Television history is messy. If you ask a casual fan about the origins of late-night comedy, they’ll point to the 1975 debut of the Not Ready for Prime Time Players. But there is a weird, confusing overlap in 1975 that most people completely forget. For a brief, chaotic moment, the title Saturday Night Live didn't actually belong to Lorne Michaels. It belonged to Howard Cosell.
Honestly, it sounds like a fever dream now.
Imagine the most polarizing sports journalist in history—a man with a voice like a legal brief and an ego the size of a stadium—hosting a variety show on ABC. It was called Saturday Night Live with Howard Cosell. It premiered in September 1975, just weeks before the NBC version we know today launched as NBC’s Saturday Night. The battle for the name was real. The battle for the audience was even more intense. It was a collision of old-school vaudeville and the new-school counterculture, and frankly, it didn't end well for Howard.
The Identity Crisis of 1975
People often get confused about why there were two shows with nearly identical names. Basically, ABC thought they had a hit. They put Cosell in the Ed Sullivan Theater—the same hallowed ground where the Beatles changed the world—and expected him to become the new king of Saturday night.
The show was a "variety" hour in the most traditional sense. We’re talking acrobats, singing groups, and live sketches. Cosell, ever the "Tell It Like It Is" truth-teller, was the ringleader. But here’s the kicker: while Howard was doing a variety show for your grandparents, Lorne Michaels was over at NBC building a revolution. Because ABC had already locked down the title Saturday Night Live, NBC had to call their show NBC's Saturday Night. It wasn't until Cosell's show crashed and burned that Lorne was able to swoop in and buy the name.
Cosell was an odd choice for this. Everybody knew him from Monday Night Football. He was the guy who used words like "truculent" and "adversity" while players were getting tackled. Seeing him try to banter with the Bay City Rollers was... uncomfortable. It felt forced. It felt like your uncle trying to use slang at Thanksgiving.
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Why Howard Cosell and SNL Didn't Click
There's a specific kind of energy needed for live comedy. You have to be willing to look like an idiot. Howard Cosell? He didn't do "idiot" very well. He was authoritative. He was the smartest guy in the room, or at least he made sure you thought he was.
The cast of Saturday Night Live with Howard Cosell actually had some talent. You might recognize a young Bill Murray in the mix. Yeah, that Bill Murray. He was part of Howard's "Prime Time Players" (sound familiar?). Before he became an icon on the NBC version, he was stuck in sketches on ABC that just weren't landing. Christopher Guest and Brian Doyle-Murray were there, too. The DNA of great comedy was present, but the structure was all wrong.
NBC’s show was dangerous. It felt like it could fall apart at any second. Cosell’s show felt like a museum exhibit. It was live, sure, but it was stiff. Howard would stand there in his sports jacket, delivering these long-winded introductions for acts that felt out of place. One minute you’d have a serious interview, the next you’d have a musical number. It lacked a cohesive voice.
The Bay City Rollers Incident
If you want to understand why the show failed, look at the premiere. The Bay City Rollers—the Scottish teen idols—were the big musical guest. Howard introduced them with the same gravity he used for a heavyweight title fight. The screaming girls in the audience were deafening. It was pure chaos, but not the good kind.
The contrast was jarring. You had Howard, a man who represented the establishment, trying to curate the "cool" for the youth. It didn't work. Kids didn't want to see Howard Cosell. They wanted to see the anarchy happening over on NBC. They wanted the Coneheads and George Carlin, not a man in a toupee talking about "the sociological impact of the pop music phenomenon."
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The Fall and the Legacy
ABC pulled the plug after just 18 episodes. It was a massive, expensive flop.
But it’s important to look at what happened next. When ABC canceled the show in early 1976, NBC saw an opportunity. They bought the rights to the name Saturday Night Live. They also picked up the best thing about Howard’s show: Bill Murray.
Murray joined the NBC cast in season two to replace Chevy Chase, and the rest is history. If Cosell’s show hadn't failed, we might never have seen Bill Murray become the star he is today. It’s one of those weird "what if" moments in television.
There's a lot of revisionist history claiming that Cosell hated the NBC show. In reality, he was mostly just wounded that his transition to "general entertainer" didn't work. He went back to sports, where he remained a legend, but the sting of the variety show stayed with him. He had tried to out-Sullivan Ed Sullivan and failed.
What We Can Learn From the Cosell Experiment
Success in media is about authenticity. Cosell was authentic when he was talking about Muhammad Ali or the NFL. He was not authentic when he was trying to host a comedy sketch. The audience can smell a lack of conviction from a mile away.
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Also, timing is everything. In 1975, the world was moving away from the "variety show" format. The Carol Burnett Show was still doing well, but the younger generation wanted something grittier, something that felt like it belonged to them. Lorne Michaels understood that. ABC and Cosell did not. They thought you could just put a famous face on a stage with some dancers and call it a hit.
Key Takeaways for Television Historians
- The Name Game: NBC didn't start as Saturday Night Live. They were the "other" show until Cosell's version died.
- The Talent Pipeline: The "Prime Time Players" was a term used by Cosell first. NBC just tweaked it to "Not Ready for Prime Time Players" as a direct jab at the ABC show.
- The Murray Factor: Bill Murray is the ultimate survivor of this era. He managed to jump from a sinking ship to the most important comedy show in history without losing a beat.
- The Format Shift: This marked the end of the traditional, tuxedo-wearing variety host. After this, late night became about the ensemble and the "vibe," not just a singular personality.
Moving Forward: Digging Into the Archives
If you want to see this for yourself, it’s not easy. Most of the episodes are buried in the vaults, but clips surface on YouTube and in television documentaries. Watching them is a lesson in how quickly culture can shift. One year, Howard Cosell is the biggest name in broadcasting; the next, he's a punchline for a failed comedy experiment.
To truly understand the history of late-night TV, you have to look at the failures as much as the successes. Howard Cosell's attempt at a variety show wasn't just a bad idea; it was the catalyst that allowed the real SNL to claim its throne.
The best way to appreciate this era is to compare a 1975 episode of the ABC show with a 1975 episode of the NBC show. The difference is startling. One feels like a funeral for the 1950s; the other feels like the birth of the modern world. If you're a fan of TV history, seek out the footage of Cosell interviewing the cast members. It's a masterclass in awkwardness that explains everything you need to know about why one show survived and the other is a footnote.
Next time you watch a classic SNL sketch, remember that for a few months in 1975, Howard Cosell was technically the king of Saturday night. It was a short reign, but it changed television forever.