What if Saturday Night Live never existed?

I was on this other site, and I read someone's opinion on how Lorne Michaels may have cancelled SNL back in 75 if he knew what direction the show would take today.

So, what would the entertainment world be like if there would have never been a Saturday Night Live?
 
SNL was a learningcenter for many young actors and actresses and without its background many of them wouldnt go on to do other things
 
Strangely enough, I have been thinking about the original SNL recently. My feeling is that SNL was the culmination of an important trend that was happening in Western entertainment. A new style of comedy that relied more on what tends to be called "improvisation". This was the style of the "Second City" company, which started in Chicago but by the time SNL came along also had a branch in Toronto Canada (and other places as well? I'm not sure of the timeline here). John Belushi came from the Chicago Second City, and Gilda Radner and Dan Ayckroyd came from the Toronto Second City. Also other comedy groups as well were using a similar style, such as the Groundlings in LA (which provided Larraine Newman).

My thought is "if Lorne Michaels hadn't done it, someone else would have". I think this was just waiting to happen. Of course if it had happened in another way, it would have been a different combination of people. Maybe it would have been on another network. Another thought is, maybe it would have been someone putting together a funny movie, and the cast largely working together on other projects in the future.

SNL was a revolution in TV comedy. It appealed to a lot of people who pretty much did not watch television before that, as there was nothing on to appeal to that audience. It's hard to imagine now how revolutionary it was at the time. An NBC executive came to see a rehearsal of the first episode, noticed the band were wearing jeans, and asked "When are their tuxedoes going to arrive?"

KEVP
 
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