George Carlin, NBC is rerunning the very first episode of Saturday Night Live (then called NBC Saturday Night) tonight. The show originally ran on October 11, 1975.
It's an honor that I suspect would not have particularly pleased Mr. Carlin, who did not speak well of that night — or the series he helped launch — in later years. Still, as we noted here, that debut episode is an interesting bit of TV history. Producer Lorne Michaels pretty much had all the ingredients of his show in mind but he hadn't figured out the proportions, so there's way too little of the Not Ready for Primetime Players, way too much of the host (and other folks) doing monologues, plus Andy Kaufman and two musical guests.
I gather part of George's unhappiness with the show had to do with Michaels never asking him to host again. He hosted his only other time in November of '84 when Lorne M. was away from the series.
However — again, with enormous presumptuousness — Carlin would be even less pleased to see the editorial cartoons which turned up to note his death. Almost all seemed to depict him arriving at the Pearly Gates only to learn he would not be allowed to say his famed "seven words" there. Daryl Cagle polled some of them as to why they had so depicted such a famous, outspoken Atheist. Frankly, the part that I think would have offended George was so many of them all going for the same, obvious joke.