3 times you’ll spot Minnesota’s Al Franken in new movie about ‘Saturday Night Live’

Rather than taking a biographical approach to “Saturday Night Live,” the movie “Saturday Night” follows the blueprint of “Being the Ricardos” in offering a second-by-second timeline of the chaotic 90 minutes leading up to the variety show’s Oct. 11, 1975, premiere.

Minnesota’s Al Franken was a big part of that historic event. He and creative partner Tom Davis (a St. Paul native who collaborated with Franken at Minneapolis’ Brave New Workshop and who died in 2012) were on the writing staff and frequently appeared on the show.

They’re always behind the scenes in the heavily fictionalized film, which focuses on producer Lorne Michaels (Gabriel LaBelle) and writer Rosie Shuster (Rachel Sennott). Few of the events depicted in the film happened exactly the way we see them but some version of these Franken appearances did occur:

1. In the peripatetic opening, the camera swivels around to introduce us to most of the characters, including the seven original cast members, several writers, premiere host George Carlin (Matthew Rhys), a TV executive (Willem Dafoe) and, oddly, Milton Berle (J.K. Simmons). That group includes Franken (Taylor Gray) and Davis (Mcabe Gregg), whose running gag in the movie is that they’re constantly pitching ideas for sketches.

2. One of those sketches, which has become one of the most famous in the show’s history, features a kitchen accident that ends with blood spurting everywhere when cooking show host Julia Child (Dan Aykroyd, played in the film by Dylan O’Brien) cuts her finger. The sketch wouldn’t appear on “SNL” until the fourth season but Franken and Davis are shown pitching it during the run-up to the premiere, in which they accidentally shower Michaels in fake blood.

3. With minutes to airtime and the network threatening to pull the plug on the show before it even goes on, comedian Andy Kaufman (Nicholas Braun) saves the day by performing a “Mighty Mouse” sketch to demonstrate the appeal of the show (Kaufman did, in fact, do that sketch on the premiere). The show goes on and Franken and Davis are seen among the dozens cheering its survival.