Jane Curtin Says She Cringed Watching Some of Her Early ‘SNL’ Work: ‘It Wasn’t Funny’ (Exclusive)

Some things only get better with age.

But one thing that did not, according to actress Jane Curtin? The first few seasons of Saturday Night Live, where she was an original cast member.

Curtin, 75, who’s currently starring in the movie Jules, tells PEOPLE exclusively that several years ago, she tried watching the earlier seasons of the late-night comedy sketch series with her family and was surprised by how unfunny it was.

“We were sent the five year compilation video of Saturday Night Live‘s first five years a few years ago, and I gave one to my daughter,” she says. “We were out visiting her daughter one Christmas, and her husband said, ‘Have you ever watched any of these? And I said, ‘God, I haven’t seen them in a long time.’ ”

Curtin continues, “He said, would you mind if we watch one? And I said, ‘No, great! Pick one!’ So we sat around the TV, and I had that sort of anticipatory, open-mouth grin that people have when they’re waiting for something to happen, that they know is going to be really great. And … it never happened. It wasn’t funny. Not one thing was funny. There was not one utterance of a laugh or a giggle.”

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That’s not to say Curtin thinks the show was actually bad.

“I think it was just one of those, you had to be there in the moment things,” she says. “That’s what happens with live TV, and with topical TV. It gets dated after a while. Remember, this was almost 50 years ago. But after we rewatched, I was like, ‘That really wasn’t a very good show. It was terrible!’ ”

Curtin says there are some sketches she still thinks are funny, including one of Dan Aykroyd’s most infamous. “See the Bassomatic, I still think it’s funny,” she explains.

But Curtin was surprised at which sketches became such big hits, like The Coneheads, where she was part of an alien family who had to try and fit on earth. Years later, the sketch, which first ran in 1976, became a feature-length film in 1993.

Paramount/courtesy Everett Collection

She also has fond memories of some of her favorite guest hosts. “There were some people who really got it, like Dick Benjamin, Buck Henry, and Steve Martin. First of all, you had to be really smart to be a good host, and the ones who kept coming back got the idea of it and they got the fun of it.”

She recalls that not everyone who hosted could handle the pace of things.

“There was an outline you had to follow, as far as time went and getting from point A to point B, and there were some hosts who just came from very different places and didn’t get it. I remember Walter Matthau — he just came from a very different place. We were in rehearsals, two days out from the live show, and he said, ‘Why isn’t anyone having fun around here?!”

Curtin adds, “There was a discipline to it — even though it looked like chaos!”

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