The untimely deaths of six cast members have prompted questions over whether

WHERE would the world of comedy be without Saturday Night Live ? The 23-year-old television institution might not be a household name outside America, but many of its stars truly are. When it comes to taking raw young comedians and turning them into major stars, SNL has been a one-programme Comedy Hall of Fame.

Among the celebrities who have cut their teeth on that nerve-racking, live 90 minutes of late Saturday night mayhem are early stars such as Dan Ackroyd, Eddie Murphy, Chevy Chase and Bill Murray, all the way through to today's generation of comic heroes - David Spade, Dana Carvey, Mike Myers, Chris Rock and Dennis Miller.

If that list seems incomplete, it is because there are several other comic geniuses who passed through the SNL school of laughter but, tragically, are no longer around.

When Blues Brothers funnyman John Belushi died in 1982 after a drink and drugs binge, he was the first SNL star to meet an untimely death. Others have passed away since. But when another SNL alumnus, Chris Farley - a tortured, self-destructive comic whirlwind in the Belushi mould - brought about his own early death last December, questions began to be asked about what was beginning to shape into a tragic SNL legacy.

Now, with last Thursday's violent shooting death of Phil Hartman, a regular on the programme for eight seasons, the questions have taken on a sense of urgency: quite simply, is Saturday Night Live jinxed? 'There is definitely a curse on the house of Saturday Night Live,' said Bob Thompson, director of the Centre for the Study of Popular Television at Syracuse University. 'The mortality percentage of that cast is getting to be fairly frightening.' Realistically, to speak of an SNL 'curse' because of the tragic deaths of a total of six members of its cast in a quarter of a century is not that logical; certainly, no more logical than talking of a rock n' roll curse on the famous pop stars who have died in car crashes or from drug overdoses.

But the comparison is not an idle one. While Saturday Night Live is not the wildest or most alternative show to emerge from national TV, the finest of its performers have been to comedy what some of the most famous pop stars have been to music - as daring and unpredictable as they are talented.