^"Lorne Michaels: Work done before Saturday Night". Yours to celebrate: CBC/Radio-Canada turns 75 in 2011. CBC. July 2011. Retrieved 2013-05-08. Michaels moved to Los Angeles in 1968 to work as a writer for Laugh-In and The Beautiful Phyllis Diller Show, but returned to Canada and CBC-TV to star in The Hart and Lorne Terrific Hour, which aired in the early-70s.
^ ab"Lorne Michaels (Transcript)". Here's the Thing. WNYC. January 30, 2012. Retrieved 2013-05-08. I got a call from the head of the CBC, asking what it would take to bring us back to do shows on television.... We were the stars of the bits and cast..., and there was, you know an ensemble and a musical guest. James Taylor was on one. Cat Stevens was on one...there was a real form then called variety and it was comedy variety and it had you know music and comedy, and we would perform in front of an audience but mostly it was built in the editing room in the way that Laugh-In was.