The only person asked to be the permanent host of ‘Saturday Night Live’: “I was ecstatic”

Ever since it first hit the airwaves on October 11th, 1975, Saturday Night Live has barely changed. While every long-running TV show needs to evolve, the weekly staple has stuck to its guns for 50 years.

The episodic embodiment of ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’, SNL has operated for half a century under the same model: Lorne Michaels steers the ship from behind the scenes, an up-and-coming roster of aspiring comedians populate the cast, and a celebrity guest opens the show with a monologue.

It’s every bit as simple as it is effective, even if there’s no magic formula for landing on a decent host. If someone knocks their SNL debut out of the park, they’ll be invited back, and if they drop the ball, they can cast a dark cloud over the entire enterprise that lingers for years, as Madonna discovered when she whiffed.

It wouldn’t feel the same if the series had a permanent host, which has always been one of Saturday Night Live‘s biggest selling points. It’s become a bucket list moment for many actors, musicians, comics, and celebrities, but Billy Crystal almost ruined it forever when he came agonisingly close to accepting an offer to become its first full-time compere.

Crystal already had a lengthy history with the show, which saw him cut from the premiere episode at the last minute before he was welcomed back as a short-lived cast member a decade later, by which point he’d already hosted twice. With his movie career on the verge of taking off, he was presented with a choice that had the potential to alter the course of SNL history.

“Brandon Tartikoff called me and asked me, would I consider becoming the permanent host of the show,” he revealed. “This is May or June [1985], right after the season ended. I said, ‘Of course I’d be interested, but let me know, because then I won’t test for the movie. I’ll turn the movie down, because I’ll have to come right back to New York and start planning.”

Crystal had been offered a leading role in Peter Hyams’ action comedy Running Scared, and the opportunity to become a full-time fixture of SNL came the night before his screentest: “Which was a formality, because I knew I’d gotten the part,” he added. “But the studio wanted to see me on film.”

With the sketch staple already a decade into its run, it might have been a daunting prospect. Instead, Crystal was enthusiastic about the prospect. “I was ecstatic, because I felt I was ready for it,” he explained. “I can’t describe enough how comfortable I was on that show. And then we didn’t get a call.”

Backstage politics ultimately derailed his chances, with Dick Ebersol leaving and Michaels returning. That meant that not only was the hosting offer rescinded, but Crystal was out on his arse. “Lorne wanted to start fresh and start with a whole new group of people,” he lamented. “So the decision was sort of made for me. I’ve loved my career since then, but that would have been an interesting time had that worked out.”

It’s impossible to imagine SNL airing every week with the same person hosting, but Crystal was ready, willing, able, and happy to sacrifice a burgeoning film career to do it, even if it didn’t come to pass.