How Saturday Night Live Changed Comedy and Culture Forever
Last night, after a concert featuring everyone from Lady Gaga to Paul McCartney, the once “not ready for prime-time players” of NBC’s Saturday Night Live were very much prime-time as they celebrated 50 years of satire. But also, 50 years of shaping American culture.
No one would have seen this coming from its inauspicious beginnings. Built with a cast of “young no-names performing counter-cultural comedy,” 50 years later, it is part of our culture. What started on the margins quickly dictated mainstream comedy, introducing us to such names as Eddie Murphy, Will Ferrell, Chris Rock, Billy Crystal, Adam Sandler, Julia Louis-Dreyfus... not to mention Chevy Chase, John Belushi, Bill Murray, Gilda Radner, and Dan Aykroyd.
Because of Saturday Night Live we have “The Blues Brothers,” “Wayne’s World,” “MacGruber” and yes, “Coneheads.” But beyond the characters and catchphrases (“We’re not worthy!” “You look mahvelous”) came true cultural influence.
Consider the eye-opening skit featuring Eddie Murphy, “White Like Me,” a parody of the 1961 book Black Like Me in which a white journalist went undercover as a black man. Murphy put on face makeup to see how he would be treated as a white man in New York.
He finds that a cashier won’t take his money for a newspaper, a city bus celebrates after the last black passenger gets off, and a bank clerk hands him $50,000 in cash. At the end, after making you laugh uproariously, Murphy deadpans: “I learned that we still have a very long way to go in this country before all men are truly equal.”
In 2008, when Tina Fey almost perfectly impersonated Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin, some say it affected the entire presidential election. Do you remember when Palin said that she could see Russia from her house? Of course, you do. Only Palin never said that. That was Tina Fey in her impersonation of Palin. The ability of SNL to shape public opinion about a candidate even led CNN to coin the phrase “The Tina Fey Effect.”
If there was any doubt of SNL’s place in our culture, look no further than when, less than three weeks after 9/11, it aired one of its most moving and memorable openings. It featured Rudy Giuliani, then New York City’s mayor, surrounded by firefighters and police officers who had just come from “Ground Zero.” After calling Saturday Night Live one of New York’s greatest institutions, Giuliani added, “Having our city’s institutions up and running sends a message that New York City is open for business.”
“Can we be funny?” the show’s longtime producer, Lorne Michaels, shot back. Without missing a beat, Giuliani said, “Why start now?”
As a reporter for the Associated Press observed, “That joke told everyone that things could be all right.”
So, let’s mark 50 years of SNL as a true cultural force. Some of it to be celebrated, and perhaps some of it not.
But it did teach us one thing we can all agree on:
“We gotta have more cowbell.”
James Emery White
Sources
“‘Saturday Night Live’ Plans a Massive 50th Anniversary Special. Who’s Coming and How to Watch,” AP News, February 13, 2025, read online.
Mark Kennedy, “12 Times ‘Saturday Night Live’ Made a Cultural Bang Over the Past 50 Years,” AP News, February 12, 2025, read online.
Photo Courtesy: ©Wikimedia Commons/NBCUniversal
Published Date: February 16, 2025
James Emery White is the founding and senior pastor of Mecklenburg Community Church in Charlotte, NC, and a former professor of theology and culture at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, where he also served as their fourth president. His latest book, Hybrid Church: Rethinking the Church for a Post-Christian Digital Age, is now available on Amazon or from your favorite bookseller. To enjoy a free subscription to the Church & Culture blog, visit churchandculture.org where you can view past blogs in our archive, read the latest church and culture news from around the world, and listen to the Church & Culture Podcast. Follow Dr. White on X, Facebook, and Instagram at @JamesEmeryWhite.
Originally published February 17, 2025.
