Sid and I recently saw the movie “Saturday Night” which is the portrayal as if in real time of the one hour and forty-nine minutes leading up to the first broadcast of “Saturday Night Live” on October 11, 1975. I am not recommending it since it well deserves its R rating. Having said that, however, learning the backstory to this event inspired this Shabbat encouragement.

Personally I did not watch “Saturday Night Live” during the ‘70s, or much during the ‘80s and ‘90s when I was raising my children. In the more recent decades I have enjoyed some of the comedy which by comparison to what apparently went down in the  early years is quite tame. I did not realize what a revolutionary idea the first show was – an hour and a half live program of primarily young comedic talent with little rehearsal and few boundaries. The first show featured early performances by now well known comedians John Belushi, Chevy Chase, Garrett Morris, Gilda Radner, Dan Akroyd, Jane Curtin, as well as others whose careers were launched by SNL.  It represented the concept of a free wheeling, funny, unpredictable, unfettered live TV show which understandably made the network squirm but was designed to resonate with the younger generation.

The movie recounts the story of a very young Lorne Michaels (born Lorne David Lipowitz) and his unstoppable vision to bring this concept to network TV. At the time, Johnny Carson’s late night show at this same time slot during weekdays was a cornerstone of NBC’s success. What we don’t learn until late in the movie was that the key NBC executives and Johnny Carson, himself, were angling behind the scenes to have this new show be a flop, for if it were, a rerun of an episode of The Tonight Show would be aired at 11:30 on Saturday nights instead and was a guaranteed success for NBC and more money for Johnny Carson.

Michaels was unstoppable, pushing forward as disaster after disaster happened during the less than two hours leading up to the first show – sets breaking, lights crashing, mics not working, comedians fighting, quitting, and an NBC employee censoring language in the run-throughs.  As an inexperienced young producer/director Lorne also had no idea how to fit the way too many acts into the allotted time frame. Literally in the last moments, NBC executives watched the live studio audience’s reactions to a practice scene (which actually was edgy but funny and clean). As The Tonight Show rerun was ready to roll, at 11:29 that night, NBC executives surprisingly decided instead to allow SNL to air.

The point of this writing in no way is intended to persuade you to watch media that is offensive. I trust the Lord will guide us in these choices if we follow that little inner voice of Him that we sometimes tend to ignore, or if we misstep, He will use it for our good.  The point is to better understand Lorne Michaels’ decisions and be able to see the good that came from them, to be able to see the many facets of all of our actions and inactions.

We often avoid uncomfortable situations or ones that would cause us to suffer.  We do so to protect our sensibilities, or hide our unwillingness to get involved, or justify our lack of desire to dig into tough problems. We sometimes distance ourselves from the harder realities of life, those that would make us suffer. When we avoid suffering even when there could be a good outcome, perhaps we are missing some of the more meaningful parts of our journey.

Out of Lorne Michaels’ suffering and perseverance, which is the viewpoint of the movie so it is experienced by the viewers, came Saturday Night Live which, good or bad, has made people laugh for almost 50 years. If nothing else, it gave talented young musical artists and comedians a start in their careers, and continues to do so. It actually was challenging for me to watch in places. I suffered. Yet I was moved by the back story of this young group of rebellious talents led by Michaels who set out to change TV as it was known back then.

I had forgotten sexism, and probably racism, was so blatant at that time in mainstream TV programming, and probably in society, that overbearing acts by executives toward women then were the norm. SNL comics used those realities through their humor to bring the viewer’s attention to societal issues that needed change. We get a peek at a demeaning musical variety show that Michaels visits backstage while the variety show is in process. Without fear of consequences and just shortly before SNL is to air, he hires away that show’s young sound engineer who excitedly leaves to join SNL, something completely new, different, and more in tune with the changing norms even if too extreme in other ways. Thank goodness the pendulum of history swings and over time the rough edges needed to make change get smoothed. Or at least that is the hope.

How often do we suffer only to find over time that the suffering was worth it? It was hard to watch “Saturday Night” yet doing so brought me these insights. I recently wrote about being thankful for my kidney stones for all the amazing blessings that happened as a result. Similarly, we are uplifted by story after story of acts of heroism during tragedies. We are inspired by survivors’ perseverance through suffering during the Holocaust, sometimes puzzled yet moved by peoples’ ability to forgive after losses of loved ones caused by acts of violence, moved to aid victims of war as we, too, suffer in their suffering.

How did Lorne Michaels have the ability to suffer setback after setback in those last hours before the show and still work toward the reality he envisioned? How can I watch a movie with such offensive language and see any good in it? Yet this is our life. In all of these examples, from this suffering, this incongruence,  when we persevere to stay strong in our faith, to remember God’s timeline is not ours, we will always grow deeper in our walks, we will always grow spiritually, we will always grow closer to our Creator.

For how clearly He understands suffering. How often Scripture relates stories of suffering birthing redemption. How Yeshua suffered on the cross for us, how He persevered to teach us despite time after time our inability to understand Him, to recognize Him. Yet out of his suffering to the point of death, He rose and redeemed mankind.

So too, when we experience all of life and inevitably suffer, by choice or otherwise, we are brought back to Him in these moments we tend to avoid or at least try to avoid or want to ignore. We know this is true. Yet what a mystifying enigma that the reminders sometimes show up in the strangest places!

Shabbat shalom.

Diane