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Billy Crystal Tells the Story of Getting Cut from Saturday Night Live's First Episode
The Before actor eventually became a cast member ahead of his successful film career.
Billy Crystal was a Saturday Night Live cast member from 1984-1985, but he was originally supposed to appear on the very first episode on October 11, 1975.
Per the 2002 SNL oral history book Live From New York, Crystal was asked by show creator Lorne Michaels to prepare a comedic piece for the series premiere. While Crystal performed a six-and-a-half-minute sketch at the Friday dress rehearsal, his act was ultimately cut before the live show on Saturday.
"I got bumped right before airtime. A true story," Crystal confirmed to Jimmy Fallon during an October 23 Tonight Show interview, explaining that ultimately, the piece "ran long" amid the packed lineup.
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Billy Crystal's act was cut for time in SNL's first episode
"It did great on the Friday night, and then Lorne said, 'I need two minutes.' And I said, 'Take two minutes out?' He said, 'No, I just need two minutes.' I was only into my standup career about six months — I didn't have a two-minute little piece," the When Harry Met Sally star recounted.
"And, you know, it's the first show, and it was all hectic and all that," he continued. "And at around 8:00 on Saturday night, the managers came out and agents and said, 'Come on, we're going. It's not going to work out. You can't do what you'd like to do.'"
"That night was... it was hard," Crystal admitted. "I was 25 years old, you know, and it doesn't work out. And you thought this was going to be the beginning of my career, and then you go home from this building [in 30 Rock]. There's no cellphones or anything. You got to go home and call the relatives one at a time."
Crystal told Fallon that despite his early career setback, "that was 49 years ago. It worked out okay." It certainly has: In the decades since, Crystal has starred in hit movies like Monsters, Inc, City Slickers, and Analyze This, won 6 Emmys and a Tony.
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Billy Crystal kept the original first SNL script
Though Crystal never appeared in the SNL episode, he told Fallon that he kept the premiere's original script, which had Host George Carlin originally introducing him to the audience.
"George says 'People want to know where the new comics are coming from. Well, Billy Crystal's coming from over there,'" he told Fallon. "And I would make my entrance and do my thing."
"Well, the page is blank," he added. "And it says, 'Monologue to come.' It never came."
After the initial heartbreak of being cut from the premiere, Crystal returned to Studio 8H in 1976, performing a stand-up monologue in the second half of the first season. He hosted twice in 1984, and became an official cast member from 1984-1985.
