For the first time ever, with the rare cooperation of reclusive 'Saturday Night Live' producer and creator Lorne Michaels, Pulitzer-Prize winning television critic Tom Shales and James Miller have interviewed the stars, the writers, the crew, and the special guests who have made 'Saturday Night Live' the greatest long-running comedy of all time.
From these backstage stories and uncensored memories, they have woven a brilliant oral history that stands as the definitive account of the show's history.
The creative frenzies, the clashing egos, the actors who went on to megastardom in movies and those who just disappeared, the origins of famous routines, the censorship battles, the humor so corrosive that it never got on the air, the love affairs, the drugs, the ferocious feuds, the good hosts and the bad-it's all here, much of it for the first time, and all of it from the people who lived through it.