Peabody Awards

• The Fab Four’s last concert had been eight years earlier in San Francisco, and the band had stopped recording together in 1969.
• Michaels addressed the band members by name – John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr – and then acknowledged rumors that the group might get back together.
• “It’s also been said that no one has yet to come up with enough money to satisfy you,” Michaels said.
• “Well, if it’s money you want, there’s no problem here.” Michaels then held up a check.

‘It’s like he created Yale or NASA’

• “Caricatures,” Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “are often the truest history of the times.” Tina Fey, who appeared on the program from 1997 to 2006, reportedly might succeed Michaels as its producer when he retires.
• “Lorne created a show that’s impacted culture for decades,” Fey said of the man who has been the program’s producer, showrunner and mastermind for most of the program’s nearly half-century run.
• “It’s like he created Yale or NASA.”

Unmatched track record

• He also won the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor in the U.S. He’s also been nominated for 102 Emmy Awards, setting a show business record, and he’s won more than 20 of them.
• Michaels’ long list of awards includes the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor, two Peabody Awards and the Kennedy Center Honors.
• Whether it was John Belushi gruffly taking orders at a dive that’s only serving cheeseburgers at breakfast time, Fey impersonating Sarah Palin or James Austin Johnson caricaturing Donald Trump, “SNL” has served as the nation’s laugh track through the last half-century.
• “There has never been anything in show business like his track record for discovering stars,” said Doug Hill, the author of “Saturday Night: A Backstage History of Saturday Night Live.”

No reunion necessary

• But then again, how many college football coaches have remained at the top of their game for a half-century?
• At some point, Michaels, who turns 80 on Nov. 17, 2024, will retire.
• When asked about retirement rumors in January 2024, he said he intended to remain with the program for at least another year.
• But neither “Saturday Night Live” nor Michaels, as it turned out, needed a Beatles reunion to make their mark on popular culture.

Chris Lamb does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.