The Daily Heller: 50 Years of SNL’s Graphic Parodies

This weekend kicked off the 50th season of “Saturday Night Live.” I cannot believe that I watched the first season and at the same time played Pong—that high bar of computer gaming—on a Sony Trinitron TV.

I haven’t watched SNL for decades (it’s past my bedtime) but was reminded of this milestone by Marlene Weisman, who was an in-house designer at the show for seven seasons (1988–1994).

These were classic years for the perennial NBC hit, and Marlene—who worked on on-air titles, parodies and props (not least of which included graphics for Wayne’s World)—was a pre-Mac master of hand-lettering, Letraset, phototypesetting, and even vinyl lettering machines.

The industry standards have come a long way since SNL began a half-century ago. I asked Weisman to recall those madcap golden days.

How did you get the job doing graphics for SNL? After a few scrappy, punky years in the ’80s creating graphics for NYC music scene–related clients—The Bottom Line, Peppermint Lounge, Tramps, New Audiences, jazz concert promoters, a variety of indie bands, and the American branch of UK’s Stiff Records among them—I wanted to move on to something new.

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