On October 11th, 2025 Saturday Night Live will celebrate its fiftieth anniversary. I will commemorate this momentous occasion with two complementary books documenting its giddy highs and horrifying lows. 

The first is We've Got a Terrible Show For You Tonight: The Fifty Worst and Weirdest Episodes from Fifty Years of Saturday Night Live, which will cover the fifty most fascinatingly awful episodes from the show's epic run, including legendary boondoggles involving the likes of Milton Berle, Louise Lasser, Andrew "Dice" Clay, Frank Zappa, Martin Lawrence, Steven Seagal and more. 

The second book is We've Got a Great Show For You Tonight: The Fifty Best Episodes from Fifty Years of Saturday Night Live, which will chronicle the finest shows from five decades of legendary performers, iconic characters and unforgettable moments.

Ah, but who am I, and why do I want to write these books?

I'm glad you asked! My name is Nathan Rabin and I love comedy! I grew up worshipping The Simpsons, "Weird Al" Yankovic, David Letterman, The Onion and Saturday Night Live. 

So you can imagine how excited I was to start writing forThe A.V. Club, The Onion's entertainment section, as a twenty-one year old college student in 1997. By the time I graduated from The University of Wisconsin at Madison with a degree in Communications Arts in 1999 I was the site's first and, to date, only head writer. That was a position I held until 2013, when I left to become a staff writer for The Dissolve, Pitchfork's short lived but much loved film site. 

In 2009 Scribner published The Big Rewind, a memoir about the intersection of my hilariously traumatic childhood and pop culture that attracted the attention of national treasure "Weird Al" Yankovic, who chose me to write his 2012 coffee table book Weird Al: The Book, which is credited to Nathan Rabin With Al Yankovic. Not bad, huh? 

In In 2020 Yankovic copy-edited, fact-checked and wrote the introduction for The Weird Accordion to Al, a massive, illustrated guide to his life's work that was eventually expanded into a 516 page magnum opus covering every phase of the pop parodist's career, including Weird: The Al Yankovic Story. The Weird Accordion to Al was then spun off into a robust-selling coloring book, The Weird A-Coloring to Al. 

In 2022 I put out the extended version of The Joy of Trash, a compendium of comic essays about pop culture that explored my lifelong obsession with Saturday Night Live with pieces on Adrien Brody's notorious introduction of Sean Paul, the notorious "Well, that's swell, Tom, but your little brother is STANDING IN THE MIDDLE OF AFGHANISTAN!" scene from Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip and finally an epic closing piece about my trip to the first ever Blues Brothers Convention at Old Joliet Prison.

I've also written extensively about Saturday Night Live for The A.V Club, my personal website Nathan Rabin's Happy Place and my Substack newsletter Nathan Rabin's Bad Ideas, where I am currently in the process of writing up all of the Saturday Night Live films in addition to covering Saturday Night Live alum James Belushi's complete filmography.

I'm nearly done with my ninth book, The Fractured Mirror, a 700 page magnum opus chronicling a solid century of American movies about the film industry. 

Now you may be saying at this point, "Sure, your comedy credentials seem fairly sound but I've bet you've never coined even a single phrase that has entered the cultural lexicon in a big and seemingly permanent manner. Why would I want to pre-order a book from someone like that?" Wrong! I'm the man behind Manic Pixie Dream Girl. That sure seemed to take off, eh? 

Sorry. 

As with The Weird Accordion to Al, The Weird A-Coloring to Al and The Joy of Trash, We've Got a Terrible Show For You Tonight and We've Got a Great Show For You Tonight will be illustrated by the great Felipe Sobreiro, who so impressed "Weird Al" Yankovic with his work on The Weird Accordion to Al and The Weird A-Coloring to Al that he hand-picked him to join the roster of big time comic book people for Al's graphic novel The Illustrated Al. 

Next up I will watch EVERY episode of Saturday Night Live to determine which are the best and which are the worst for these books.

To me, the studio where Saturday Night Live is filmed is nothing less than the Paris Opera House of comedy, a place where some of the best minds in comedy come together and put on a national television show that’s watched and talked about by millions of people. 

Compared to Saturday Night Live’s important satire, other sketch comedy shows, like the fictional Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, are nothing more than glorified versions of high school skits where football players dress up as the cheerleaders and think it’s wit. 

As I write this, there are 956 episodes of Saturday Night Live. That is a LOT. And they just keep making more!

You might be thinking to yourself at this point, "You're going to watch something like a THOUSAND episodes of Saturday Night Live? That is an insane time commitment! And you have a family! Is there something wrong with you?" The answer is yes. I can't drive a car or tie a tie or do many of the other things society expects grown ups to do. Thankfully, for this project at least, my weird Autistic/ADHD brain can definitely do things like watch every episode of Saturday Night Live and write between two to seven four hundred page books about them.  

I would like to repeat this part because it is important: I AM GOING TO WATCH EVERY EPISODE OF SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE IN ORDER TO DO THE BEST POSSIBLE JOB WITH THE BOOKS. I'll be watching a LOT of episodes more than once!

Actually, I'm going to be doing much more than watching every episode of Saturday Night Live. 

