MINNEAPOLIS — Rather than taking a biographical approach to “Saturday Night Live,” the movie “Saturday Night” follows the blueprint of “Being the Ricardos” in offering a second-by-second timeline of the 90 minutes leading up to the show’s Oct. 11, 1975, premiere.
Minnesota’s Al Franken was a big part of that historic event. He and creative partner Tom Davis (a St. Paul native who collaborated with Franken at Minneapolis’ Brave New Workshop and who died in 2012) were on the writing staff and frequently appeared on the show.
They’re always behind the scenes in the heavily fictionalized film, which focuses on producer Lorne Michaels (Gabriel LaBelle) and writer Rosie Shuster (Rachel Sennott). Few of the events depicted in the film happened exactly the way we see them but some version of these Franken appearances did occur:
1. In the peripatetic opening, the camera swivels around to introduce us to most of the characters, including the seven original cast members, several writers, premiere host George Carlin (Matthew Rhys), a TV executive (Willem Dafoe) and, oddly, Milton Berle (J.K. Simmons). That group includes Franken (Taylor Gray) and Davis (Mcabe Gregg), whose running gag in the movie is that they’re constantly pitching ideas for sketches.
