Lorne Michaels told reporters Sunday that he plans to premiere Jimmy Fallon as the new host of Late Night on the internet. He plans five or six months of webcasts prior to the 2009 debut of Mr. Fallon's version of the show, according to TV Week.

The Observer interviewed Mr. Michaels about preparing Mr. Fallon for the dubious taks of replacing Conan O'Brien last May:  read more »

George Carlin hosted the very first episode of SNL on Oct. 11, 1975. NBC will honor him by airing that premiere episode this weekend while HBO plans on playing specials of more than 30 years of his comedy shows starting this week.

Mr. Carlin's SNL episode featured the “Not Ready for Primetime Players,” including Dan Aykroyd, John Belushi, Chevy Chase, Jane Curtin and Gilda Radner. Musical guests were Janis Ian and Billy Preston, and Andy Kaufman made an appearance too.

According to a transcript of the show available here, Mr. Carlin "wanted to wear a T-shirt, but the network wanted him to wear a suit.  read more »

According to The Hollywood Reporter's Alex Woodson, Saturday Night Live executive producer Lorne Michaels received a "lifetime achievement award for the role that 'Saturday Night Live' has played in the development of online video" at last night's Webby Awards.  read more »

Bittersweet Symphony? Ashlee Simpson may not be welcomed back to Saturday Night Live after her 2004 appearance exposed her lip-synching talents. Also, Page Six hears that the young Mr. Simpson was not exactly a hit with the show's producers. [P6]  read more »

Did George Clooney pop the question? [Marie Claire UK]

All this while he avows that he is "gay, gay" (and not "gay, gay, gay"): "That third 'gay' was pushing it."[People]

Matt Damon's rep confirms he and his wife Luciana are expecting. [People]  read more »

In case you missed it, here's Hillary Clinton's appearance on Saturday Night Live, complimenting Amy Poehler's impression and asking for her earrings back.  read more »

Over the weekend, the first new episode of Saturday Night Live to air since the end of the writers’ strike posted the show’s highest ratings since Feb. 4, 2006, easily topping seven million viewers, Variety reports. SNL hadn’t broadcast since the fall, which made Saturday’s show—the first in four consecutive weeks of new SNL episodes—with Tina Fey as host (see above), guest appearances by Mike Huckabee (he was on Weekend Update, too) and Steve Martin (who, coincidentally, hosted the Feb. 4, 2006 episode), and a musical performance by Carrie Underwood, a highly anticipated event.  read more »

So Saturday Night Live is finally addressing its Barack Obama problem. When last I spoke to SNL's writers and its creator, Lorne Michaels -- way back in the old days, when Hillary Clinton was still the consensus front-runner-by-a-mile -- they didn't think he was funny enough to lampoon. Now, I guess, they've got no choice.

In this week’s New Yorker, Ben McGrath writes a Talk of the Town about, well, beards. In days of yore, the piece points out, facial fuzz was de rigueur among a certain set of powerful gents—Confucius, Abraham Lincoln and Rasputin among them.

But now, it seems, there’s begun a resurgence of the bearded-bigwig milieu—particularly those ‘working’ in film and television. The reason for this trend, of course, has more to do with the extended W.G.A. strike than anything else. Now famous personalities—many of which heretofore seemed peach fuzz-free, let alone capable of generating thick cheek rugs—have started to cultivate beards of their own. Take, as the item does, Conan O’Brien, who had reportedly spent the last 44 years of his life with a clean, baby-smooth shave. Not so any more; the pompadour’d late-night talk show host now has what he bills “a hobby on my face.”  read more »

Chevy Chase says he was asked to have a recurring role on Saturday Night Live’s “Weekend Update,” but that was before the W.G.A. strike. Recalling his recent debut appearance on the sketch show’s mock-news segment, for which he was apparently paid scale, the Caddyshack actor said he was disappointed by the poor writing. He also blames his poor performance on a standing ovation from the audience. “I didn’t want to overshadow the new kids," he told Fox News, referring to co-anchors Amy Poehler and Seth Meyers, adding: "I was shocked." According to Mr. Chase, 64, who was only on SNL for its first season, famed musical composer Leonard Bernstein nearly hosted an episode during the show’s inaugural year on the air. “The idea of John [Belushi] and Danny [Aykroyd] coming out doing a number from that show cracked us up," Mr. Chase said. But when the comedian and writer Tom Schiller visited Mr. Bernstein backstage, the West Side Story creator got fresh with the wrong guy. “He put his hand on my knee. When we were leaving, he kissed me full-on, on the lips,” Mr. Chase remembered. “I wagged my finger at him and said, ‘No, no, no.’ And that was the last we ever heard from him."  read more »