The milestone week is finally here: fifty years ago, the National Broadcasting Company took a chance on SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE. It was a risky proposition: a 90-minute variety and comedy show broadcast live from the historic Studio 8H, once the home of Arturo Toscanini and the renowned NBC Symphony Orchestra.

From the perspective of today’s crowded television dial – make that your TV’s overstuffed Netflix, Prime, Hulu or Peacock queue – it’s hard to imagine the three-network universe into which SNL was born 50 years ago.

Michael Bird is a music teacher at Faulkner University, and has seen nearly every episode of “Saturday Night Live.” If you would like to watch them all, every episode is streaming on Peacock.