Venue Has Been Set for Saturday Night Live 50th Anniversary Celebration
74th ANNUAL PRIMETIME EMMY AWARDS: (l-r) Bowen Yang, Lorne Michaels, and Kate McKinnon, winners for Outstanding Variety Sketch Series for "Saturday Night Live"
Over the past 50 years, many cast members have come and gone on Saturday Night Live. New York is the state where the most cast members were born. The Big Apple is followed by California, Illinois, Michigan, Massachusetts, Ohio, and New Jersey.
New Jersey has six cast members who were born here. The list includes Joe Piscopo and Jon Rudnitsky who were both born in Passaic, Jay Mohr from Verona, Janeane Garofalo was born in Newton, and John Milhiser born in Montgomery, NJ.
According to Deadline Lorne Michaels is planning a Radio City Music Hall extravaganza to celebrate 50 years of Saturday Night Live. The venue makes perfect sense, I can’t think of another that would be more appropriate for the golden celebration.
I’ve been watching SNL since the day it debuted back in the mid-seventies, and it just finished up its 48th season this past April. The anniversary show will commemorate the five decades spent making us laugh, and giving us something to watch after we get home late on a Saturday night. The celebration will no doubt be filled with lots of nostalgia and appearances from all our favorite cast members throughout the years.
The announcement was made by Lorne Michaels at the Cannes Lions Festival during an event covering SNL. He said, “It will be emotional, but everyone will show up because it’s important. The planning for it, which has taken the last six months and it’s not happening for another year and a half, there are a lot of events happening.”
He also said the huge event is being planned for a Friday “homecoming” night, and that it will feature several musical acts and stand-up routines. “You’ll see bands that have left a mark on the show, and stand-ups that were part of it from the beginning or relatively recent.”
Tributes To James Gandolfini 10 Years After His Death
James Gandolfini died on June 19, 2013, at the age of 51. The Sopranos star passed away suddenly from a heart attack while on vacation in Rome, Italy with his family.
Gandolfini also known as Tony Soprano remains a household name due to his iconic jokes and incredible acting. Today, ten years later, his fans and co-stars, among others, paid tribute to the television icon on social media.
Aside from portraying an Italian-American mob boss for six seasons, he was so much more than a Soprano. Gandolfini was a loyal friend, loving father, and overall good person.
Michael Gandolfini, the son of the late actor posted a heartfelt message to Instagram on Sunday with the caption “Happy Father’s Day Dad. I love you. Today, tomorrow, and everyday. I miss you, I love you.”
Gandolfini starred in countless films and was the winner of three Emmy Awards, one Golden Globe, and five Screen Actor Guild Awards.
The New Jersey native will never be forgotten and has only become more popular over the years. (I don’t think there’s one day that goes by that my father isn’t watching The Sopranos.)
Scroll below to see just a few of our favorite memories of James Gandolfini as well as the tributes posted today in his honor.
Joel Katz is the Morning Show Personality, Assistant Program Director, Podcast Host, Voiceover artist, audio producer, and Digital Content Writer for Magic 98.3. Joel has been working in New Jersey radio since college and started at Magic in 2002 as the Morning Show Host, “I can’t think of another place where I’d fit more perfectly; it’s just a great company with awesome people.” Joel is married to Kathleen, his elementary school sweetheart (they were each other’s first dates at age 9), shares a birthday with his oldest son, Ty, and has twins, Kiera and Liam. Joel runs at least 3.1 miles every day and enjoys playing basketball, doing laundry, saving his turn signal for when he really needs it, kissing dogs through a fence, using coasters, making that cool noise by rubbing his fingers on balloons, and chasing after ping pong balls on a windy cruise ship.
