OT: 50 Greatest Episodes of SNL

[DeToxRox]

Anyone gonna' be watching any of this?

I personally will be, in hopes to see more vintage episodes of the show, but I dunno if that will happen.

It's a given anything around 85 won't be shown, but I hope the first two seasons of the show gets shown because I've seen some of those skits before, and my dad raves about how much better they were then a lot of the SNL stuff from the past decade.

Oh well, just curious who'll be viewing.

[MJ4H]

when? where?

[DeToxRox]

started at 11 today for 10 hours on comedy central. then it will continue through saturday, same hours, starting at 11 for 10 hours.

[Mustang]

You can vote on Comedy Central for the top 50.

I notice they start at 80-81?? WTF? 75-79 wasn't good enough?

[DeToxRox]

BAH. That sucks. I wonder why they wouldn't allow that?

[Mustang]

Only thing I can think of is they wouldn't have the rights to those years.

[sachmo71]

Because before that they had the greatest cast of all time and none of the modern casts can compare! :)

[sabotai]

I was thinking along the same lines Mustang. I remember awhile ago E! used to show the old episodes. I wonder if they still have the rights to those shows, but just don't play them.

[Mustang]

Just because I'm a curious bastard.. I did a search and found this-

Who owns the rights to Saturday Night Live?

Different companies own different components of SNL.

The SNL name, trademark, and certain characters are the sole property of NBC. NBC also holds the copyright to all "SNL" shows ever produced.

When SNL first was released to syndication, the original incarnation (1975-1980) was acquired by Filmways, which became Orion Pictures and later part of MGM, so the syndication rights to these shows currently lie with MGM. The remaining shows (from 1980 to the present) are controlled by Broadway Video -- Lorne Michaels' production company -- however NBC holds rights to all current shows for two seasons after which the rights revert to Broadway Video for airing on Comedy Central (which currently holds the off-network rights to the post-1980 shows). Lately, however, SNL episodes from as recent as 1998 have turned up on Comedy Central.

The home video rights were originally held by Warner Home Video (which released few of the original 1975-1980 shows and some compilations taken from those shows), then in the early 1990s Starmaker Entertainment acquired the video rights and released even more compilations (although Paramount Home Video released a "Best Of Eddie Murphy" compilation in the late '80s as Murphy was under contract with Paramount). In 1999, the video rights were bought by Trimark Pictures, and as of this writing have released videos from the '90s shows.



Now, given that, I don't know how you can have a greatest episodes show and eliminate a good chunk. Of course, I guess is they labeled the show 'The Greatest 50 SNL shows that we own', it wouldn't have the same impact.

Ah well..