Lorne Michaels Presented a Futuristic SNL & Automated Cast in the First 1990 Episode
The SNL creator teased jet packs, android performers and more advancements in this segment featuring a cameo from then-writer Bob Odenkirk.
The Church Lady on a jet pack. A cast of robots. A speaker that replaces the band. As Michael Che would say in 2025, "It's the '90s!" Or rather, "The 90s," a segment from Saturday Night Live's very first episode of that decade. In it, SNL creator and executive producer Lorne Michaels presented hilarious — and in at least one case, eerily prescient — products that would be the future of SNL in this exciting new decade.
Michaels' "The 90s" segment came at the tail end of SNL's very first episode of the decade: Season 15's January 13, 1990 return from the winter break, hosted by Ed O'Neill with Musical Guest Harry Connick, Jr. While Che's "It's the 90s!" jokes on "Weekend Update" are a nod to the era's reexamination of social norms, Micheals focused on the promise of new technological advances.
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Lorne Michaels joked about a "fully automated" cast and the future of SNL in this 1990 segment featuring Phil Hartman and Bob Odenkirk
"I'm Lorne Michaels, and as you know, this is our first show of the 1990s," the show's creator, then 45 years old, told the audience as he stood alone on the Studio 8H stage. "And we here at Saturday Night Live are very excited. For you see, unlike other television shows, we plan to keep right in step with this fantastic new decade and all the changes it is bringing."
The first innovation: Jet packs for everyone, evidenced by a green-screen trick that revealed Dana Carvey whizzing through the air as Enid Strict.
"Another change is that you'll no longer be listening to the Saturday Night Live band. Recent advances in audio technology have enabled us to replace them with this silicone globule," Michaels said, showing off a gold sphere that could be a Bluetooth speaker from today. "Similar advancements have allowed us to replace Jon Lovitz with this," he continued, revealing a rudimentary robot head that bleeped a Lovitz catchphrase, "Yes, that is the ticket."
"We'll be gradually automating all of our cast members — with the exception of Phil Hartman who, as you know, is an android," MIchaels continued, as Hartman walked on to shake his hand with a broad smile at the camera.
Michaels introduced another gadget that felt right out of a 30 Rock episode: An SNL frozen dinner cooked by the TV's rays, an illegible "new Saturday Night Live logo" that looks like several vintage MTV ones smooshed together (it has the ability to read how audiences react to a sketch, not unlike social media), and "rerun pills." In the days before streaming — or even DVDs — you'd have to wait months until an SNL repeat was rebroadcast, but with rerun pills, your old favorites are a dose away.
"Mmm," Michaels said, eating one. "Tony Danza. Still holds up!"
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The final invention is the zaniest — and it was presented by none other than Better Call Saul actor and comedian Bob Odenkirk, then an SNL writer, dressed up as an NBC page.
Odenkirk held up a live tortoise as Michael explained that they'd surgically implanted announcer Don Pardo's voice into it. "This will ensure that Don will be the voice of Saturday Night Live for the next hundred and fifty years," Micheals said. "Right, Don?"
"Right, Lorne!" the tortoise mouthed. Fortunately, Lenny Pickett and the rest of the Saturday Night Live band remain where they belong onstage, while cast alum Darrell Hammond became SNL's announcer upon Pardo's death in 2014. And the cast remains wonderfully, delightfully human.
Watch Lorne Michaels in "The 90s" from Saturday Night Live Season 15, Episode 10 above, and stream all 50 Seasons of SNL on Peacock anytime.
