#MicroblogMondays: 50 (!) years of SNL

I watched the Saturday Night Live 50th (!!) anniversary special last night -- all 3.5 hours of it (!).  (Dh went to bed before it was over.)  I was 14 when SNL made its debut in October 1975.  I did not see that first episode, but I most certainly did start watching that fall. These days, I'm usually too tired to watch the entire show (although I sometimes stay up long enough to catch the opening sketch?) -- but where I grew up, in Manitoba, SNL started at 10:30 PM on Saturday nights (vs 11:30 here in southern Ontario).  I was at many a party or other gathering of friends in my teens and early 20s that wound up with everyone gathered around the TV set to watch the latest antics by Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, John Belushi, Gilda Radner & co.  

A couple of observations from last night:  

• I was taken aback by the airing of a 1978 short SNL film, "Don't Look Back in Anger," -- introduced by 88-year-old Garrett Morris (!) -- featuring John Belushi as an older version of himself, visiting his former co-stars -- in the cemetery (!). "I'm the last one," he says -- before proceeding, at the end, to dance on their graves (!).  
• Kind of chilling, especially considering that he was actually the first one of them to die, at age 33 in 1982 -- and that all the rest of them, other than Gilda Radner, are still around, 50 years later.  
• (I may have seen it before, but if I did, it's been a while, because I certainly did not remember it!) 
• I was especially touched at the very end, as the cast crowded onto the stage, to see that someone was holding a large black-and-white photo of Gilda Radner aloft.  (I later learned it was her co-stars Jane Curtin & Larraine Newman -- there's a photo of then circulating on social media.)  Gilda was childless-not-by-choice, and died in 1989 at the far-too-young age of 42 of cancer, after trying to have a child with her husband, Gene Wilder. A quote from her memoir, "It's Always Something," appears on the right hand of this blog page, and I wrote a post about her back in 2012 ("It's always something...").  
• Related:  I loved this recent (gift-linked) post from the Atlantic:" Do It for Gilda." (Subhead:  "The too-short life of a comedy genius is a reminder to the rest of us to make good use of the time we are given.")
• The evening started off with 83-year-old Paul Simon singing "Homeward Bound" with young Sabrina Carpenter, and ended off with 82-year-old Paul McCartney (who else??) and his band doing the closing medley from "Abbey Road" -- "Golden Slumbers/Carry That Weight/The End." Which says (of course): "And in the end/The love you take/Is equal to the love you make."  
• Yes, neither man's voice is what it once was -- but it's not about their voices. It's about them, the music, the memories, and what they have meant to us all for so many years.  I saw more than one person on social media commenting that they were moved to tears by McCartney's opening line ("Once there was a way to get back homeward")... especially in the context of our turbulent times.  
• Cherish these guys, while they're still here with us. 
• I saw Paul McCartney with my sister in Winnipeg in September 2018, and posted about it here. 

Did you watch?  What did you think? Highlights?  Personal SNL memories?  

You can find more of this week's #MicroblogMondays posts here.