February 6, 2025 • 38 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, Scot Bertram and Christian Schneider of the podcast Wasn't That Special: 50 Years of SNL tell the story of how a reserved Canadian and a rag-tag group of unknown comedians from across the country created one of the longest-lasting and most important shows of all time.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
This is Lee Habib and this is our American Stories,
the show where America is the star and the American
people up next to the story of Saturday Night Live
for you to tell it is Scott, Bertram and Christian Schneider,
the hosts of the podcast Wasn't That Special Fifty Years
(00:30):
of SNL. Scott is also the general manager of Radio
Free Hillsdale, Take It Away, Scott.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
By By New York and Saturday Night.
Speaker 3 (00:43):
So the show is Saturday Nights.
Speaker 4 (00:45):
As the title indicates, it is live at eleven thirty
five Eastern. It is ninety minutes in length, produced and
written generally over the course of really less than a
week when you get down to it. That's part of
what makes it so interesting, dangerous, exciting.
Speaker 5 (01:00):
The phrase I heard Laurenius once was the show goes
on at eleven thirty nine because it's ready, but because
it's eleven thirty.
Speaker 4 (01:05):
Each show has a different guest host as involved as
he or she wants in the process. Guest hosts a
bit outstanding, Tom Hanks, Steve Martin, John Goodman, Free to.
Speaker 6 (01:16):
Be Back in New York host on Saturday Night Live
for my eleventh time.
Speaker 4 (01:20):
Varying hosts have been totally horrible.
Speaker 3 (01:22):
Who he's last? Yer, Stephen Sigall, Listen to me carefully.
Speaker 7 (01:26):
I don't want you to talk about anything to me anymore.
Speaker 3 (01:29):
I don't want you to say my name anymore.
Speaker 6 (01:31):
I ain't see you any movies.
Speaker 8 (01:32):
And what's the ePRO anywhere you look like link from
the mod Squad.
Speaker 4 (01:38):
You're gonna have most times two performances by a musical guest.
Occasionally with a huge star like a Paul Simon, Back
of the Day or Bruce Springsteen. They will do three
songs during the chorus of the night.
Speaker 3 (01:51):
There aren't a lot of rules.
Speaker 4 (01:53):
Well, one of the big rules, this is a Lorne rule,
is that what they do on the show are sketches,
not skits. Lauren said, children do skits. We do sketches
on Saturday Night Live. On a typical show, you're probably
going to have eight sketches and the length of a sketch.
Speaker 3 (02:15):
I mean.
Speaker 4 (02:15):
There are some seasons where you have a cold open,
which is the very first thing that happens on the
show before the opening montage. And we've had some cold
opens that have been like fifty seconds long. It's a
little short to be effective, but that's happened. We've had
some sketches, what was the the Carter sketch with the
nuclear fallout, in which Jimmy Carter is exposed to some
(02:36):
nuclear fallout at three Mile Island and he grows into
a giant.
Speaker 9 (02:41):
Mister President, you're glowing, don't touch me.
Speaker 10 (02:46):
I'm a nuclear engineer and I'm pretty wired right now.
Speaker 4 (02:51):
And that sketch was something ridiculous like fifteen or sixteen.
Speaker 3 (02:54):
That it's long.
Speaker 4 (02:55):
It worked, it was great, it was fantastic, but it
was really long. Most sketches are gonna land somewhere between
four minutes and seven minutes. That's a probably the sweet spot.
Does it have to deal with current events? Not necessarily?
Speaker 3 (03:08):
Can it?
Speaker 4 (03:09):
Absolutely? Here's it thing. Does it have to have an ending? No,
not necessarily. There are tons of classic sl sketches that
don't really end. They just stop, and that's okay. That's
the way that they write occasionally. So I don't think
there are a lot of rules in terms of what
that sketch looks like. As long as it is funny.
Is it gonna be two minutes or ten minutes? Well,
(03:30):
what's funny? Is it gonna have two cast members or
ten cast members, Well, what's funny?
Speaker 3 (03:35):
Who do we have available?
Speaker 4 (03:36):
Do we need to get extras into play some people
who who don't have a big enough cast.
Speaker 3 (03:40):
The only rule is be funny.
Speaker 7 (03:45):
And one of the benefits of having a show that
is both live and weekly is that it gets to
touch upon the topics of the week, for people to
sit there at home and say, oh my gosh, that
just happened three days ago, and now there's a guy
in a wig playing the president, whether it's a George
hw Bush sketch.
Speaker 11 (04:06):
None of us want more in that whole area out
over there. But as commander in Chafe, I'm ever cognizant
of my authority to launch a full scale orgy of
death there on the desert sand. Probably won't, But then again, I'm.
Speaker 7 (04:23):
I where he just said something a couple of days earlier,
and Diana Carvey turns it into a masterclass impersonation saying
exactly what happened?
Speaker 3 (04:38):
You know, that's funny.
Speaker 7 (04:40):
That's almost a great almanac of American history.
Speaker 4 (04:45):
Almost every show has a news segment right smack dab
in the middle of the show, where they are at
times writing jokes quite literally as the show is on
the air. There are stories of writers underneath the weekend
Update desk typing out jokes to hand to the can
update anchor who was on the air.
Speaker 7 (05:01):
The fact that it is live adds a dimension of
danger to it. You know, we can go back and
watch these episodes and you know in some episodes, Tim
Kazarinsky is acting with a monkey. Well, obviously nothing bad
happened because Tim Kazerinsky.
Speaker 12 (05:19):
Is still very much alive, but when you're watching the show.
Speaker 7 (05:21):
At the time, in nineteen eighty two, eighty three, whenever
it was, you.
Speaker 12 (05:26):
Don't know that.
Speaker 7 (05:27):
In fact, there are times during their practice runs where
the monkey kind of almost attacked Tim Kazerinski and there's
real danger involved. So the fact that there is the
danger on the air, you have sometimes some really edgy
comedians that you don't know what.
Speaker 12 (05:43):
They're going to say on live television.
Speaker 7 (05:45):
It just turns into this relevant and high wire act.
That's really what the show had going for it.
Speaker 4 (05:53):
There are three names you have to know at the
beginning of Saturday Night Live. Without any of the three people,
there would be no SNL. Herb Schlasser, president of NBC
at the time. Dick Eversoll, a twenty seven year old
in nineteen seventy five, who had spent nine months as
the director of weekend late night programming, and Lorne Michaels,
(06:15):
the first executive producer of the show.
Speaker 13 (06:19):
I don't think anybody encourages anybody to go into show
business because it generally doesn't work out well and it's
a hard life. I think I was probably on a
course to do something sensible. I think I would have
gone to law school.
Speaker 4 (06:31):
Probably this all started because NBC needed to find a
replacement for Johnny Carson reruns on Saturday nights. They would
run Johnny Carson reruns on Saturdays, and Johnny said, We're
not going to do that anymore, right, I don't want
you to dilute the market by playing more of my
shows on Saturdays.
Speaker 8 (06:51):
The King of Late Knight got his wish. NBC hired
twenty seven year old Dick Eversoll to come up with
a replacement for the Carson recas runs.
Speaker 14 (07:00):
I had no background in entertainment at all, and it
was my assignment. I had a year to roam around
the country and put together a comedy show. The show
was essentially to be whatever I came up with, and
if it had any kind of traction.
Speaker 15 (07:11):
They guaranteed it would stay on the air six months,
so they.
Speaker 8 (07:13):
Gave you six months.
Speaker 4 (07:14):
Yeah, and Lord Michaels is the name that sort of
rises to the top of a list as potential executive producers, and.
Speaker 15 (07:23):
He chose me, which was a very smart choice.
Speaker 1 (07:26):
And when we come back more of the story of
SNL here on Our American Stories. This is Lee Habib,
host of Our American Stories, the show where America is
the star and the American people. But we truly can't
do this show without you. Our shows will always be
free to listen to, but they're not free to make.
If you love what you hear, consider making a tax
(07:47):
deductible donation to our American Stories. Go to our American
Stories dot com, give a little, give a lot. That's
our American Stories dot com. And we return to our
(08:10):
American Stories and the story of Saturday Night Live. Telling
the story is Scott Bertram and Christian Schneider. You're also
hearing the voice of Lauren Michaels himself, the executive producer
of SNL, and others involved in the show's creation. Let's
get back to the story.
Speaker 4 (08:27):
You know, Lauren is an interesting guy. There are a
few things he's famous for.
Speaker 3 (08:33):
He always has fresh popcorn in his office. Always.
Speaker 4 (08:38):
There are assistants to Lorne Michaels whose only job is
to make sure he always has fresh popcorn at the ready.
He does not like firing people. In some cases, it's
almost as if he wants you to get tired of
it and quit, rather than he has to act to
fire someone. He's also very famous for making people wait
so that he has the upper hand in a conversation.
(09:00):
If you schedule a meeting with Lord, and you know
there's stories and books all over the place, expect to
be waiting two or three hours. He would just make
you wait in the hallway and continue out his business
and eventually talk to you when he was ready. I
wish there were a very in depth book at him
and what he's done on the show, because for many
people he is still something of an enigma.
Speaker 16 (09:21):
You don't like to talk about yourself, do you not?
Speaker 14 (09:23):
Much?
Speaker 17 (09:23):
Now?
Speaker 15 (09:24):
You're very private, very personal.
Speaker 13 (09:25):
I don't know how private I am, but I think
you know it's yeah.
Speaker 4 (09:34):
Dick Eversol is in charge of late night programming, and
Lord Michaels is the name that sort of rises to
the top of the list as potential executive producers.
Speaker 15 (09:44):
And he chose me, which was a very smart choice.
Speaker 4 (09:47):
And he took on this challenge of designing something from nothing.
Speaker 3 (09:52):
Michaels was thirty one.
Speaker 4 (09:54):
And he had worked in comedy for about seventy eight
years at this point. He had worked for Rowan and
Martin's Life in he had worked for The Phyllis Diller Show.
He had worked for CBC Radio in Canada.
Speaker 8 (10:07):
That's him on the left, playing straight man to a beef, and.
Speaker 3 (10:15):
That was important.
Speaker 4 (10:17):
Lorne knew not just what he wanted SNL to be,
but he also knew what he wanted SL.
Speaker 3 (10:23):
To not be.
Speaker 8 (10:25):
Writing for TV comedies surprised him. It wasn't much fun.
Speaker 15 (10:29):
Stop telling jokes.
Speaker 13 (10:30):
It's just that spirit, the goofiness, just the fun of
it was missing.
Speaker 7 (10:35):
What you had on those shows is a lot of
people really hamming it up. You know, Tim Conway and
Carol Burnett trying to make each other a crack. During sketches,
it'll be a little bit of pain and then numbness.
Speaker 3 (10:47):
Will set in.
Speaker 7 (10:50):
Basically you have them laughing at each other. Sometimes the
crowd comes along, but the sketches often devolve into just
silliness where everybody just completely goes off script. Lauren wanted
something completely different than that. He frowns upon really hamming
it up in sketches and trying to make each other break.
(11:11):
He thinks you're there to do your business, and he
didn't want that type of Carol Burnett type of comedy.
Speaker 8 (11:18):
Michael's envision to show more like Britain's moddy Python, groundbreaking,
unconventional and less predictable.
Speaker 4 (11:26):
Lord Michaels would say, I want to do a show
for the generation that grew up on TV, something that
was not in the mold of the comedy.
Speaker 3 (11:36):
Shows of the fifties and the sixties.
Speaker 8 (11:40):
He tried to communicate that to the suits at NBC.
Speaker 13 (11:43):
They listened to what I said, and I used all
the words that people use all the time, which were
like that it would be a little experimental, and.
Speaker 4 (11:50):
They wanted to have comedians on stand up comedians. They
didn't want to do interviews like they did on late
night shows.
Speaker 13 (11:56):
I knew that it would be a repertory company and
I need be a different host every week.
Speaker 3 (12:01):
So guest stars.
Speaker 4 (12:03):
At some point they considered having a rotating group of
three or four hosts and instead went with a different
host each week, essentially.
Speaker 15 (12:11):
And I knew that there'd be short films on it.
Speaker 4 (12:13):
They early on had contracted with Jim Henson to have
some of his muppets on board and a group of
young comedians to do these sketches, and we'll have music acts.
So as I describe it, it sounds like a variety comedy show,
which it was, but the difference was all in the
attitude and the attitude that Laurene wanted to bring to
(12:35):
the show.
Speaker 8 (12:37):
The network bought Michael's concept. They had no idea. They
had just agreed to host a revolution.
Speaker 13 (12:44):
Gear were running in Rockfeller Center at that point because
the city was going broke. There was nothing but space
available at thirty Rock.
Speaker 15 (12:50):
We looked at various places for offices and.
Speaker 13 (12:53):
Ended up on the seventeenth floor, and then I began
hiring people.
Speaker 4 (12:57):
NBC was not accustomed to people doing business the way
that Michaels and his staff did business lare. In fact,
when he was hiring for the show, one of the
only prerequisites he had was you could not have experience
on TV.
Speaker 8 (13:11):
NBC wanted Michaels to hire mainstream talent like impressionist Rich
Little and football star Joe Naman. Instead, Michael sought a
cast that more resembled the audience. He was trying to attract,
a group of disaffected baby boomers that became known as
the not Ready for Primetime Players.
Speaker 7 (13:32):
And so while you had all this going on at
the network level, the question becomes, well, where does the
talent come from? Where do we get the people that
are going to be on this show? They scoured the country.
In the early nineteen seventies, a countercultural publication named National
Lampoon started publishing.
Speaker 12 (13:52):
It was rough at first.
Speaker 7 (13:54):
Mattie Simmons I think the only publication that he had
actually produced before that time was like Women's underwear magazine
or something, And eventually National Lampoon branched out and began
doing radio shows and stage shows. One of the stage
shows was called Lemmings. They ended up with two college roommates,
(14:15):
one named Chevy Chase and one named Christopher Guest.
Speaker 13 (14:18):
I met Chevy on a line a thing called film X,
which was a sort of film festival in la waiting
to see the new Monty Python film.
Speaker 8 (14:27):
Michaels offered Chevy a job as a writer. Chevy wanted
to be a performer. They couldn't make.
Speaker 18 (14:33):
A deal, so I turned it down and started to
do a play with Paul lind and I just was
the wrong guy record, so I picked. I went to
a payphone only perhaps a day before I was to
be fired anyway, and called Laurena New York City.
Speaker 15 (14:47):
That offer still good and he said, yes, it is.
Speaker 8 (14:51):
Lemmings also featured a young Christopher guest.
Speaker 12 (14:54):
They ended up with a young man named John Belushi.
Speaker 8 (14:57):
Belushi wanted to be on Michael's new show, yet he
acted as though TV was somehow beneath him.
Speaker 13 (15:04):
He says, so, I know you're doing this television show,
and I said, yeah, we're doing and he says, you know,
I don't do television.
Speaker 15 (15:12):
There's nothing good on television.
Speaker 13 (15:15):
So I say, right, I mean, I certainly respect that,
but you know what I'm doing is a television show.
Speaker 15 (15:22):
So thanks for coming in. And he said, well, no,
I mean.
Speaker 13 (15:26):
You're going to be doing something different, and everybody says
that you're onto and I go, but I don't want
you to do me any favors.
Speaker 8 (15:32):
Michael's hired Belushi.
Speaker 7 (15:36):
So one of the best parts of the show is
that rarely do they take cast members who you had
actually heard of before. The show is basically in the
business of finding new American talent, and a lot of
that talent has gone on to be some of the
biggest names in American popular entertainment.
Speaker 12 (15:53):
And that's how it started off. At the beginning, nobody really.
Speaker 7 (15:55):
Knew who Gilda Radner was. Nobody knew who dan Aykroyd was.
He was some guy from Sel City in Toronto. John
Belushi wasn't a big name, but that really is it.
And Lauren Michaels for the entirety of this show has
been the primary talent evaluator, which is incredible.
Speaker 12 (16:11):
He still does it today. Lauren just has the eye.
He deserves all the credit.
Speaker 4 (16:15):
The other thing to note is if you watch the
first couple of seasons of this show, you will note
it is not called Saturday Night Live. It is called
NBC's Saturday Night That is because at the same time
NBC was launching this show, ABC was launching a different
show hosted by Howard Cosell, and ABC was first to
(16:38):
the post with the show and they called it, you
guessed it, Saturday Night Live. Interesting enough, there were a
number of future SNL cast members that we're on this
Saturday Night Live, including Brian Duel Murray, Christopher Guest, and
Bill Murray.
Speaker 3 (16:53):
Two.
Speaker 4 (16:54):
That show was a total flop and it was canceled
very quickly. And so two and a half three years
after the fact, they went to get Howard Cosel's permission,
which I think was more of a nicety than a
requirement to rebrand NBC's Saturday Night as officially Saturday Night Live.
Speaker 1 (17:17):
And you've been listening to Scott Bertram and Christian Schneider
tell the story of SNL and Lauren Michael's talent was
spotting talent, it turns out, and also creating this new
space where Carson reruns once existed, creating a variety show
that had a new kind of attitude that was appealing
(17:38):
to a new generation. When we come back more of
the story of SNL here on our American Stories, and
(18:08):
we returned to our American Stories and the story of SNL.
Let's pick up we last left off.
Speaker 3 (18:16):
Before we say goodbye again.
Speaker 17 (18:18):
My thanks to Jerry Lewis for sitting still for an
extended interview on this program. And as I said at
the outset of our broadcast tonight beginning on October the eleventh,
Saturday Night will open up a whole new live venture
from New York City, from Studio eight h And we
just happened to have mister Lauren Michael's with us, the
producer of Saturday Night, members of his company, and let's
spend a couple of minutes.
Speaker 3 (18:36):
Talking about your show. Lauren, I'd like to meet your gang.
Speaker 19 (18:39):
This is Kebby Chase.
Speaker 15 (18:42):
Were you named after the town in Maryland?
Speaker 3 (18:43):
Or is that your real's?
Speaker 15 (18:44):
My real name? I was named that two days after
I was born.
Speaker 13 (18:49):
Dan Aykroyd, Jane Curtain, Jane Scarrett, Morris, Kilda Radner, John Belushi,
and Lorraine.
Speaker 17 (18:58):
Will As every week doing improv or repertoire or how
does it work well?
Speaker 4 (19:06):
October eleventh, nineteen seventy five, the very first episode of SNL.
This show is way overbooked. They went through a dress rehearsal.
It's a ninety minute show. The dress rehearsal went for
three and a half hours, and so Lauren had to
go about the task of cutting things. George Carlin is
(19:27):
the guest post.
Speaker 17 (19:28):
The first host is George Coeorge, you probably will say
the seven words which cannot be set on television live.
Speaker 2 (19:35):
Yeah, there is a six second delay, but some of
those words have eight or nine letters.
Speaker 15 (19:41):
So you know the seven, don't you?
Speaker 3 (19:43):
That you can't say on television, big name.
Speaker 9 (19:50):
They asked me to be the first host, and I
knew that I was stepping a little out of my
world because it was sketch comedy. I really wasn't a
born actor. And I told Lawn Michaels on the first
Saturday Night Live and full of Cocaine that week, Full
of Cocaine just completely boxed, and I said to him
that I didn't want to be in the sketches. Let
(20:11):
me do a number of monologues. Let me instead of
doing a big opening monologue and then being in sketches,
let me do a lot of little monologues.
Speaker 14 (20:19):
And then he did.
Speaker 4 (20:21):
When you watched the first few episodes of Saturday Night Live,
it is barely recognizable to what you see today.
Speaker 3 (20:30):
What should we look for on your program?
Speaker 2 (20:32):
Anxiety?
Speaker 4 (20:34):
Yeah, or really what you'd see by the end of
season one. That's how quickly they began adjusting.
Speaker 16 (20:40):
We certainly didn't have our format for a while. God,
I would say seven or eight shows, and we had
the muppets.
Speaker 2 (20:49):
Jim Henson has put together a new batch, a whole
new group of Muppets, which are adult muppets and who
can stay up late.
Speaker 16 (20:57):
And I think the Muppets were there because Bernie Berlstein,
who manages also managed the Muppets.
Speaker 2 (21:02):
Albert Brooks has done a short film which is very funny.
Speaker 16 (21:05):
The tone of the show didn't fit in with puppets,
even though I love the Muppets, you.
Speaker 15 (21:12):
Know, Jesus, it must be something else so much.
Speaker 4 (21:14):
There are extremely few sketches involved in what they called
at that time but not ready for primetime players. The
cast of the show was not involved all that much
on the program.
Speaker 16 (21:26):
We had very little to do. I don't even remember
what I did. I think we were just bees, so
I had no lines.
Speaker 19 (21:35):
So when that first show ended that night, what did
you do after?
Speaker 16 (21:39):
There was a party at some dark restaurant and I
remember Paul Simon being there.
Speaker 4 (21:45):
And the second show is in essence a Simon and
Garfunkel reunion show. It's essentially a music special. It's around
this time, though you do see some elements of the
show start to creep in Belushi does his first Joe
Cocker impression. You also have the first recurring characters in
show history.
Speaker 3 (22:04):
The bees.
Speaker 4 (22:05):
The bees also do something that SNL would do frequently
throughout its time, which is breaking the fourth wall.
Speaker 3 (22:09):
With the audience.
Speaker 4 (22:10):
The bees are actually addressing us, and they're and something
else SNL does extremely well is taking what happens behind
the scenes at SNL and putting them in front of
everyone to see.
Speaker 8 (22:21):
Oh no, that's it, that's it, stop it now now.
Speaker 6 (22:24):
If you saw the first show, you saw what George
Colin The bees did not work, and then the second
show the bees were horrendous. How many times life to
say it, I don't want the damn bees.
Speaker 10 (22:34):
I'm sorry if you think we're ruining.
Speaker 20 (22:36):
Your show, mister Ryner, See, you don't understand.
Speaker 12 (22:41):
We didn't ask to be bees.
Speaker 4 (22:44):
The bees in this show are complaining because they're not
on the show enough, and the cast is upset. Well,
the cast was upset they weren't getting the time they
thought they wanted. They weren't getting the chance to develop.
And then you have episode four. That's when something clicks.
They found a great host.
Speaker 7 (23:02):
Candice Bergen. She shows up as a big movie star.
She's really the first host that is really down with
the program. She knows what the show is about. She
knows what the show could be, and she throws herself
completely into this new format form good evening.
Speaker 19 (23:20):
This is Kandice Bergen reporting from one of those little
third world countries, and I'm talking to the ruler of
that country, is Royal Highness King to Safuka. Listen, I
can't pronounce this name. Okay, here's your pin back. Allow
me to just stick it up your nose.
Speaker 8 (23:43):
Why would you think I would want pendon nose?
Speaker 7 (23:46):
It's really when you start to see more sketches, fewer
taped bits. And then at some point she introduces a
young comedian.
Speaker 19 (23:57):
Boys and girls, this is a man that I love
very much. Genius comes to mind, but I will let
you decide for yourselves.
Speaker 12 (24:03):
And his name is Andy Kaufman.
Speaker 10 (24:07):
Right now, I would like to do for you some imitations.
Speaker 6 (24:13):
So first.
Speaker 10 (24:16):
I would like to imitate Archie Bunker. You stop it.
You are so stupid. Everybody stop it. Get get out
of my chair, meet head. You got in the thing,
but get into the kitchen making the food. And every
(24:39):
everybody is stupid. I don't like nobody. It's so stupid,
Thank you very much.
Speaker 7 (24:48):
Virtually everything that he does is genius, and it's something
that people at home had not seen on television. You
couldn't see this stuff anywhere else on television.
Speaker 4 (24:58):
The Burgen episode is all so important because it's the
first time that chevy Chase on weekend updates.
Speaker 8 (25:03):
Says, good evening, I'm chevy Chase.
Speaker 3 (25:09):
I'm chevy Chase, and you are not.
Speaker 4 (25:11):
Also important, it's the first time that chevy Chase plays
Gerald Ford. First time SNL really delves into political humor.
Speaker 13 (25:18):
Chevy's did this thing that could make me laugh more
than anything, which.
Speaker 15 (25:22):
Was he'd fall, but he'd fall in.
Speaker 13 (25:24):
A restaurant he could take out you know, you could
take out a table.
Speaker 15 (25:28):
He was just brilliant doing it.
Speaker 13 (25:29):
Then somehow Ford fell, and then somehow Chevy became Gerald Ford.
Speaker 21 (25:36):
A final Christmas tree ornament on the trade.
Speaker 7 (25:43):
No problem.
Speaker 4 (25:46):
The first time that you could say that SNL is
impacting culture, SNL is satirizing Gerald Ford pretty hard. Chevy
Chase playing him as a dunce can't walk down the
hall without crackushing into a wall.
Speaker 3 (26:01):
There's a story about Al.
Speaker 4 (26:03):
Franken running into Ron Nesson, who is the Press secretary
for President Ford, and there's an idea in the White
House and Ron Nesson that says, if we go on
the show and laugh at ourselves and show we're in
on the joke, it will blunt the effectiveness of this
humor because they could feel that what SNL was doing
(26:23):
was having an effect on how Americans were viewing the president.
And Ron Nesson comes on to host fear in the
White House was that they were going to do a
show that was hyper critical of the president. They were
going to make fun of the president in front of
the president's guy, and that's not what happened. Instead, what
SNL did was put on the crassest, grossest comedy that
(26:48):
they could come up with. They're literally pureing a fish
live on television. It was a different kind of counter culture.
That Nesson episode is the first time when you see
this dreams cross so to speak, comedy, politics, culture.
Speaker 1 (27:07):
And you've been listening to Scott Bertram and Christian Schneider
telling the story of SNL with all kinds of voices
in between, some you know, some you may not. When
we come back more of this remarkable story, the story
of Saturday Night Live here on our American story, and
(27:37):
we returned to our American stories and the story of
SNL telling it or Scott Bertram and Christian Schneider, host
of the podcast, Wasn't that special? Fifty years of SNL.
Let's get back to the story.
Speaker 4 (27:55):
This was not a ratings smash hit. At the beginning.
The first show was a twenty three share. The Bergen Show,
while Great, was a sixteen share. Now remember you have
essentially three networks at this time, So if NBC's got
a sixteen share, that means ABC and CBS are combining
for an eighty four share. So those numbers are bad.
NBC was losing a lot of money on SNL in
(28:18):
the beginning of that.
Speaker 3 (28:19):
First season, but there were bright spots.
Speaker 8 (28:23):
It was raw, immediate, unpredictable. The culture of America's baby
boomers had finally found its way to TV. The revolution
was being televised.
Speaker 4 (28:34):
Seventy five percent of SNL viewers were between the ages
of eighteen and forty nine, the largest percentage of those
viewers of any show on television.
Speaker 22 (28:45):
I think that generally when people talk about the best cast,
I think, well, that's when they were in high school.
Because in high school you have the least amount of
power you're ever going to have. You don't get to drive,
you don't have any money, staying up with friends later
on a Saturday is great attached to a cast.
Speaker 4 (29:01):
And everyone associated with SNL at that time acted as
if success was guaranteed. It was going to happen. The
people aren't with us now, but they will be. Called
it a manifest destiny hit. If we just keep doing
what we're doing, the people will find us and will
love us. This show is going to be a hit.
That's how everyone carried themselves, even in the early going.
Speaker 22 (29:24):
The show stands on their shoulders. They were them and
every aspect of the taste of the show came from
really seriously creative people.
Speaker 2 (29:35):
It's like you put it in the room, these writers
and cast members and they're all nuts, and you know
that you're crazy, and everyone's nuts, and you say you're crazy.
