Origins
The club was first mentioned on SNL on December 8, 1990, during the opening monologue. Tom Hanks was making his fifth appearance as host, and the milestone became the subject of a sketch:
Believe it or not, this is the fifth Saturday Night Live I have been lucky enough to host. Now, the first time you do the show, you can't believe you're here. You just can't believe it. Your head buzzes with excitement. The second time you do the show, it means you were funny enough to be asked back - and you're pushing a movie. The third time you do the show, the second time didn't go so well, and you have something to prove to yourself. The fourth time you do the show, you're just blatantly pushing a movie. But the fifth time you do the show is the most special time of all, because you get this ...a membership card in the Five-Timers Club. Come with me... I'm gonna give you a chance to look in on one of the most exclusive clubs in the world.After Hanks gave his monologue, the show segued to a sketch featuring Hanks, Steve Martin, Elliott Gould and Paul Simon in the richly-appointed club. Martin and Gould were both five-time hosts; Simon had only appeared as a host of SNL three times, but counting his multiple appearances as a musical guest, was said to be a member of the club.
Conan O'Brien, who at that time was a writer on SNL and not a well-known public figure, was the doorman of the Five-Timers Club in the original skit.
The Five-Timers Club has been mentioned again after the mark was reached by hosts Danny DeVito (in 1993), Alec Baldwin (1994), John Goodman (1994), Christopher Walken (2001) and Drew Barrymore (2007). A similar sketch was part of Alec Baldwin's November 11, 2006 show. The sketch, featuring Baldwin and Steve Martin, took place in the "Platinum Lounge," which allowed only 12-time hosts, and forbade working cast members from entry.
Read more about this topic: Five-Timers Club
Famous quotes containing the word origins:
“Compare the history of the novel to that of rock ‘n’ roll. Both started out a minority taste, became a mass taste, and then splintered into several subgenres. Both have been the typical cultural expressions of classes and epochs. Both started out aggressively fighting for their share of attention, novels attacking the drama, the tract, and the poem, rock attacking jazz and pop and rolling over classical music.”
—W. T. Lhamon, U.S. educator, critic. “Material Differences,” Deliberate Speed: The Origins of a Cultural Style in the American 1950s, Smithsonian (1990)
“The origins of clothing are not practical. They are mystical and erotic. The primitive man in the wolf-pelt was not keeping dry; he was saying: “Look what I killed. Aren’t I the best?””
—Katharine Hamnett (b. 1948)
“The settlement of America had its origins in the unsettlement of Europe. America came into existence when the European was already so distant from the ancient ideas and ways of his birthplace that the whole span of the Atlantic did not widen the gulf.”
—Lewis Mumford (1895–1990)