“When I first heard about the premise of Jason Reitman’s Saturday Night — the entire film takes place in the 90 minutes leading up to the late-night comedy landmark’s first episode in 1975 — it seemed like there would be a backstage let’s-put-on-a-show “What can go wrong? Everything can go wrong!” real-time frenetic bustle to the thing. And that sounded like fun.” — from Owen Gleiberman‘s “What Does Saturday Night Think Saturday Night Live Is About?“, posted this morning.

It didn’t sound like “fun” to me for I knew what Chevy Chase has recently stated, which is that the material that would consitute the first episode (skits, jokes) had been very thoroughly rehearsed and worked out down to the tiniest little detail. So the final 90 minutes before the show went on the air live couldn’t be hellzapoppin’. Nobody on the show (Lorne Michaels, writers, performers) could or would have been that improvisational or self-destructive.

So the film is just dishonest about how this NBC counter-culture comedy show came together all those years ago. It’s a phony scheme, I mean. The performers (dull-as-dishwater Gabrielle LaBelle aside) are pretty good but I wasn’t buying the premise that it was all last-minute juggling. How could anyone?

Chevy Chase quote: