“Special Investigations Unit – James Brown, Say it Proud” (7 p.m. and 10 p.m. today and Sunday, CNN) recalls the life, career and strange posthumous melodrama of James Brown. Correspondent Don Lemon narrates a rich variety of film and video clips about the “Godfather of Soul” and interviews fellow musicians, including Little Richard and Brown’s band members Bootsy Collins and Bobby Byrd.

Brown’s brutal origins seem the stuff of legend. According to family lore, he was born “dead,” and only when his aunt breathed into his baby lungs did he emit the first of many screams. Abandoned by his mother at a tender age, he was raised by an aunt in a brothel, where he learned to sing and dance for spare change. A seventh-grade dropout and petty thief, Brown would land in prison, where his musical talents where discovered.

According to “Say it Proud,” these early scars never faded. The early loss of his mother would result in turbulent and violent marriages. And Brown’s decades-long commitment to black pride, education and personal betterment was fueled by his enduring shame over being an unschooled, illiterate, motherless child.

Don Lemon jettisons the trappings of journalistic gravitas and objectivity to sing, and even dance, with his interview subjects, including pop singer Usher. Unlike many reverent profiles, “Proud” is not afraid to focus on the cruel, erratic and often weird sides of its subject. The Brown that emerges is forever contradictory and unique. He was a peacemaker who could calm a rioting crowd and go home and beat his wife; he was the progenitor of funk and a stern taskmaster who fined band members for wrinkled trousers; he could endorse Richard Nixon and anoint the Rev. Al Sharpton as his son and protege. He was an American original.

¢ “Saturday Night Live in the ’90s: Pop Culture Nation” (8 p.m. Sunday, NBC) offers viewers two hours of funny clips as well as a critical glance at an era marked by critical disdain, internal dissension and personal tragedy.

“SNL” began the ’90s on a high note. The “Wayne’s World” sketches and movie franchise gave the show a whole new audience, while the political atmosphere of the Gulf War, the Thomas/Hill hearings and the Clinton-Bush-Perot election provided endless material for absurd spoofs.

By mid-decade, the show was being critically savaged, and many writers wondered openly why it was still on the air. Yet this was the same time that the show featured Mike Myers, Adam Sandler and Will Ferrell, who would become movie stars in their own right.

“’90s” offers a wealth of interviews from cast members and writers. It doesn’t skirt controversy (the network’s decision to fire Norm MacDonald) or sadness (the deaths of Chris Farley and Phil Hartman).

So were the critics wrong? Or does “’90s” only prove that given a decade of material, one can cull a funny two-hour documentary? Like most “SNL” documentaries, this one emphasizes the fact that “SNL” endures because it endures.

Tonight’s highlights

¢ NASCAR racing live from Richmond, Va. (6 p.m., Fox).

Sunday’s highlights

¢ Scheduled on “60 Minutes” (6 p.m., CBS): a reformed terrorist; a Jackson Pollock controversy.