BIRMINGHAM, Ala. ( WIAT ) — On Friday, a movie exploring the first moments of “Saturday Night Live” being broadcast nationwide in 1975 was released.
“Saturday Night,” directed by Jason Reitman, tells the story of the start of the long-running NBC show created by Lorne Michaels and what led up to the debut of the series on October 11, 1975. In the movie, several people play different real-life cast members of the “Not Ready for Primetime Players,” but one actor who grew up in Alabama plays a role as one of the show’s founding creative voices.
Tommy Dewey, an actor who grew up in Mountain Brook, plays Michael O’Donoghue, who had worked at National Lampoon magazine before being recruited into the first writers room of the show, which was initially called “Saturday Night” due to another show on the network hosted by sportscaster Howard Cosell being called “Saturday Night Live.”