What do you do when you’ve been called the “Hysterical Society” for a half-century? You grab the ball and run with it.

The Santa Clarita Valley Historical Society is celebrating its 50th anniversary on Saturday, March 7 with a gala at the Canyon Country Community Center called “SCVHS50: Live From Santa Clarita, It’s Saturday Night!” an homage to the award-winning NBC comedy show also launched in 1975.

The night promises a nontraditional format, with an original SNL-style show written around the critical elements of dinner, awards and an auction.

The musical guest will be the popular cover band The Funslingers and the host will be local celebrity emcee Ed Masterson.

The event also includes a gourmet dinner prepared by Wolf Creek Restaurant, signature cocktails and more.

Enjoy a trip down memory lane with trivia about local landmarks, reminisce about kooky news stories during Weekend Update and join the eager kids cheering on the History Club.

Tickets are available on the SCVHS website at www.scvhs.org and sponsorships are still available by calling (661) 254-1275.

Of course, the evening wouldn’t be possible without the producers, in this case, the sponsors, which include the city of Santa Clarita, the Magazine of Santa Clarita/Elite, the Rasmussen Family Foundation, the Valencia Auto Dealers, Santa Clarita Studios, the Fernandeño Tataviam Band of Mission Indians, Bob Walker, Jim Ventress, Pat and Guy Horanberg, Bouquet Auto Parts, the Taste Buds, Five Point Valencia, Alan Pollack, Tom Hough, the Val Verde Historical Society and Leon Worden.

The SCV Historical Society was founded to protect and preserve local history from being destroyed and forgotten. The first SCV Historical Soceity projects included saving the Southern Pacific train station in Saugus and moving it into Hart Park in 1980 and the designation of Mentryville and Pico No. 4 as California State Historical Landmarks.

The SCV Historical Society provided historical outreach programs and eventually moved seven more buildings into the park, as well as a steam locomotive donated by Gene Autry.

It developed curriculum for school tours, established an annual tour of the St. Francis Dam disaster site and hosted various community events to build awareness of the rich cultural and historic resources in the SCV.

More recently the Saugus Train Station Museum has been completely restored to the 1917-1959 era, when it was the busiest and is open for visitors on Saturdays from 1 to 4 p.m.

For more information on how the SCV Historical Society visit https://scvhs.org.