<Tr> <Td_colspan="2"> Next → Season 2 </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td_colspan="2"> List of Saturday Night Live episodes </Td> </Tr> <P> The first season of Saturday Night Live, an American sketch comedy series, originally aired in the United States on NBC from October 11, 1975 to July 31, 1976 . </P> <P> In 1974, NBC Tonight Show host Johnny Carson requested that the weekend broadcasts of "Best of Carson" (officially known as The Weekend Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson) come to an end (back then, The Tonight Show was a 90 - minute program), so that Carson could take two weeknights off and NBC would thus air those repeats on those nights rather than feed them to affiliates for broadcast on either Saturdays or Sundays . Given Carson's undisputed status as the king of late - night television, NBC heard his request as an ultimatum, fearing he might use the issue as grounds to defect to either ABC or CBS . To fill the gap, the network drew up some ideas and brought in Dick Ebersol--a protégé of legendary ABC Sports president Roone Arledge--to develop a 90 - minute late - night variety show . Ebersol's first order of business was hiring a young Canadian producer named Lorne Michaels to be the show - runner . </P>

When did the first episode of snl air