Maybe 40 minutes into the broadcast, Nessen stares into the cameras at 30 Rockefeller Center and intones, “A special, uh, treat for me tonight – and I think for you, too – is the Patti Smith Group….”Īfter the camera focuses on pianist Richard DNV Sohl’s hands hammering out a trio of chords, it dissolves to Patti Smith in close-up, her profile emerging from inky black. This evening, President Gerald Ford’s press secretary Ron Nessen was the guest host – hilariously subversive, for such a revolutionary program, born of the counterculture. April 17, 1976: Saturday Night Live, NBC’s controversial new late night sketch comedy show which premiered six months earlier, was beaming into America’s living rooms and bedrooms, including those of a few children whose parents might have been upset at what was being exposed to tender minds.
