Fifty years ago, I suggested to my girlfriend’s parents that we all watch this hilarious new show called “Saturday Night Live.”

I tuned in this past Saturday, when NBC broadcast the show’s first episode. I wanted to see how cool I had been.

The episode didn’t even hold up that well 50 years ago. Comedian George Carlin, surrounded by the audience, got so few laughs during the third of his brief standup routines that he asked, “Have I already done these jokes?”

Expecting something from the 1970s to hold up today is like expecting something from the 1920s to have been good in the 1970s.

I watched all 3½ hours of the “SNL 50th Anniversary Special” on Sunday. That’s quite a marathon of TV for me, but it was hours well spent, based on the scant reviews that I read. It was highly regarded for not being a “best-of” retrospective.

The gala was a slinky-gown and cummerbund affair, thick with former cast members and hosts, such as Peyton Manning, Tom Hanks and Steve Martin.

Martin opened before being joined by former cast member John Mulaney, who noted that only two of the nearly 900 hosts have committed murder.

That Robert Blake and O.J. Simpson were acquitted did not interrupt my laughter. It also made me miss the days before social media, when people had to visit their local saloon to air their self-righteous, petty aggravations over a comedy bit.

Anyone with a social media account should have focused on the poignant, but seamlessly presented, black-and-white 1978 “SNL” skit in which John Belushi played his aged self, walking through a snowy cemetery eulogizing his fellow original cast members.

It was a bit haunting. At 33, Belushi was the first of them to die. But the decision to use the piece didn’t come off as maudlin. It simply showed Belushi’s eye-popping talent.

We got a glimpse of 87-year-old actor Jack Nicholson, who introduced Adam Sandler’s funny, “SNL” insider, stream-of-consciousness tune, which Sandler sang at least as well as Bob Dylan.

Yeah, Jack Nicholson is 87. Some of the even 50-something former cast members were looking old, despite makeup and having had “a little work done.”

I’m not sure that I need to be reminded that I’ve been around for the 50-year history of a TV show.

But the evening went fairly quick, especially compared to 50 years ago. We were 10 minutes into that episode when it was clear that my girlfriend’s parents were not “getting” “Saturday Night Live.”

That was a long night.