Speaker 15 (29:42):
I know you are too.
Speaker 12 (29:44):
There is no manual on how to write for SNL.
Speaker 7 (29:47):
You're basically thrown in the deep end and they hand you.
In the old days, he used to hand you a
pad and a pencil and say start writing.
Speaker 4 (29:56):
The writer's room is, by all accounts, is insanely competitive.
You were competing.
Speaker 3 (30:02):
For a ninety minutes a week.
Speaker 4 (30:05):
But when you take out commercials, you take out weekend Update,
you take out the musical performances. There are seven or
eight spots in which you are fighting for, and there
are legendary stories about people trying to submarine each other's sketches.
Maybe not laugh at a sketch in the read through
if you don't want it to hit the air because
you're competing for airtime.
Speaker 20 (30:26):
I'd say the first two years I was there, I
had a difficult time pitching my skits. I would be
very terrified that it would get the idea I thought
was so great. I would get shut down in the
room and there was no getting out of it. If
sometimes when you would pitch something on a Monday and
nobody laughed, I would have a bad spin on it already.
Speaker 4 (30:49):
And this gets especially dire in years when there are
a huge number of cast members at a huge number
of writers. But generally through the course of the week
it moves incredibly quickly. By Monday, you've got to put
the Saturday show behind you. There's a meeting with the
host of the afternoon late afternoon, and someone said, this
(31:10):
is the meeting in which you lie to the host
and say the show's going to be great because we
have all these ideas, but in fact you have nothing.
Speaker 23 (31:17):
It's a little schizophrenic in the sense that you can
have a tremendously successful Saturday night, everything's gone great, and
then you go to the party and you feel great,
and then you hip. You know, you're in New York,
and by Monday night, if you don't have anything, you're
reading a panic because you don't have any ideas.
Speaker 8 (31:34):
Finding out what's funny is often a matter of trial
and error writer and cast members in a search for silliness.
Speaker 4 (31:41):
Tuesday, the writers begin to bounce ideas. Sometimes they'll write alone,
sometimes they'll team up. Generally there are a lot of
two person written sketches. More than that, not so much.
But Tuesday's the writing day because by Wednesday you've got
to do read throughs. So Tuesday's the day you're writing.
Speaker 8 (32:00):
Every writer and cast member is expected to have at
least one idea.
Speaker 4 (32:04):
A lot of people will spend all nighters from Tuesday
into Wednesday writing, rewriting, getting things set for the Wednesday
read through.
Speaker 23 (32:12):
To me, it's like, you know, like final exams every week.
Speaker 4 (32:17):
It's that intense, and there are legendary stories about what
fuels those Tuesday all nighters.
Speaker 6 (32:24):
I always say it would be impossible to do the
kind of show we do week after week and do drugs,
which actually was the opposite of the truth.
Speaker 3 (32:38):
Yeah, but it sounded. So the read through is on Wednesday.
Speaker 4 (32:44):
By midday or so, you begin to have to make
some choices about what they think they're going to use
on the show because.
Speaker 3 (32:50):
You've got to get scripts ready.
Speaker 4 (32:52):
Q cards have to be written, right, because the Q
cards are written during the live show. You have to
get sets created built for all these different sketches and
find out where they're going to go and how you're
going to transition in a three minute commercial break from
one thing to another.
Speaker 21 (33:08):
And then you do address rehearsal, which is the first
time the three four hundred people come in and see it.
Speaker 3 (33:15):
But there are changes happening all the time.
Speaker 21 (33:18):
Whatever you thought, if they disagree, they're right, So we
will readjust from that. Things that you thought were sure
fired don't play.
Speaker 22 (33:29):
And a lot of it is placement where they were
in the show, like if it's a harder piece, if
you play it early, it probably won't work, and so
it's where you play things running order and also topicality.
Speaker 4 (33:47):
Cue cards are being rewritten all the time. Again that
famous Lauren quote. The show doesn't go on because it's ready.
The show goes on because it is.
Speaker 3 (33:54):
Eleven thirty five.
Speaker 13 (33:56):
In most things, people say, can I do it again?
I like to try that one more time. I think
I do a better job. Well, there's none of that
with us. The moment you're doing it, the audience is
seeing it, and it's real, and there's jeopardy, and that
leads to people being better than we have any right
to expect.
Speaker 4 (34:17):
The show's Saturday night in a Sunday morning, you recover
by Monday. You're writing to have things ready by Wednesday
already and doing it twenty or twenty two times a year.
Speaker 8 (34:27):
Lauren Michael still controls the show he invented.
Speaker 4 (34:32):
He is still as involved as ever in the production
and direction of the show. STL's voice is Lauren's voice.
Speaker 15 (34:41):
I've heard a lot of words associated with you.
Speaker 3 (34:44):
I'm gonna throw a couple of the match. Sure, give
me a yes or no.
Speaker 22 (34:47):
I'm okay, youthful, handsome, youthful, yes, controlling, controlling, you know,
sort of has a negative.
Speaker 15 (34:58):
Contest. I'd say in charge.
Speaker 4 (35:01):
He is the one who chooses the hosts, He is
the one who chooses which sketches make it on and
which don't make it. He is the one who makes
the last second changes based on what works in dress
rehearsal and what doesn't.
Speaker 5 (35:13):
He's kind of always just encouraged whatever ideas I've had,
but he also kind of keeps it a little bit
of a distance too, which I think he wants to maintain.
Speaker 18 (35:25):
That a little bit, you know.
Speaker 8 (35:27):
So he's not like your daddy.
Speaker 3 (35:29):
Now, He's He's kind of like the principle a.
Speaker 22 (35:32):
Little bit here. It's a very clear thing. We have
a job to do, and we have to get it done.
And I think structure is incredibly important to creative people.
Speaker 15 (35:41):
I think boundaries and structure have to exist.
Speaker 4 (35:44):
You will hear many many SNL alums with their own
variation of the Lorne Michael's impression. Doctor Evil in the
Austin Powers movies largely is based on a Lorne Michael's impression.
Speaker 7 (35:58):
All to get a I've just switched knock knock, Who's
thatsh Let me tell you a little story about a
man named Shit.
Speaker 3 (36:07):
It's very weird.
Speaker 4 (36:09):
The show is so hot. The show is loud, abrasive,
and laurne he's Canadian. I don't know how much that
has to play into it, but Lauren is very detached
and perhaps maybe aloof but there's no doubt that what
he's done has worked.
Speaker 3 (36:25):
Now for nearly fifty years.
Speaker 4 (36:27):
He is snl Its legacy is affecting American comedy at
a granular level for the better part of fifty years,
and its legacy is tied, I think intricately with Lorne Michaels. Clearly,
Lauren's been there for by the time season fifty happens,
(36:49):
forty five of the fifty seasons of the show. It's
an incredible amount of longevity with one show, especially for
a guy who is not the first person someone would
think of when they think of st Olt. There's nothing
like it. There hasn't been anything like it. It it's
fifty years on the air, and look, you'll never see
anything like it again. I think about all that has
(37:12):
to go in to create a live show like this
on a weekly basis, the chances NBC had to take
to allow a live show like this on the air.
