Will Ferrell established himself as a cast member of a long-running NBC show.
Saturday Night Live ( abbreviated as SNL ) is an American late-night live television sketch comedy and variety show created by Lorne Michaels and developed by Dick Ebersol . The show premiered on NBC on October 11 , 1975 , under the original title NBC 's Saturday Night . Broadcast from Studio 8H at NBC 's headquarters in the Comcast Building , SNL has aired 829 episodes since its debut , and concluded its forty-second season on May 20 , 2017 , making it one of the longest-running network television programs in the United States . Will Ferrell . He first established himself in the mid-1990s as a cast member on the NBC sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live , and has subsequently starred in comedy films such as Anchorman : The Legend of Ron Burgundy ( 2004 ) , Talladega Nights ( 2006 ) , Step Brothers ( 2008 ) , The Other Guys ( 2010 ) and Anchorman 2 : The Legend Continues ( 2013 ) , all but one of which he co-wrote with his comedy partner Adam McKay .