Watching Saturday Night Live's 50th Anniversary Special

Last Sunday night, Saturday Night Live celebrated 50 years on TV with a three-and-a-half hour special. I watched all of it all, including some of the red carpet beforehand.

I have a long history with the show, starting when I was 12. It was the first show on TV that made me laugh out loud. It was something we talked about at school on Monday.

You were cool if your parents let you stay up to watch it. I would perform Steve Martin's King Tut song and get in trouble saying Dan Aykroyd's catch phrase "Jane, you ignorant slut," even though I didn't really know what that meant.

Then in the ’90s when I started out in improv in Chicago, being on SNL was the Holy Grail. It was everyone's dream. The best compliment you could get was, "You're so funny you should be on Saturday Night Live."

It was the thing we all wanted most. We thought if we got on The Main Stage at Second City we would be hired for Saturday Night Live.

It really semed that easy. Especially when people you had worked with got hired for the show. First Mike Myers, Chris Farley, and Tim Meadows, and then later Ratchel Dratch, Tina Fey and Amy Poehler.

I was at The Annoyance when SNL hired Beth Cahill and Melanie Hutsell, too.

Back then if you were in the improv scene in Chicago, you thought you had one-in-four chance to be on the show.

Then years later, I got my chance and blew it. SNL wanted to fly me out to New York to audition. They even sent me a plane ticket and everything, and I took myself out of the running because I didn't show up. The morning I was supposed to fly out, when I should have been at the airport, I was in my agent’s office and I told her, “I am not going. Tell them I don't do sketch." Improvisers in Chicago stated the rumor that I didn't go because I had integrity. But 30 years, later let me set the record straight: I didn't go because I was scared.

That same year, SNL raided Second City for talent, hiring David Koechner, Nancy Walls, Adam McKay and Tom Gianis.

I had been Dave's roommate in Chicago, so after he got hired, a group of us flew out to New York for his first show. That would be the closest I would ever get to being on the show.

Watching this weekend’s special brought up a lot of feelings for me. There was this sense of excitement and joy, as well as sadness and grief. That the dream of being on the show was now dead. When people die, I usually find gratitude in still being alive and for the people in my life -- my friends and my family. Not once while watching the special did I think, "I wish I was there." I was where I was supposed to be: on the couch in the basement with Lauren and my 8-year-old daughter who kept saying "You think that's funny?"

Want to take your improv to the next level? Don't miss Jimmy's next Advanced Virtual Improv Class, starting March 3!