“Live from New York City, it’s Saturday Night!”. Infamous words heard over the stretch of 50 whole seasons of NBC’s live comedy show, Saturday Night Live.

In the 50 years of the show, many hosts, musical guests, celebrity appearances and other hilarious bits have come and gone, but they continue to find the magic in every joke that has kept the show continuing in the same spot.

“Filmed in Studio 8H at 30 Rockefeller Plaza since the show debuted in 1975. It consists of three primary stages for the opening monologue, musical performances and sketches” (50 fun facts about ‘Saturday Night Live’ for its 50th season, Mike Gavin, Sept. 27 2024, published on nbcnewyork.com)

In the 50th season premiere, they have casted actors and comedians for roles as political figures ahead of a heated election period during the span of the live shows runtime for season 50. According to Lizzie Hyman in a People article titled, “SNL Casts Its Tim Walz, J.D. Vance, Doug Emhoff and Other Election Figures: Meet the 2024 candidates” on Sept. 30, 2024, Maya Rudolph returns in a highly anticipated role of Vice President Kamala Harris. James Austin Johnson is set to portray former President, Donald J. Trump. Jim Gaffigan is playing running mate to Harris, Tim Walz. Harris’ spouse, Doug Emhoff is portrayed by SNL alum, Andy Samberg. Dana Carvey returns as President Joe Biden and current cast member of Saturday Night Live, Bowen Yang, is J.D. Vance. 

In the first episode of the season, the cold open of the show started by introducing these actors as their characters for the season. With the election heating up and taking place in the middle of the SNL season, I expect the show to take a lot more risks and for the content to continue to get better and better, especially more hilarious. If the way the first episode went is how the others are going to go, I cannot wait to see more.

Most recently, one segment was a Family Feud competition between the families of “Democrats” and “Republicans.” Giving responses in character while being true to how these people act and also making incredible jokes continued to find humor in the heated election process we are in. Being invested in the political side of the world, I find a lot of the jokes very funny, especially when they are poking at different events that happened recently. 

In these 50 seasons of Saturday Night Live, the show has continued to break boundaries and limits that no other show would dare to do. Taking shots at other actors and comedians through jokes, bringing in props of unimaginable proportions and from the very beginning, putting on a live show for 90 minutes without any fail and continuing to make fun of  the people in the public light. All of this is explored in a new movie titled “Saturday Night,” which is newly out in theaters.