It’s hard to believe that it was 50 years ago when Saturday Night Live first made its debut. I vividly remember my math teacher in grade 9 at Hillcrest High School, Mr. Payetta taking the first 10 minutes of his Monday morning class to talk about what transpired on SNL.
50 years ago, prior to the internet and social media it was the hippest place on network TV. Arguably, no television show in history had such cultural relevance. The cast members were instant heroes, and to think one of our own, Paul Shaffer was there as a musician and featured player. Imagine the journey from Murray Avenue to 30 Rock, Paul was front and center each and every week for the first 5 years of SNL.
I was fortunate enough to speak with Paul 3 days after the Sunday celebration. I began by saying how nice it was to see him included. “So, you saw the 5 seconds of me”, said Paul referring to his perceived lack of camera time.
“The weekend was a whirlwind. It started on Friday night with a Homecoming Concert at Radio City Music Hall (editor’s note: Paul received lots of camera time), there was a cocktail party thrown by NBC to honour the creator and producer Lorne Michaels and the SNL 50th Anniversary Special on Sunday night”. Michaels is a fellow Canadian who hired Shaffer to play piano in the band and compose musical material for the original cast of SNL.
“The event was sentimental and surreal at the same time,” admitted Paul.
“I was so happy and privileged to have been part of the weekend. Bill Murray and I got to work together again to recreate his iconic ‘Nick the Lounge Singer’ routine at the Friday Homecoming Concert”.
Earlier in the week, Paul along with other members of the World’s Most Dangerous Band including Bones Malone and Will Lee, took over the musical duties from The Roots on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon.
“It was a great compliment to me for David Letterman to take the time to join me by making an appearance on Fallon, it really meant a lot”, said Shaffer.
When Paul and I spoke about Thunder Bay, he fondly shared that the weather in New York during the weekend of the event was very ‘Thunder Bay like’, which included a major snowstorm.
We laughed a bit when I referenced a excerpt I remembered from his 2009 book - We’ll Be Here For the Rest of Our Lives when he described the ice crystals gathering on his forehead when he loaded his equipment back into his car after playing a local high school dance.
“Of course, I had hair back then that I would slick back with water - I remember we were all too cool to wear hats. We all wanted to emulate John F. Kennedy (JFK) who was known for not wearing a hat, this was a trend that reflected broader changes in style,” shared Paul.
As we wrapped things up, I asked him about his daughter Victoria Lily Shaffer who a few years ago founded her own Los Angeles based foster dog rescue, fittingly called ‘Pup Culture Rescue’. Some may remember she was featured a few years ago in Bayview. Paul says her venture has really taken off. “I’m so proud of her, she now has 40 kennels up and running. But as a dad, you’re never totally in the clear”, laughed Paul.
It’s interesting to note that Saturday Night Live was originally created as a replacement for reruns of the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson.
There were two musical acts on the first show, Billy Preston and Janice Ian. As a statement to the power of the show, Janice was having trouble getting her gut wrenching song ‘At Seventeen’ on the radio. Since all radio programmers were men back then, the record company sent copies of the song to the wives of the radio programmers. That savvy move by the record company along with the power of her SNL performance launched the song to the number 1 spot on the Canadian Music Charts and number 3 on the Billboard Hot 100 in the U.S..
To this day, SNL still is one of the few network TV shows that still moves the needle in popular culture and music.
And with that, Paul can certainly be proud of his contribution to the show’s success.
Both the SNL 50th and the Friday Night SNL Homecoming concert are available on NBC Peacock. The concert is also available on Showcase/StackTV on demand.
