This morning a friend and I were wondering as follows:

How steeped in ‘70s culture is Jason Reitman‘s Saturday Night (Sony, 10.11), the forthcoming dramedy about the launch of Saturday Night Live in October 1975? Or is it primarily a 2024 film that rummages around inside a 1975 souvenir box, trying on this and that, without really submitting to 1975 culture as it actually was?

The proof in the pudding could be the Chevy Chase-Richard Pryor job interview skit (“Word Association“), which actually aired on 12.13.75, or roughly two months after the show premiered.

A legendary, jolting provocation about subiiminal racism in the workplace and indeed throughout the country at the time, the skit would never be aired today in any format due to the racially incendiary dialogue. But since it represents the kind of nervy, edgy comedy that SNL was about in the early days, it would seem like an excellent thing to include in Reitman’s film…it would give the viewer a strong taste of what was going on back then.

Reitman’s film, after all, is about recalling that era and the values and conversation that were current at the time.

Saturday Night‘s Wiki page doesn’t list Pryor as a supporting character so it appears as if Reitman may have bypassed “Word Association.” He could’ve easily popped it in (nobody would have cared about the two-months-later airdate) but something tells me the Chase-Pryor skit was avoided with some relief.

It was reported earlier today that Saturday Night will play Telluride before Toronto.