Saturday Night Live’s 50th anniversary is one of the landmark events of the TV year, and as such, there’s plenty of interesting content around it. In addition to Saturday Night Live season 50 bringing new episodes of the late-night sketch series, a live special is planned for February. But ahead of that, SNL fans will be able to get a rare behind-the-scenes look at the history of the show with the Peacock docuseries SNL50: Beyond Saturday Night.
Executive produced by acclaimed documentary filmmaker Morgan Neville, SNL50 is going to be a four-part docuseries that will “tell some deeper stories of SNL,” per Neville. That includes things like the legendary audition and writing processes, as well as deep dives into some iconic sketches and seasons. To help with that, a number of SNL’s notable alumni and contributors sat down for the docuseries.
Read on to find out more about SNL50: Beyond Saturday Night.
SNL50: Beyond Saturday Night release date
Peacock will premiere SNL50: Beyond Saturday Night on Thursday, January 16. It looks like all four episodes of the docuseries are going to be available to stream right away.
In order to watch SNL50: Beyond Saturday Night, you must have a Peacock subscription (Peacock Premium and Peacock Premium Plus will work).
At this time, there is no information on whether SNL50: Beyond Saturday Night is going to be available in any way for those outside of the US where Peacock is not available.
SNL50: Beyond Saturday Night episodes
Broken up into four episodes, SNL50: Beyond Saturday Night is going to give deep dives into specific aspects of the show over the course of its 50-year run.
Here’s a guide for the short docuseries:
SNL50: Beyond Saturday Night episode 1 is titled “Five Minutes” and will be about the audition process for Saturday Night Live. It is going to feature never-before-seen footage and interviews from SNL cast members.
SNL50: Beyond Saturday Night episode 2 is titled “Written By: A Week Inside the SNL Writers Room.” As the title suggests, this will offer behind-the-scenes looks at how sketches are taken from scripts to screen each week.
SNL50: Beyond Saturday Night episode 3, “More Cowbell,” will focus specifically on the popular SNL skit where Christopher Walken plays a music producer who demands more cowbell as Blue Oyster Cult records “(Don’t Fear) the Reaper.”
SNL50: Beyond Saturday Night episode 4, titled “Season 11: The Weird Year,” explores how SNL reset and ensured its future over the course of a pivotal year.
SNL50: Beyond Saturday Night cast
At this time no one has been confirmed as giving interviews for SNL50: Beyond Saturday Night, but from the episodes we can make some educated guesses.
Will Ferrell, Jimmy Fallon, Chris Katan, Chris Parnell, Horatio Sanz and Christopher Walken were all in the “More Cowbell” sketch and could be brought in to talk about the making of it and its legacy.
Then with an episode focused on SNL season 11, cast members from that year included Joan Cusack, Robert Downey Jr., Anthony Michael Hall, Jon Lovitz, Al Franken and Damon Wayans, so any of them could be brought in to speak about it.
Of course, Lorne Michaels would also make sense to talk about any and all of the topics the docuseries will cover as he has overseen the show since its inception.
We’ll pass along the update as participants for SNL50: Beyond Saturday Night are confirmed.
SNL50: Beyond Saturday Night trailer
There is no trailer for SNL50: Beyond Saturday Night at this time. When one becomes available we’ll add it here.
SNL50: Beyond Saturday Night behind the scenes
In addition to knowing what the four episodes of SNL50: Beyond Saturday Night are about, we also know the director who is going to be handling the episodes. What episode they worked on is not specified, but the SNL50: Beyond Saturday Night directors are Robert Alexander, Marshall Curry, Neil Berkeley and Jason Zeldes.