The World’s Hardest ‘Saturday Night Live’ Quiz – Rolling Stone
By
Alison Weinflash
Critics have written off Saturday Night Live as “Saturday Night Dead” countless times over the past half-century. But the haters always underestimate the genius of Lorne Michaels and the show’s undying cultural capital that has us hardwired to tune our TVs to NBC every Saturday night. (Or at least catch up on clips come Sunday morning.) SNL has endured through the lowest lows of the Joe Piscopo era, endless “Mango” sketches in the 1990s, and recent hosting stints by Elon Musk and Donald Trump. Over all that time, it has amassed a broad fandom: There are the casual types who watch the opening monologue on YouTube and whatever sketch goes viral on TikTok; the ones who follow every hosting announcement and set their weekend schedule around new broadcasts; and the obsessives who camp out for tickets in front of Rock Center and know exactly how many seconds Damon Wayans lasted on the show before he was fired. Think you know where you fall on that spectrum? Take our quiz to find out for sure.
Zero to 30 percent correct: Oh, noooo! Don’t worry; there are plenty of resources you can use to sharpen your SNL knowledge. Try reading Live From New York: The Complete, Uncensored History of Saturday Night Live by James Andrew Miller and Tom Shales. And to go even deeper into Lorne Michaels’ life, check out the new authorized biography Lorne: The Man Who Created Saturday Night Live, by Susan Morrison.
31 percent to 60 percent: Nice work. To get even nerdier about SNL, do a deep dive of the early episodes on Peacock. That’s where you can also find a new four-part docuseries released in honor of the show’s 50th anniversary, SNL50: Beyond Saturday Night, to boost your bona fides.
61 percent to 100 percent: Party on! Excellent! You probably scored higher than Lorne Michaels himself would have on this quiz. Do you work in the archives at Broadway Video or just own recordings of the more than 900 episodes of SNL that have aired over the last five decades? You’ve definitely scoured the internet looking for clips of The New Show. Don’t be embarrassed! You should celebrate this achievement with two cheeseburgers and a viewing of Saturday Night Live: The Best of Eddie Murphy on VHS.
Want more trivia? Try The World’s Hardest Bob Dylan Quiz or The World’s Hardest Bruce Springsteen QuizWe want to hear it. Send us a tip using our anonymous form.Rolling Stone is a part of Penske Media Corporation. © 2025 Rolling Stone, LLC. All rights reserved.
