This Saturday Night the curtain falls on Season 33 of a program begun in the Fall of my freshman year at University. NBC’s Saturday Night’s first few episodes were mostly forgettable. The show began on 11 October 1975 at 11:30 pm where for 90-minutes cast members, Chevy Chase, Dan Akroyd, Gilda Radner, Laraine Newman, Jane Curtin, Garret Morris and John Belushi were back-up bit players to the guest stars and did a couple of sketches each night. In Episode 3  a memorable moment occurred when musical guest Joe Cocker performed with a mirror image John Belushi. From then, the show began its shift to the one we know today where the cast led and often filleted the celebrity guest hosts live.

The hosts that first evening were comedian George Carlin who began with a trademark (although highly sanitised) monologue and a very young Paul Simon. It was a late-night variety show (yawn…). Two weeks before Christmas, Chevy Chase was assured of stardom when he played an ineptly brilliant racist hiring manager whose word association game with the comedic brilliance of Richard Pryor was the turning point.

The cast then became the stars and whoever was guest host that night became their foil. As it rose, the University would grind to a halt for 90-minutes each week and the sketches would be on everyone’s lips for the entire next week. Just as Monty Python’s Flying Circus created generations of British satirists, in the eyes of many, true American satire was born in Studio 8-H. The show’s Weekend Update newscast has been the spawning ground of many a satirical news show to follow.

SNL has always satirised the American political landscape. It began with Chase elevating the clumsiness of then President Gerald Ford (who never could board the Marine One helicopter or Air Force One jet without bumping his head) to an epic farcical state. When The Presdient appeared on the show during the 1976 campaign to say the signature opening line, “Live, From New York it’s Saturday Night,” politicians and Washington became one of the show’s mainstays.

The current Democratic primary campaign has had its share of moments with Senator Obama delivering the trademarked opening line and the show raised the issue of media fairness offering Barack Obama a pillow during his debate with Senator Clinton and used satirical “marshmallow” questions that the real Mrs. Clinton then jumped upon to say he was getting a free ride in the press. She later appeared on the show with her alter-ego, Amy Poehler, the actress who plays her delivering the same opening line and in true “what goes around, comes around” fashion, Poehler and the writers jumped on Mrs. Clinton failure to quit with the now famous “I Have No Ethical Standards Because I’m a Sore Loser Sketch” this past weekend to open the show.

This coming Saturday Night will mark the end of season 33, technically only a half season because of the WGA writer’s strike from November to February. When the show returns in September, we will have a longer than usual season and the standard bearers of both parties will be known with the race to the White House by then (thankfully) nearly over. Who knows whether we will see a character as bracing as Poehler’s Clinton for that finale.

That it is about to begin its 34th year is a tribute to one man. For all but 5 of the 33 years it has aired, Lorne Michaels has been the executive producer and guiding hand. The sheer enormity and madness of writing and producing a live 90-minute sketch comedy show each week has been brilliantly portrayed on television programs, “Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip” and “30 Rock” and until you have been there to see it all unfold live, nothing beats it.

The action uses every corner of space and only the lucky 200 or so folks who crowd into the studio for the dress and then 200 more for the live show an hour later see the real craziness. A classmate and friend from University was a 1980’s cast member and visits to NYC were not complete without spending a few frenetic days observing from Thursday afternoon until Sunday morning.

SNL makes NBC’s cavernous Rockefeller Center Studio 8-H look tiny, crammed with actors and intricate sets. It was originally an acoustically perfect radio studio, the biggest in the vast Radio City complex. In the 1930s and 40s it was home to the NBC Symphony under the direction of Arturo Toscanini.

It’s hard though to imagine it as anything but home to Saturday Night Live and the 125 or so cast members who have produced it each week over three plus decades.