I'm pretty sure they took a lot of creative liberties with the events that took place behind the scenes. It's hard to believe that John Belushi was screwing around on an ice rink uncertain about the show and his future just minutes before the show was to go live on the air. Willem Dafoe was excellent as the network executive who played network God with his power to have the show go live or tape it and air a re-run of "The Tonight Show" in its place. If the show had been taped that would have been the kiss of death because that would have meant that Lorne Michael's and his crew.That tape probably would have never aired and would have been buried in the vaults with all the other failed tv shows that preceeded it.Maybe the tape would have served as a pilot for the show and shown to preview test audiences. If it had managed to score high with them then maybe the show would have gone on air without the live concept but taped instead. In that case the show would have had a whole new identity that would have been different from the one that Lorne Michaels was trying to create and that was the idea of bringing live counterculture entertainment to live network tv.
I'm pretty sure they took a lot of creative liberties with the events that took place behind the scenes. It's hard to believe that John Belushi was screwing around on an ice rink uncertain about the show and his future just minutes before the show was to go live on the air. Willem Dafoe was excellent as the network executive who played network God with his power to have the show go live or tape it and air a re-run of "The Tonight Show" in its place. If the show had been taped that would have been the kiss of death because that would have meant that Lorne Michael's and his crew.That tape probably would have never aired and would have been buried in the vaults with all the other failed tv shows that preceeded it.Maybe the tape would have served as a pilot for the show and shown to preview test audiences. If it had managed to score high with them then maybe the show would have gone on air without the live concept but taped instead. In that case the show would have had a whole new identity that would have been different from the one that Lorne Michaels was trying to create and that was the idea of bringing live counterculture entertainment to live network tv.
The first show (few shows)were not good.They didn't start getting good until Steve Martin started hosting.