If the trust they had been Lauren Michaels to produce
the show every week live on Saturday nights, and you
will never see something like this again.
Speaker 15 (37:28):
But I don't think it was ever that revolutionary. It
just looked different. It was fashion. You know, we were
a comedy show.
Speaker 13 (37:34):
You know, there were jokes that people remember, and there
were thousands of jokes that they don't remember because they
didn't work. You know, there's we had an impact.
Speaker 15 (37:42):
Because we were first.
Speaker 13 (37:44):
I think you could only be first once, and you
can only have that experience once. I think if we
were still doing, if we were still revolutionary the way
we were in the seventies, we'd be some on some
oldies tour and.
Speaker 1 (37:57):
A terrific job on the production, editing and stary sorry
telling by our own Montay Montgomery and his special thanks
to Scott Bertram and Christian Schneider. They're the hosts of
the podcast, Wasn't That Special? Fifty years of SNL. The
story of SNL Here on our American Stories
This is Lee Habib and this is our American Stories,
the show where America is the star and the American
people up next to the story of Saturday Night Live
for you to tell it is Scott, Bertram and Christian Schneider,
the hosts of the podcast Wasn't That Special Fifty Years
(00:30):
of SNL. Scott is also the general manager of Radio
Free Hillsdale, Take It Away, Scott.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
By By New York and Saturday Night.
Speaker 3 (00:43):
So the show is Saturday Nights.
Speaker 4 (00:45):
As the title indicates, it is live at eleven thirty
five Eastern. It is ninety minutes in length, produced and
written generally over the course of really less than a
week when you get down to it. That's part of
what makes it so interesting, dangerous, exciting.
Speaker 5 (01:00):
The phrase I heard Laurenius once was the show goes
on at eleven thirty nine because it's ready, but because
it's eleven thirty.
Speaker 4 (01:05):
Each show has a different guest host as involved as
he or she wants in the process. Guest hosts a
bit outstanding, Tom Hanks, Steve Martin, John Goodman, Free to.
Speaker 6 (01:16):
Be Back in New York host on Saturday Night Live
for my eleventh time.
Speaker 4 (01:20):
Varying hosts have been totally horrible.
Speaker 3 (01:22):
Who he's last? Yer, Stephen Sigall, Listen to me carefully.
Speaker 7 (01:26):
I don't want you to talk about anything to me anymore.
Speaker 3 (01:29):
I don't want you to say my name anymore.
Speaker 6 (01:31):
I ain't see you any movies.
Speaker 8 (01:32):
And what's the ePRO anywhere you look like link from
the mod Squad.
Speaker 4 (01:38):
You're gonna have most times two performances by a musical guest.
Occasionally with a huge star like a Paul Simon, Back
of the Day or Bruce Springsteen. They will do three
songs during the chorus of the night.
Speaker 3 (01:51):
There aren't a lot of rules.
Speaker 4 (01:53):
Well, one of the big rules, this is a Lorne rule,
is that what they do on the show are sketches,
not skits. Lauren said, children do skits. We do sketches
on Saturday Night Live. On a typical show, you're probably
going to have eight sketches and the length of a sketch.
Speaker 3 (02:15):
I mean.
Speaker 4 (02:15):
There are some seasons where you have a cold open,
which is the very first thing that happens on the
show before the opening montage. And we've had some cold
opens that have been like fifty seconds long. It's a
little short to be effective, but that's happened. We've had
some sketches, what was the the Carter sketch with the
nuclear fallout, in which Jimmy Carter is exposed to some
(02:36):
nuclear fallout at three Mile Island and he grows into
a giant.
Speaker 9 (02:41):
Mister President, you're glowing, don't touch me.
Speaker 10 (02:46):
I'm a nuclear engineer and I'm pretty wired right now.
Speaker 4 (02:51):
And that sketch was something ridiculous like fifteen or sixteen.
Speaker 3 (02:54):
That it's long.
Speaker 4 (02:55):
It worked, it was great, it was fantastic, but it
was really long. Most sketches are gonna land somewhere between
four minutes and seven minutes. That's a probably the sweet spot.
Does it have to deal with current events? Not necessarily?
Speaker 3 (03:08):
Can it?
Speaker 4 (03:09):
Absolutely? Here's it thing. Does it have to have an ending? No,
not necessarily. There are tons of classic sl sketches that
don't really end. They just stop, and that's okay. That's
the way that they write occasionally. So I don't think
there are a lot of rules in terms of what
that sketch looks like. As long as it is funny.
Is it gonna be two minutes or ten minutes? Well,
(03:30):
what's funny? Is it gonna have two cast members or
ten cast members, Well, what's funny?
Speaker 3 (03:35):
Who do we have available?
Speaker 4 (03:36):
Do we need to get extras into play some people
who who don't have a big enough cast.
Speaker 3 (03:40):
The only rule is be funny.
Speaker 7 (03:45):
And one of the benefits of having a show that
is both live and weekly is that it gets to
touch upon the topics of the week, for people to
sit there at home and say, oh my gosh, that
just happened three days ago, and now there's a guy
in a wig playing the president, whether it's a George
hw Bush sketch.
Speaker 11 (04:06):
None of us want more in that whole area out
over there. But as commander in Chafe, I'm ever cognizant
of my authority to launch a full scale orgy of
death there on the desert sand. Probably won't, But then again, I'm.
Speaker 7 (04:23):
I where he just said something a couple of days earlier,
and Diana Carvey turns it into a masterclass impersonation saying
exactly what happened?
Speaker 3 (04:38):
You know, that's funny.
Speaker 7 (04:40):
That's almost a great almanac of American history.
Speaker 4 (04:45):
Almost every show has a news segment right smack dab
in the middle of the show, where they are at
times writing jokes quite literally as the show is on
the air. There are stories of writers underneath the weekend
Update desk typing out jokes to hand to the can
update anchor who was on the air.
Speaker 7 (05:01):
The fact that it is live adds a dimension of
danger to it. You know, we can go back and
watch these episodes and you know in some episodes, Tim
Kazarinsky is acting with a monkey. Well, obviously nothing bad
happened because Tim Kazerinsky.
Speaker 12 (05:19):
Is still very much alive, but when you're watching the show.
Speaker 7 (05:21):
At the time, in nineteen eighty two, eighty three, whenever
it was, you.
Speaker 12 (05:26):
Don't know that.
Speaker 7 (05:27):
In fact, there are times during their practice runs where
the monkey kind of almost attacked Tim Kazerinski and there's
real danger involved. So the fact that there is the
danger on the air, you have sometimes some really edgy
comedians that you don't know what.
Speaker 12 (05:43):
They're going to say on live television.
Speaker 7 (05:45):
It just turns into this relevant and high wire act.
That's really what the show had going for it.
Speaker 4 (05:53):
There are three names you have to know at the
beginning of Saturday Night Live. Without any of the three people,
there would be no SNL. Herb Schlasser, president of NBC
at the time. Dick Eversoll, a twenty seven year old
in nineteen seventy five, who had spent nine months as
the director of weekend late night programming, and Lorne Michaels,
(06:15):
the first executive producer of the show.
