Saturday Night Live has been coming to you from New York for 40 years, so it makes no sense why the SNL Experience would be in downtown Chicago, but it is.
With an hour and a half before closing we decided to pay the $25 each and check it out. We got our tickets and went up stairs where we we herded into a small room for the preview video – which fortunately was only a few minutes long.
We then made our way in. The exhibits gave a brief history of the show’s start, followed by how the week of preparation leads up to Saturday night.
The highlights of the exhibit were the costumes and props collected over the years.
The Land Shark
Bill Murray’s Nick the Lounge Singer’s jacket.
Party on Wayne – Party on Garth
One of the more interesting areas was makeup, including the Coneheads.
A large area of costumes.
As well as a collection of the fake products
The upper level had a mock up of the control room, where we were once again grouped together.
This lead us to a replica of the stage where they presented a video to make us feel like we were there (sort of)
The costumes and props are cool to see, but you can likely watch all the videos at home on Youtube. It was cool, but not worth $25 each.
We did however get an additional floor for the Radio and TV Museum. This focused primarily on Chicago TV and Radio, but had some interesting items like Jack Benny’s violin (old school – look it up).
In a section on advertising they had a Crash Test Dummy
The very famous Nixon- Kennedy debate took place in Chicago in 1960. This is the camera used that many say swayed the election to Kennedy.
Meet The Press has been a Sunday morning news program for decades. The museum has one of the sets used.
Finally in the way back machine – Charlie McCarthy (another look it up moment for many)
RDZ Photography 