The sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live (SNL) kicked off its 50th season on Sept. 28 in Studio 8H at 30 Rockefeller Studio in New York City. After 50 years, SNL remains relevant to the American psyche and the Urban community.
SNL began its 50th season with political cold-open sketches featuring several former cast members, including Dana Carvey as President Joe Biden and Maya Rudolph as Vice President Kamala Harris.
The show’s lasting influence on comedy extends beyond television, finding its way into Urban’s theater class Essentials of Comedy. Maya Herbsman ’13, who teaches theater, took inspiration from SNL when developing the class. “SNL is inarguably the most popular sketch comedy show in this country,” she said. “SNL has hits and misses, but generally, the quality of work they produce, even if I don’t think a sketch is particularly funny, is of a particular level.”
Since its beginning in 1975, the NBC show has won 84 Emmy awards and jump-started numerous comedy stars’ careers. “Something that’s really special about SNL is that it really popularized comedy. The amount of careers SNL has launched is enormous,” Herbsman said. “You think about folks like Will Ferrell, Dana Carvey, Maya Rudolph, Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, Andy Samberg and Jay Pharoah, just to name a few.”
SNL’s format of cold opens, host monologues, sketches and parodies helps the show to appeal to a wide demographic. “[SNL] really has humor for everyone,” Augie Wintroub-Hansen ’26 said. “There was the recent TikTok sketch, political sketches [and] Weekend Update. [They] have sketches that play it safe. … [They also have] sketches that push things, which I personally prefer.”
Dashiell Thompson ’26 discussed bonding with his family through SNL’s jokes and sketches. “A lot of people watch SNL … with their parents. … I probably started watching SNL around sixth grade with [mine],” he said.
Wintroub-Hansen talked about how his dad sparked his love for the show. “I watch and talk about [the show] with my dad, because he’s always enjoyed [SNL],” he said.
The show, which averaged 7.2 million weekly viewers in the 49th season, is a weekly tradition for thousands of families. “Me and my family, every Sunday night, religiously sit down and watch it,” Miriam Endelman ’26 said.
For some Urban students, SNL provides a comedic lens to view the news and society. “SNL is making a commentary on the world as we see it. I think that Urban students are curious, incisive and endlessly funny,” Herbsman said. “I think that the show lends itself really nicely to our culture here at Urban, which encourages critique and critical thinking.”
SNL’s half-century-long weekly comedy tradition continues to be strong and shows no signs of stopping. “One of my favorite [sketches] … was a spoof on Beavis and Butthead. I thought that [it] was really funny because it was kind of out there and a little unconventional, which I think is where [SNL’s] humor thrives,” Thompson said. “As long as SNL keeps doing that, which they have been for [the past 50 years] they can just keep it up and do it for 50 more.”