Speaker 13 (06:19):
I don't think anybody encourages anybody to go into show
business because it generally doesn't work out well and it's
a hard life. I think I was probably on a
course to do something sensible. I think I would have
gone to law school.
Speaker 4 (06:31):
Probably this all started because NBC needed to find a
replacement for Johnny Carson reruns on Saturday nights. They would
run Johnny Carson reruns on Saturdays, and Johnny said, We're
not going to do that anymore, right, I don't want
you to dilute the market by playing more of my
shows on Saturdays.
Speaker 8 (06:51):
The King of Late Knight got his wish. NBC hired
twenty seven year old Dick Eversoll to come up with
a replacement for the Carson recas runs.
Speaker 14 (07:00):
I had no background in entertainment at all, and it
was my assignment. I had a year to roam around
the country and put together a comedy show. The show
was essentially to be whatever I came up with, and
if it had any kind of traction.
Speaker 15 (07:11):
They guaranteed it would stay on the air six months,
so they.
Speaker 8 (07:13):
Gave you six months.
Speaker 4 (07:14):
Yeah, and Lord Michaels is the name that sort of
rises to the top of a list as potential executive producers, and.
Speaker 15 (07:23):
He chose me, which was a very smart choice.
Speaker 1 (07:26):
And when we come back more of the story of
SNL here on Our American Stories. This is Lee Habib,
host of Our American Stories, the show where America is
the star and the American people. But we truly can't
do this show without you. Our shows will always be
free to listen to, but they're not free to make.
If you love what you hear, consider making a tax
(07:47):
deductible donation to our American Stories. Go to our American
Stories dot com, give a little, give a lot. That's
our American Stories dot com. And we return to our
(08:10):
American Stories and the story of Saturday Night Live. Telling
the story is Scott Bertram and Christian Schneider. You're also
hearing the voice of Lauren Michaels himself, the executive producer
of SNL, and others involved in the show's creation. Let's
get back to the story.
Speaker 4 (08:27):
You know, Lauren is an interesting guy. There are a
few things he's famous for.
Speaker 3 (08:33):
He always has fresh popcorn in his office. Always.
Speaker 4 (08:38):
There are assistants to Lorne Michaels whose only job is
to make sure he always has fresh popcorn at the ready.
He does not like firing people. In some cases, it's
almost as if he wants you to get tired of
it and quit, rather than he has to act to
fire someone. He's also very famous for making people wait
so that he has the upper hand in a conversation.
(09:00):
If you schedule a meeting with Lord, and you know
there's stories and books all over the place, expect to
be waiting two or three hours. He would just make
you wait in the hallway and continue out his business
and eventually talk to you when he was ready. I
wish there were a very in depth book at him
and what he's done on the show, because for many
people he is still something of an enigma.
Speaker 16 (09:21):
You don't like to talk about yourself, do you not?
Speaker 14 (09:23):
Much?
Speaker 17 (09:23):
Now?
Speaker 15 (09:24):
You're very private, very personal.
Speaker 13 (09:25):
I don't know how private I am, but I think
you know it's yeah.
Speaker 4 (09:34):
Dick Eversol is in charge of late night programming, and
Lord Michaels is the name that sort of rises to
the top of the list as potential executive producers.
Speaker 15 (09:44):
And he chose me, which was a very smart choice.
Speaker 4 (09:47):
And he took on this challenge of designing something from nothing.
Speaker 3 (09:52):
Michaels was thirty one.
Speaker 4 (09:54):
And he had worked in comedy for about seventy eight
years at this point. He had worked for Rowan and
Martin's Life in he had worked for The Phyllis Diller Show.
He had worked for CBC Radio in Canada.
Speaker 8 (10:07):
That's him on the left, playing straight man to a beef, and.
Speaker 3 (10:15):
That was important.
Speaker 4 (10:17):
Lorne knew not just what he wanted SNL to be,
but he also knew what he wanted SL.
Speaker 3 (10:23):
To not be.
Speaker 8 (10:25):
Writing for TV comedies surprised him. It wasn't much fun.
Speaker 15 (10:29):
Stop telling jokes.
Speaker 13 (10:30):
It's just that spirit, the goofiness, just the fun of
it was missing.
Speaker 7 (10:35):
What you had on those shows is a lot of
people really hamming it up. You know, Tim Conway and
Carol Burnett trying to make each other a crack. During sketches,
it'll be a little bit of pain and then numbness.
Speaker 3 (10:47):
Will set in.
Speaker 7 (10:50):
Basically you have them laughing at each other. Sometimes the
crowd comes along, but the sketches often devolve into just
silliness where everybody just completely goes off script. Lauren wanted
something completely different than that. He frowns upon really hamming
it up in sketches and trying to make each other break.
(11:11):
He thinks you're there to do your business, and he
didn't want that type of Carol Burnett type of comedy.
Speaker 8 (11:18):
Michael's envision to show more like Britain's moddy Python, groundbreaking,
unconventional and less predictable.
Speaker 4 (11:26):
Lord Michaels would say, I want to do a show
for the generation that grew up on TV, something that
was not in the mold of the comedy.
Speaker 3 (11:36):
Shows of the fifties and the sixties.
Speaker 8 (11:40):
He tried to communicate that to the suits at NBC.
Speaker 13 (11:43):
They listened to what I said, and I used all
the words that people use all the time, which were
like that it would be a little experimental, and.
Speaker 4 (11:50):
They wanted to have comedians on stand up comedians. They
didn't want to do interviews like they did on late
night shows.
Speaker 13 (11:56):
I knew that it would be a repertory company and
I need be a different host every week.
Speaker 3 (12:01):
So guest stars.
Speaker 4 (12:03):
At some point they considered having a rotating group of
three or four hosts and instead went with a different
host each week, essentially.
Speaker 15 (12:11):
And I knew that there'd be short films on it.
Speaker 4 (12:13):
They early on had contracted with Jim Henson to have
some of his muppets on board and a group of
young comedians to do these sketches, and we'll have music acts.
So as I describe it, it sounds like a variety comedy show,
which it was, but the difference was all in the
attitude and the attitude that Laurene wanted to bring to
(12:35):
the show.
Speaker 8 (12:37):
The network bought Michael's concept. They had no idea. They
had just agreed to host a revolution.
Speaker 13 (12:44):
Gear were running in Rockfeller Center at that point because
the city was going broke. There was nothing but space
available at thirty Rock.
Speaker 15 (12:50):
We looked at various places for offices and.
Speaker 13 (12:53):
Ended up on the seventeenth floor, and then I began
hiring people.
Speaker 4 (12:57):
NBC was not accustomed to people doing business the way
that Michaels and his staff did business lare. In fact,
when he was hiring for the show, one of the
only prerequisites he had was you could not have experience
on TV.
