Questlove Digs Into 50 years Of 'SNL' Musical Hits (And Misses)
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This is Fresh Air. I'm Terry Gross. As part of Saturday Night Live's 50th anniversary celebration this year, tonight NBC will premiere a documentary highlighting the music guests and music comedy sketches that the show has featured over the decades. It's called Ladies and Gentlemen, 50 Years of SNL Music. It was co-directed by my guest, Grammy-winning musician and Oscar-winning documentary filmmaker Amir Questlove Thompson. He's the co-founder, leader, and drummer of the hip-hop band The Roots. It's the house band for another late-night show, The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon. Before Questlove talks about the movie and how SNL has influenced him as a musician and and late-night band leader, our TV critic David Bianculli is going to review the film, along with a documentary series that's also part of the 50th anniversary celebration. That series is streaming on Peacock.
The two new Saturday Night Live documentaries come from filmmakers who bring their own interests and perspectives. NBC's Ladies and Gentlemen, 50 Years of SNL Music comes from Amir Questlove-Thompson, who's both a musician and a music historian. And the four-part SNL 50 Beyond Saturday Night, now streaming on Peacock, comes from Morgan Neville, who's as interested in the creative process as he is in letting people tell their own stories. Questlove, in his movie-length study, mines the archive of a half-century of musical performances, as well as the emergence of hip-hop and other genres, into the show and the culture. Some classic performances are run full length. Others are sampled in cleverly compiled montages and mashups. It's such a solid, well-selected overview that I can think of only one SNL music performance I really wish had been included. Paul Simon, backed by Ladysmith Black Mambazo, on their thrilling 1986 rendition of Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes. But Questlove covers a lot.
Not only infamous appearances by Elvis Costello, Sinead O'Connor, Ashley Simpson, and Kanye, but even comedy sketches and videos built around music. The infamous Dick in a Box Christmas song, with Justin Timberlake and SNL cast member Andy Samberg, is deconstructed. So is another classic SNL musical moment, featuring guest host Paul Rudd and musical guest Beyoncé. Timberlake tells how that got on the air, with Timberlake, Samberg, and cast member Bobby Moynihan as her music video backup dancers. Partway through Timberlake's account, we hear the start of the actual single lady's sketch.
Andy texted me and he said, hey, are you in town? I said, yeah, I'm in the city. He said, Bobby went in. He has this great idea for a sketch about you, me, and him being Beyonce's background dancers for single ladies that never made the cut. She's going to be the musical guest this week. I was like full like leotard. And he's like, yeah. And I was like, oh, this is too funny. Like we have to do this. She was very polite about it, but she was very hesitant. And when I say hesitant, I mean like she was not having it.
Beyonce! Oh my gosh, I'm so psyched to do this new video with you.
Me too. But you know, there's this one thing. I haven't met the other dancers. Are we going to have time to rehearse?
Oh, look, don't worry about the other dancers, B-Town. I handpicked them myself. These guys are pros.
I'm like, does she know how funny this is going to be? Like how beloved this whole moment will be? So I said, bring me the leotard. So I put the leotard and the heels and the hose on and everything. And I put a robe on. And I walked in and I knocked on her door. I walked in and I threw the robe down and I put my hands on my hips and she was like, no, you didn't.
Morgan Neville's SNL documentary series is broken into four episodes, each one looking at a different aspect of the show and its history. The first one looks at the original audition tapes by many of the people who tried out for SNL, with those same people watching and reacting to their younger selves. Some scream, some cringe, some cry, some, like Pete Davidson, laugh.
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