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Article: Liberating late night: Saturday Night Live vs. the censors. (Culture and Reviews).('An Uncensored History Of Saturday Night Live')('Saturday Night Live, Equal Opportunity Offender: The Uncensored Censor' )(Book Review)
- Article from:
- Reason
- Article date:
- February 1, 2003
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2003 Reason Foundation. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Now that Saturday Night Live is firmly ensconced as a small-screen institution, it's hard to recapture the original energy and excitement behind the show. When producer Lorne Michaels started SNL in 1975, he wanted it to be revolutionary -- for television, anyway. He wanted his program to have the freedom that already existed for books, magazines, movies, and theater. Michaels and his actors and writers were intent on using characters, concepts, and, yes, words that had never before been on TV.
Standing in SNL's way was NBC's Broadcast Standards Department, which was charged with making sure the network upheld the "public interest," a condition for keeping its ...