Not live from New York, it's Saturday Night Live! A&E's two-hour taped tour behind-the-scenes of Saturday Night Live is as good as the real thing. Dare I say, it's better?

        Well, excuuuse me.

        Biography Close-up: Saturday Night Live (9 p.m. today, A&E) combines a week-long visit to SNL last November with a terrific history of the television icon that has spawned numerous pop culture characters and catch phrases.

        It's Must See TV for fans of the show and its stars from Chevy Chase and John Belushi, to Will Ferrell, Ana Gasteyer, Chris Kattan, Tracy Morgan and Darrell Hammond.

        Host Harry Smith chronicles the frantic pace in Rockefeller Center's Studio 8H as writers, producers and performers put together TV's only live weekly 90-minute variety show — as they have done for 26 years.

        As versatile impersonator Mr. Hammond explains: “The show goes on at 11:30, not because it's ready, but because it's 11:30.”

        Through the November week with guest host Gwyneth Paltrow, Biography recounts the history of the show. Crammed into the two hours are 20 interviews and clips from SNL's greatest hits — the Samurai warrior, Emily Litella, Coneheads, Gumby, Blues Brothers, Mango and Billy Crystal's Fernando. (You look marvelous!) It's far more satisfying than NBC's live 1999 25th anniversary special.

        Biography viewers will attend the comedy writers' pitch meetings, the all-night writing sessions, cast read-throughs, costuming, rehearsals and the 10 p.m. cut-down meeting in producer Lorne Michaels' office after Saturday dress rehearsal.

        Viewers will see Mr. Hammond being transformed into Rudy Giuliani, while Will Ferrell becomes President Bush. (Two wild and crazy guys!)

        They'll also see the make-over of Dean Edwards as Michael Jackson for a sketch that didn't make the November telecast. And there's a time-lapse photography segment showing how sets are changed on the cramped stage during a commercial break.

        “When Sid Caesar was doing his show (in the 1950s), they did it exactly the same way,” says Lenny Pickett, SNL musical director.

        Mr. Smith also chats with current cast members about their work, something you rarely see elsewhere. Says Mr. Hammond: “I'd been a loser. I graduated college with a 2.1 (grade point average). I hit .032 as a college baseball player ... and it seems so odd that Lorne would see me in a club and say, "Him! That guy!' ”

Chevy "discovered'

        Biography also talks to Mr. Michaels, Mr. Chase, Martin Short, Joe Piscopo, Cheri Oteri, Molly Shannon, Al Franken and Judith Belushi Pisano (John's widow).

        Mr. Michaels recalls how he “discovered” Mr. Chase when he overheard him “cutting up” while waiting to see a midnight showing of Monty Python's Holy Grail.

        Mr. Chase, who was writing for NBC's Smothers Brothers Show in 1975, was the only SNL staffer with TV writing experience the first season. A&E also shows a clip of Mr. Chase performing on stage with Mr. Belushi in National Lampoon's Lemmings.

        Mr. Michaels reveals that he had wanted to anchor the “Weekend Update” parody newscast. He instead chose Chevy, with one provision: That the comedian use his real name. (I'm Chevy Chase, and you're not!)

        “It's really because I said my own name once a week that ... I became so well-known, so fast, so famous, which unnerved Belushi,” Mr. Chase says in an interview.

        “Nobody could pronounce his (Belushi's) name, or spell Danny's (Aykroyd). They were the geniuses of the show, you know. So I just lucked out and became the first big (star),” he says.

Better with Belushi

        Mr. Chase tells Biography that leaving SNL after one year was a mistake. “I wish I hadn't left, but I did. I had to marry this girl I was in love with,” says the comedian, who may return to NBC this fall in a sitcom about a divorced dad with three daughters.

        Mr. Belushi and Mr. Aykroyd left in 1979, after four seasons, when their “Blues Brothers” act took off. That began the first of many creative slumps over the years.

        Mr. Franken, a writer and performer, recalls playing the son of a Roman warrior (Steve Martin), “the part John Belushi would have played,” in late 1979. ""I remember being on the air, playing this part, and thinking, "This would be so much better if Belushi was doing this!' ”

        Biography covers most — but not all — of the SNL's peaks and valleys. Mr. Franken talks about the drug use, which eventually killed Mr. Belushi and Chris Farley: “I'd always say, "It would be impossible to do the show we do and do drugs,' which was actually the opposite of the truth. But it sounded good.”

        Mr. Piscopo recalls the “Saturday Night Dead” year of 1980, when NBC replaced the original cast and Mr. Michaels: “It was America's most-loved television program, and we were ruining it.”

Missing in the middle

        Clips too quickly cover the middle years with Eddie Murphy, Mr. Short, Jon Lovitz, Mike Myers and Dennis Miller. Some SNL fans will be disappointed to see little or nothing of Phil Hartman, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Damon Wayans, Jim Belushi, Jay Mohr, Tim Meadows, Norm McDonald or Dana Carvey in “Wayne's World” or Church Lady sketches. (Who chose these clips? Could it be — Satan?)

        Personally, I was dismayed that original cast member Gilda Radner was brushed off by Biography in a couple of clips as Lisa Loopner and Emily Litella.

        Then I remembered that ABC will devote three hours to Ms. Radner next Monday. Gilda Radner's Greatest Moments airs at 8 p.m. (Channels 9, 2), followed by Gilda Radner: It's Always Something, a docudrama starring Jami Gertz.

        Never mind!

        E-mail jkiesewetter@enquirer.com. Past columns at www.enquirer.com/columns/kiese

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