How featuring the rushed and imperfect work of brilliant, stressed-out comics made SNL a comedy bastion.

As the show gears up to celebrate its milestone, here are 12 moments over the past five decades when the show didn't just reflect pop culture — it drove it.

Jim Henson’s Muppets had a sketch and Andy Kaufman lip ... CNN coined the phrase the “Tina Fey Effect.” People actually did studies on the “Tina Fey Effect” after the 2008 election ...