Saturday Night Live's first season was marked by drugs and alcohol: sources

“Saturday Night Live,” now in its 50th season, began its broadcast life with a spate of illegal behavior.

In the 17th floor offices of 30 Rock in Midtown Manhattan, drug use and casual sex were rampant among the cast and crew. Weed smoke filled the air, locker rooms were used for quickies, and at least one cast member, Garrett Morris, arrived to maintain a not-so-fun addiction to freebase cocaine. Appropriately, the sketches often referred to recreational drugs.

Some members of the “SNL” band, led by Howard Shore – who told The Post he didn't recall any outrageous behavior on the show – knew which substances were best tolerated by the show's executives.

“During the show, they smoked weed on the bandstand,” a former SNL staffer told The Post, adding that some of the musicians also drank alcohol. “Then they got a memo from [show creator] Lorne Michaels one day. It said: “From now on there will be no more drinking on the bandstand. It sets a bad precedent for the union stagehands. Stick to the drugs.'”

When the first episode debuted in October 1975, it was the beginning of a show that no one could have imagined would become television's longest-running success. “We thought it could be one and more,” a guest who appeared during the first season of “SNL” told The Post. “There was a lot of stress and tension about how well it would be received.”

The first season cast on opening night included: Chevy Chase, John Belushi, Dan Aykroyd, Gilda Radner, Garrett Morris, Jane Curtin, Laraine Newman and Michael O'Donoghue.

The run-up to the first show was full of drama. Jason Reitman took advantage of the 90 minutes before curtain and made it into the new film “Saturday Night,” which hits theaters on October 11th.

“The dress rehearsal took way too long,” Jeff Weingrad, co-author with Doug Hill of “Saturday Night: A Backstage History of Saturday Night Live,” told The Post. “Billy Crystal would get his big break with a six-minute monologue. But Lorne Michaels said it needed to be shortened to two minutes. Billy's manager became very aggressive with Lorne and said he wouldn't do the show if it was canceled. Lorne said that was fine. While the show was on, Billy rode home on the Long Island Railroad.”

In 1975, a Rolling Stone reporter was spot on when he described “Saturday Night Live” as “a mainstay show that gets you as high before, during and after as the actors obviously are.”

The cast clearly got the memo and then some. Tom Malone told the Post about the band's hangout, which was known as the Departure Lounge for good reason. “This is where we smoked our cooling water,” he told the Post. “A lot of shit used to happen in this room. Let’s just leave it at that.”

While some simply smoked weed and indulged in the free love that had been around since the 1960s – “The only way into this boys' club was basically to fuck someone in the club,” said Annie Beatts, a writer on the series, who was just dating lead writer Michael O'Donoghue, said in Live From New York by Tom Shales and James Andrew Miller.

Others took drugs that went far beyond the relative innocence of marijuana. According to the book, white powders were common and there were performers throwing acid into the lobby of the RCA building, where they could work on the Art Deco details.

“Early on, Chevy Chase was one of the first to get into cocaine,” Weingrad said. “He [also] had an excess of ego and that bothered a lot of people on the show. Using cocaine to enhance his personality only made things worse.”

Weingrad agreed with the employee, who noted that as cast members' salaries increased, so did the drugs, adding, “Several on the show said that Chase was the first to start using cocaine because he was the first “I can really afford it.”

So much so that his punch was within his grasp – whether he liked it or not. During a recent appearance on Bill Maher's podcast, Chase (who exited “SNL” after the first season made him a household name) recalled that his bottle of cocaine had gone missing and suspected that John Belushi had stolen it from him .

Belushi denied it. Chase said that a month later he was invited to Belushi's Morton Street apartment for dinner and “saw my little bottle, empty and washed, just sitting on a shelf next to the books.”

Representatives for Chevy Chase did not respond to a request for comment.

Chase wasn't the only one who lost cocaine to Belushi. he asked [one of the cast members] if he had cocaine,” the employee recalled. “[The cast member] pulled out a bottle that was practically empty. He said, 'I just have a little dust.' Belushi said, 'That won't be enough to get me going.' I'll ask someone else.'

“Then after John left, [the cast member] pulled out a full bottle. I said to him, “I thought you were out.” He said, “That was my Belushi hit.” The point was that if you gave John a full bottle of cocaine, he would pour it on his hand and everything did. I saw him lay out an eight-ball, which is 3.5 grams of cola, on a flat surface. He set up a big, long line, rolled up a $100 bill, and did the whole thing in three minutes. It didn’t noticeably affect him.”

One band member recalled meeting Belushi at the Morton Street Pad for a business meeting. “After 40 minutes,” he said, “the deal was over. John took six Quaaludes and chewed them down. Then he opened a bottle of Courvoisier and began to drink it. He handed me the bottle, half empty. What should I do?”

The guest from the start pointed out that drug use was widespread, but also therapeutic: “The working hours and the pressure they were under were enormous.” There was competition for broadcasting, a new show had to be shown every week and because of the guest presenters you had to get used to new personalities. It was a lot. The drugs were a way for people to deal with the environment.”

Still, SNL's path of excess led to some bad places.

In 1982, Belushi suffered a fatal overdose from a deadly mixture of heroin and cocaine. In “Live From New York,” Laraine Newman talked about her time at Gilda Radner's house: “I would snort heroin,” Newman – the mother of “Hacks” star Hannah Einbinder – said in the book. “And [Radner] would eat a gallon of ice cream. I remember her stumbling into the bathroom to throw up.”

Meanwhile, according to Weingrad, Garrett Morris's freebasing became so bad that “he was always late [rehearsal] on Saturday night… He claimed that an invisible hypnotist robot was controlling him.” On “Live From New York,” Andrew Smith, a writer on the show, recalled that his office is “where.” [Morris] It used to be Freebase” and the maid was afraid to clean there.

Despite all this, 50 years after its debut, “SNL” lives on as the show that brought a sleepy medium to life. “With 'Saturday Night Live,' the generation that grew up on television finally got a show that they felt was their own,” Weingrad said. “And they accepted it.”