23 Amusing Facts About SNL You Didn’t Know

Chris Farley was fired from SNL for making late-night prank phone calls from the SNL offices with Adam Sandler, and mooning people from a limo shortly after.

Not only is Kenan Thompson SNL's longest-tenured cast member, but he is also the 1st one born after the show premiered in 1975.

When Frank Zappa hosted SNL in 1978, he was unpopular with most of the cast because of his anti-drug stance. During the live performance, he would regularly mug for the camera and point out that he was reading from cue cards.

In 2008, Saturday Night Live did a Japanese parody of 'The Office' with Ricky Gervais and Steve Carell.

When Eddie Murphy was on SNL in the early 80s, other cast members often had to go downstairs after shows to catch a cab for him because no cab drivers would stop for a young black man late at night.

George Carlin hosted the very first episode of Saturday Night Live.

The original title of Saturday Night Live was "NBC's Saturday Night", due to the existence of an ABC show titled "Saturday Night Live with Howard Cosell". This is why the famous opening phrase is worded "Live from New York, it's Saturday Night!."

Saturday Night Live was created because in 1974 Johnny Carson petitioned NBC for more time off.

Saturday Night Live season 6 (1980) saw the entire cast and all but one writer leave. The replacements all flopped. It was all precipitated by Charles Rocket swearing on air. Nearly everyone was fired and new guy Eddie Murphy was one of the only two retained.

In 2007, Kanye West had a skit on SNL about interrupting award ceremonies. This was about 2 years prior to the Taylor Swift MTV Music Video Awards incident.