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* [[Long Runners]]: Has 36 completed seasons, is almost done its 37th season, and will most likely come back for a 38th. It has survived cast and crew turnover, seven U.S. Presidents (starting with [[Gerald Ford]]), harsh critics, low ratings, threats of cancellation, fickle fans, radical (and not-so-radical) social and cultural shifts, and all of the [[Dueling Shows]] that have aired as alternatives.
* [[The Movie]]: Many characters have been spun off into feature films. Although some spinoff movies (such as ''[[The Blues Brothers]]'' and ''[[Wayne's World]]'') have become classics in their own right, most range from [[So Okay It's Average]] (the ''[[MacGruber]]'' movie and ''Stuart Saves His Family'') to completely awful (''It's Pat'', ''A Night at the Roxbury'', ''The Ladies Man'', and ''Blues Brothers 2000'').
* [[Old Shame]]: The 12 episodes produced by Jean Doumanian during the 1980-81 season has been barred from syndication in America due to how poorly it was received by... just about everyone (though Comedy Central ''did'' air the Bill Murray/Delbert McClinton episode as part of a "Best of Eddie Murphy" marathon, NBC aired a full 90-minute version of the episode hosted by [[Jamie Lee Curtis]] with musical guest James Brown and Ellen Shipley as part of their "NBC All Night" rerun block, and Canada's Comedy Network has aired all 12 episodes uncut — including one where Charles Rocket drops an F-bomb during the goodnights, which led to everyone in Doumanian's cast to be fired save Murphy and Joe Piscopo). Universal claims to have stopped production on ''SNL'' season [[DV Ds]] because of music licensing issues (which, of course, is the true reason why all seasons after five haven't been put on DVD), but most fans have assumed it's because of the backlash and poor sales that would have happened had the 1980-1981 season been released. If you have a [[Bile Fascination]] as to how bad Season 6 really is, [[Keep Circulating the Tapes|then your best bet is to find a video collector who has this season]] or check out some video streaming or torrent sites.
** Bootleg DVD's of this season are now fairly easy to find online; and its availability in this format has allowed many fans to discover the season for the first time. The general consensus seems to be that, yes, season six was bad, but it did have some bright spots that kept it from being entirely unwatchable (particularly when Eddie Murphy was incorporated into the show and, of course, the musical guest performance -- one of which included [[Prince]] before he became famous for his albums ''1999'' and ''[[Purple Rain]]'').
* [[The Other Darrin]]: When cast members leave, they take their famous celebrity impersonations with them. When that happens, sometimes ''SNL'' will either find a replacement or just forget about it and move on. Some examples:
** When Will Ferrell left the show in 2002, he took his [[George W. Bush]] impersonation with him. Because of this, four other cast members had to play Dubya (Darrell Hammond, Chris Parnell, Will Forte, and Jason Sudeikis).
** When short-lived feature player Michaela Watkins left after Season 34, Jenny Slate (a then-newly-hired feature player) was chosen to play Hoda Kotb for the ''Today Show'' sketches. With Jenny Slate gone, Nasim Pedrad picked up the role.
** When Ana Gasteyer left at the end of Season 27, her Martha Stewart impression was played by Amy Poehler, Rachel Dratch, and Kristen Wiig.
** Recently, ''SNL'' had a sketch in which Chinese president Hu Jintao asks Barack Obama (Fred Armisen) to violate him to settle the nation's debt. Thing is, this was a retread from a similarly-plotted season 35 cold opening sketch. The actor who played Hu Jintao in the Season 35 version of the sketch (Will Forte) is no longer a cast member in Season 36. In the Season 36 version, Bill Hader is now Hu Jintao.
** Phil Hartman and Darrell Hammond both played [[Bill Clinton]] and, while Hammond held onto the role longer than Hartman, both impersonations are remembered fondly.
*** This was even lampshaded by the show. The first sketch of the first post-Hartman SNL was a skitch where the various cast members tried out for the new Clinton role.
* [[New Season, New Name]]: When this show first started, it was called "NBC's ''Saturday Night''" because there was already a show on ABC called "Saturday Night Live" (this one had Howard Cosell as a permanent host). The NBC version wouldn't be officially called ''Saturday Night Live'' until season three (in season two, the "NBC" part of the title was dropped and the show was called ''Saturday Night'').
** The 1980-81 season was renamed "Saturday Night Live '80" in order to differentiate it from the five Lorne-produced seasons before it. The "80" was dropped in January 1981 (and the rest of the Jean Doumanian season was dropped a month later).
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