I want to make the most out of what is frankly an INSANE time commitment so I am going to be writing 400 to 700 word summaries of every episode for people who preorder the book or become a paid subscriber to the project's Buttondown account. I didn't want to overwhelm my current Substack with so much Saturday Night Live content, and also I don't want to further support people who support Nazis, so I'm creating a special account for people to talk about the long-running and controversial show RESPECTFULLY with me and other fans. And Buttondown isn't as morally sketchy as Substack. I'd love to help these upstarts become a feasible alternative to Substack. I've already written and scheduled pieces on the legendary first season of Saturday Night Live. 

I'd also love it if readers would watch along with me on Peacock, NBC or the Internet Archive. You can get on and off the rollercoaster at any time but I am strapped in for the whole endless ride. 

Will I go crazy? 

Probably! Hopefully in a good way! 

Since there will be something like 1000 episodes that means that by the end I will have a 500,000 word magnum opus on EVERY EPISODE EVER. That's not just an extra book. Since the average book is in the area of 75,000 words that means I will be throwing in ANYWHERE FROM THREE TO FIVE FREE BOOKS! 

If this campaign tops the 25,000 dollar mark I'll write and publish Every Episode Ever: Nathan Rabin Reviews Saturday Night Live's First Decade. A 35,000 dollar haul, meanwhile, would lead to Every Episode Ever: Nathan Rabin Reviews Saturday Night Live From 1985 to 1995, 45,000 dollars would unlock Every Episode Ever: Nathan Rabin Reviews Saturday Night Live From 1995  to 2005, 55,000 dollars would make Every Episode Ever: Nathan Rabin Reviews Saturday Night Live From 2005 to 2015 and finally 65 thousand dollars would unleash Every Episode Ever: Nathan Rabin Reviews Saturday Night Live From 2015 to 2025.

I'll be churning out EVERY EPISODE EVER blurbs everyday so if you enjoy informed, entertaining writing about comedy and television at a shockingly small price then boy are you in for a treat!

Because there are so many episodes of this long-running, extremely long television program I can, and will, post SNL reviews every day (even during the weekend) and have enough for THREE YEARS OF EXCLUSIVE DAILY CONTENT for as little as 18 dollars. 

This is going to be crazy. It's going to push me to the very brink of my sanity and abilities. This is far and away the biggest, most ambitious and time and labor-intensive project I've ever attempted. 

All that I ask is that you honor my sacrifice. 

I've tackled similarly ambitious, work and labor-intensive projects before with The Weird Accordion to Al and The Fractured Mirror. I'm excited to do it again with We Have a Terrible Show For You Tonight and We Have a Great Show For You Tonight, which will be my tenth and eleventh books. Or maybe my eleventh and twelfth. I write a lot of books! 

But, to paraphrase the lyrics of "I've Got My Mind Set On You" (which, incidentally, is only six words long), it's gonna take time, a whole lot of precious time. It's also gonna take money, a whole lotta spending money, it's gonna take plenty of money, to do it right, child.

That's because for nearly two years I will be immersed in this project rather than doing work that will pay off immediately. I've gone into massive debt writing books like these before (most recently with The Fractured Mirror) and I can't afford to do so again. 

The stakes are high. If this succeeds I might be able to pay off some of my massive debt, grow my modest audience and finally be in a position to save some money and experience financial security. If it fails then I'll undoubtedly end up living in a van down by the river. 

The stars are aligning for We've Got a Terrible Show For You Tonight and We've Got a Great Show For You Tonight. The timing is perfect. I've got twenty months to get these books polished and perfect for their October 11th, 2025 release date (a release date, incidentally, that is set in stone). That will be a challenge but definitely one that I'm up for.  

That means that the books will be perfectly positioned for holiday shopping in 2025, as they're coming out just before the Christmas season. Furthermore, I imagine that there will be a LOT of press and hype for Saturday Night Live's 50th birthday. To paraphrase an iconic character played by one of its biggest alum, that's kind of a big deal. 

I'd love to be able to afford to hire a publicist who could let press outlets know that if they need an expert to discuss Saturday Night Live and its cultural impact then they should talk to a man who has been writing about pop culture for nearly thirty years, literally wrote the book on, and with, "Weird Al" Yankovic, wrote for The A.V Club for nearly twenty years, has watched every episode of Saturday Night Live at least once and is putting out two massive, ambitious books on Saturday Night Live history for its big birthday. 

It's not easy putting out books independently. In fact it's incredibly difficult and oftentimes a sanity and money-losing endeavor. It can feel downright impossible. You need a lot of luck and a lot of help. 

That's why I'm asking you to help me make this crazy plan an even wilder reality. 

"Weird Al" Yankovic trusted me to tell his story. Hopefully you can trust me to write books about Saturday Night Live that will be entertaining, exhaustive and informed. 

Whether you love Saturday Night Live, hate Saturday Night Live or have complicated feelings about it, these books are for you. As with The Weird Accordion to Al, I'm excited to use these juicy page-turners to explore decades of pop culture, history and music as filtered through the parodies and pastiches of one of the most important and influential forces in the history of American entertainment. 

I feel like I was born to write these books. I just need your money, enthusiasm and support to make it happen.