Yeah, it’s been a while, but he made history doing it
With the Saturday Night Live 50th Anniversary Special being aired this evening, it’s time to take a look back at when a member of the Minnesota Vikings became a part of that show’s long and illustrious history.
The date was 29 January 1977, and SNL was still in its infancy. On that date, Fran Tarkenton, Sir Francis of Bloomington, blessed be his name, became the first professional athlete to ever host the show, along with musical guest Leo Sayer. Here you can see Tarkenton’s opening monologue from that episode.
It’s pretty easy to tell that this is pre-That’s Incredible Fran Tarkenton, as he didn’t look super comfortable giving the monologue there. But he did get a couple of solid jokes in. . .unfortunately, at the expense of our favorite football team. . .before attempting a musical number and getting pulled by “Coach” John Belushi for Garrett Morris.
You would think that you could easily find a place on the internet where you could watch the entire episode of SNL hosted by Fran Tarkenton, but NBC’s website doesn’t have it anymore and I can’t seem to find it on YouTube anywhere. It might be on NBC’s Peacock streaming service, but I know not everyone has that. If anyone does find it, feel free to put it in the comments and I’ll add it to the story here.
Since Tarkenton first hosted the show, athletes from across the spectrum of sports have hosted the show, with the most recent one being Travis Kelce back in March of 2023. No other athletes with Minnesota connections have hosted the show since Tarkenton did it, but he was the first, meaning he’ll always have an important spot in Saturday Night Live history.
