The writers are apparently coming up with so much material for Sunday’s 40th anniversary SNL special that NBC has just decided to expand it from three to three and a half hours. (Four and a half if you count the Matt Lauer-anchored red-carpet special launching at 7 p.m.)
Series creator Lorne Michaels claims to have extended invitations to everybody who ever hosted SNL over its 40-year history and everybody who was part of its cast for more than a year.
Sixty people are now aboard for the event, according to Deadline Hollywood. The 22 added since my Feb. 1 post on this matter are in red:
Fred Armisen
Dan Aykroyd
Alec Baldwin
Jim Carrey
Dana Carvey
Chevy Chase
Dane Cook
Bradley Cooper
Billy Crystal
Jane Curtin
Miley Cyrus
Robert De Niro
Jimmy Fallon
Will Ferrell
Tina Fey
James Franco
Will Forte
Zach Galifianakis
Ana Gasteyer
Bill Hader
Jon Hamm
Tom Hanks
Derek Jeter
Norm Macdonald
Peyton Manning
Steve Martin
Melissa McCarthy
Paul McCartney
Tim Meadows
Seth Meyers
Garrett Morris
Eddie Murphy
Bill Murray
Mike Myers
Kevin Nealon
Laraine Newman
Jack Nicholson
Edward Norton
Joe Piscopo
Amy Poehler
Colin Quinn
Chris Rock
Paul Rudd
Maya Rudolph
Andy Samberg
Adam Sandler
Jerry Seinfeld
Molly Shannon
Martin Short
Paul Simon
David Spade
Emma Stone
Jason Sudeikis
Taylor Swift
Justin Timberlake
Christopher Walken
Kerry Washington
Kanye West
Betty White
Kristen Wiig
No sign of “MASH” star Elliot Gould, which is odd because he’s on the cover of The Hollywood Reporter this week with Lorne Michaels and a lot of Gould’s fellow Five-Timers, including Tom Hanks, Chevy Chase, Christopher Walken, Alec Baldwin, Paul Simon and Steve Martin.
That Hollywood Reporter issue is an interesting one. “Community” icon Chevy Chase, who last hosted SNL on Feb. 15, 1997 (precisely 18 years from Sunday), says he recently asked Michaels if he could host again. Chase recalls that Michaels said Chase, now 71, was then too old to host. (One wonders how Chase took the news that 93-year-old Betty White hosted SNL in 2010.)
Another fun fact. Did you know about a third of NBC’s affiliates declined to broadcast SNL the first year it was in production? That means about a third of the nation pretty much missed out on the Chevy Chase era and may have trouble remembering an SNL before Bill Murray.
In 1975 Michaels was so impressed with Albert Brooks that he invited Brooks to serve as SNL’s permanent host. Brooks, who shot “Taxi Driver” that year and at the time was more interested in filmmaking, declined, but it’s still fun to consider an alternate universe in which “The Albert Brooks Show” premiered at 11:30 p.m. on Oct. 11, 1975.
