Lorne Michaels and company might not have been ready for primetime when the sketch show launched on NBC in 1975, but that didn’t stop the TV Academy from handing them four Emmys for the first season.

Allegedly, this offended NBC exec Don Ohlmeyer, a close friend of Simpson’s, and MacDonald was fired as a result in 1997. When he joined “SNL” during Season 16, Chris Rock was just 23 years old. After ...