If you were looking for a standard Saturday night at 11:30 p.m., you basically missed the biggest party in comedy history. Honestly, checking your DVR for a Saturday recording of the SNL 50th anniversary on TV is the first mistake everyone makes.
Lorne Michaels and the NBC brass decided to break a fifty-year tradition for this one. They moved the whole circus to a Sunday. Specifically, Sunday, February 16, 2025. It wasn’t just a regular episode; it was a three-hour behemoth that took over primetime, starting at 8:00 p.m. ET. If you tuned in on Saturday, February 15, you probably just saw a rerun of the 1975 series premiere with George Carlin. Neat, but not the star-studded madness everyone was texting about.
Why the SNL 50th Anniversary on TV Wasn't on a Saturday
It sounds like a riddle. Why is Saturday Night Live on a Sunday? The answer is mostly about the sheer scale of the thing. NBC treated this like the Super Bowl of comedy. You can't fit fifty years of sketches, legendary alumni, and emotional tributes into a 90-minute slot that starts after most of the country has gone to bed.
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By moving it to Sunday at 8 p.m., they captured a massive primetime audience. We're talking about roughly 14.8 million viewers. That’s more than triple the show's usual ratings. They needed that three-hour block to breathe. Even then, the special famously ran long, bleeding past the 11:00 p.m. cutoff because, well, when you have Steve Martin, Eddie Murphy, and Adam Sandler in the same room, nobody is checking their watch.
The Full Weekend Schedule
You’ve got to realize this wasn't just a single night. It was a calculated rollout that looked something like this:
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- Friday, February 14: The "Homecoming Concert" at Radio City Music Hall. This was a Peacock exclusive.
- Saturday, February 15: A nostalgic re-airing of the very first episode from 1975 in the usual 11:30 p.m. slot.
- Sunday, February 16: The main event. Red carpet at 7:00 p.m. ET, followed by the three-hour special at 8:00 p.m. ET.
What Actually Happened During the Special?
The hype was real. Seeing Eddie Murphy back on that stage alongside Chris Rock and Tracy Morgan for a "Black Jeopardy" sketch was the kind of moment that makes you realize how much DNA this show has shared with American culture. But it wasn't just old guys doing their greatest hits.
The cold open was a trip. Paul Simon—who has basically lived at Studio 8H for half a century—performed "Homeward Bound" alongside Sabrina Carpenter. It was a weird, beautiful passing of the torch. It sort of highlighted the show's biggest challenge: being a museum and a laboratory at the same time.
Surprising Moments and Cameos
Some of the most talked-about bits weren't even the classic characters.
- Adam Sandler's Tribute: He performed an original song called "50 Years" that actually won an Astra Creative Arts Award later. It was surprisingly moving.
- The Meryl Streep Factor: Believe it or not, before the SNL 50th anniversary on TV, Meryl Streep had never actually performed a sketch on the show. She showed up for a "Close Encounters" bit with Kate McKinnon. Seeing the greatest living actress get "poked and prodded" by aliens was peak SNL.
- The Domingo Verse: Marcello Hernández and Ariana Grande brought back the "Domingo" wedding sketch, but this time with a cameo from Pedro Pascal. It proved the show still knows how to make a viral hit in 2025.
How to Watch It Now (If You Missed the Live Airing)
If you’re just now realizing you missed the live broadcast, don’t panic. You can’t go back in time to February 2025, but you can still find the footage. NBC keeps the full three-hour special on Peacock.
Kinda funny, but the "full" version on streaming actually includes some of the stuff that felt a bit rushed on live TV. If you’re a purist, you can also find individual sketches on the SNL YouTube channel. They’ve segmented the night so you can skip the montages and go straight to things like Bill Murray ranking Weekend Update anchors (he put Norm Macdonald at the top, which felt like a right and proper nod).
Other Documentary Content
To really get the full "SNL 50" experience, there are two other things you should look for on Peacock:
- SNL50: Beyond Saturday Night: A four-part docuseries by Morgan Neville. It’s got a ton of behind-the-scenes footage that Lorne usually keeps locked in a vault.
- 50 Years of SNL Music: Questlove directed this one. If you care about the history of Bowie, Nirvana, or Kanye on that stage, this is better than the actual anniversary special.
The Legacy of Studio 8H
People love to say "SNL hasn't been funny since [insert year you were in high school]." But the 50th anniversary proved that theory wrong. It showed a show that is deeply flawed, often chaotic, but completely essential.
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The special ended with a massive "goodnight" where the stage was so crowded with legends you could barely see the floor. It felt like a graduation ceremony for comedy. If you're looking to catch the next milestone, you'll have to wait for the 60th, but for now, the 50th stands as the definitive record of the show’s first half-century.
Next Steps for SNL Fans:
- Check Peacock for the "SNL 50: The Anniversary Special" to see the full 3.5-hour broadcast.
- Watch the Questlove-directed music documentary for the best look at the show's sonic history.
- Look up Adam Sandler's "50 Years" song on YouTube if you want a good cry.