Speaker 8 (13:11):
NBC wanted Michaels to hire mainstream talent like impressionist Rich
Little and football star Joe Naman. Instead, Michael sought a
cast that more resembled the audience. He was trying to attract,
a group of disaffected baby boomers that became known as
the not Ready for Primetime Players.
Speaker 7 (13:32):
And so while you had all this going on at
the network level, the question becomes, well, where does the
talent come from? Where do we get the people that
are going to be on this show? They scoured the country.
In the early nineteen seventies, a countercultural publication named National
Lampoon started publishing.
Speaker 12 (13:52):
It was rough at first.
Speaker 7 (13:54):
Mattie Simmons I think the only publication that he had
actually produced before that time was like Women's underwear magazine
or something, And eventually National Lampoon branched out and began
doing radio shows and stage shows. One of the stage
shows was called Lemmings. They ended up with two college roommates,
(14:15):
one named Chevy Chase and one named Christopher Guest.
Speaker 13 (14:18):
I met Chevy on a line a thing called film X,
which was a sort of film festival in la waiting
to see the new Monty Python film.
Speaker 8 (14:27):
Michaels offered Chevy a job as a writer. Chevy wanted
to be a performer. They couldn't make.
Speaker 18 (14:33):
A deal, so I turned it down and started to
do a play with Paul lind and I just was
the wrong guy record, so I picked. I went to
a payphone only perhaps a day before I was to
be fired anyway, and called Laurena New York City.
Speaker 15 (14:47):
That offer still good and he said, yes, it is.
Speaker 8 (14:51):
Lemmings also featured a young Christopher guest.
Speaker 12 (14:54):
They ended up with a young man named John Belushi.
Speaker 8 (14:57):
Belushi wanted to be on Michael's new show, yet he
acted as though TV was somehow beneath him.
Speaker 13 (15:04):
He says, so, I know you're doing this television show,
and I said, yeah, we're doing and he says, you know,
I don't do television.
Speaker 15 (15:12):
There's nothing good on television.
Speaker 13 (15:15):
So I say, right, I mean, I certainly respect that,
but you know what I'm doing is a television show.
Speaker 15 (15:22):
So thanks for coming in. And he said, well, no,
I mean.
Speaker 13 (15:26):
You're going to be doing something different, and everybody says
that you're onto and I go, but I don't want
you to do me any favors.
Speaker 8 (15:32):
Michael's hired Belushi.
Speaker 7 (15:36):
So one of the best parts of the show is
that rarely do they take cast members who you had
actually heard of before. The show is basically in the
business of finding new American talent, and a lot of
that talent has gone on to be some of the
biggest names in American popular entertainment.
Speaker 12 (15:53):
And that's how it started off. At the beginning, nobody really.
Speaker 7 (15:55):
Knew who Gilda Radner was. Nobody knew who dan Aykroyd was.
He was some guy from Sel City in Toronto. John
Belushi wasn't a big name, but that really is it.
And Lauren Michaels for the entirety of this show has
been the primary talent evaluator, which is incredible.
Speaker 12 (16:11):
He still does it today. Lauren just has the eye.
He deserves all the credit.
Speaker 4 (16:15):
The other thing to note is if you watch the
first couple of seasons of this show, you will note
it is not called Saturday Night Live. It is called
NBC's Saturday Night That is because at the same time
NBC was launching this show, ABC was launching a different
show hosted by Howard Cosell, and ABC was first to
(16:38):
the post with the show and they called it, you
guessed it, Saturday Night Live. Interesting enough, there were a
number of future SNL cast members that we're on this
Saturday Night Live, including Brian Duel Murray, Christopher Guest, and
Bill Murray.
Speaker 3 (16:53):
Two.
Speaker 4 (16:54):
That show was a total flop and it was canceled
very quickly. And so two and a half three years
after the fact, they went to get Howard Cosel's permission,
which I think was more of a nicety than a
requirement to rebrand NBC's Saturday Night as officially Saturday Night Live.
Speaker 1 (17:17):
And you've been listening to Scott Bertram and Christian Schneider
tell the story of SNL and Lauren Michael's talent was
spotting talent, it turns out, and also creating this new
space where Carson reruns once existed, creating a variety show
that had a new kind of attitude that was appealing
(17:38):
to a new generation. When we come back more of
the story of SNL here on our American Stories, and
(18:08):
we returned to our American Stories and the story of SNL.
Let's pick up we last left off.
Speaker 3 (18:16):
Before we say goodbye again.
Speaker 17 (18:18):
My thanks to Jerry Lewis for sitting still for an
extended interview on this program. And as I said at
the outset of our broadcast tonight beginning on October the eleventh,
Saturday Night will open up a whole new live venture
from New York City, from Studio eight h And we
just happened to have mister Lauren Michael's with us, the
producer of Saturday Night, members of his company, and let's
spend a couple of minutes.
Speaker 3 (18:36):
Talking about your show. Lauren, I'd like to meet your gang.
Speaker 19 (18:39):
This is Kebby Chase.
Speaker 15 (18:42):
Were you named after the town in Maryland?
Speaker 3 (18:43):
Or is that your real's?
Speaker 15 (18:44):
My real name? I was named that two days after
I was born.
Speaker 13 (18:49):
Dan Aykroyd, Jane Curtain, Jane Scarrett, Morris, Kilda Radner, John Belushi,
and Lorraine.
Speaker 17 (18:58):
Will As every week doing improv or repertoire or how
does it work well?
Speaker 4 (19:06):
October eleventh, nineteen seventy five, the very first episode of SNL.
This show is way overbooked. They went through a dress rehearsal.
It's a ninety minute show. The dress rehearsal went for
three and a half hours, and so Lauren had to
go about the task of cutting things. George Carlin is
(19:27):
the guest post.
Speaker 17 (19:28):
The first host is George Coeorge, you probably will say
the seven words which cannot be set on television live.
Speaker 2 (19:35):
Yeah, there is a six second delay, but some of
those words have eight or nine letters.
Speaker 15 (19:41):
So you know the seven, don't you?
Speaker 3 (19:43):
That you can't say on television, big name.
Speaker 9 (19:50):
They asked me to be the first host, and I
knew that I was stepping a little out of my
world because it was sketch comedy. I really wasn't a
born actor. And I told Lawn Michaels on the first
Saturday Night Live and full of Cocaine that week, Full
of Cocaine just completely boxed, and I said to him
that I didn't want to be in the sketches. Let
(20:11):
me do a number of monologues. Let me instead of
doing a big opening monologue and then being in sketches,
let me do a lot of little monologues.
Speaker 14 (20:19):
And then he did.
Speaker 4 (20:21):
When you watched the first few episodes of Saturday Night Live,
it is barely recognizable to what you see today.
Speaker 3 (20:30):
What should we look for on your program?
Speaker 2 (20:32):
Anxiety?
Speaker 4 (20:34):
Yeah, or really what you'd see by the end of
season one. That's how quickly they began adjusting.
Speaker 16 (20:40):
We certainly didn't have our format for a while. God,
I would say seven or eight shows, and we had
the muppets.
Speaker 2 (20:49):
Jim Henson has put together a new batch, a whole
new group of Muppets, which are adult muppets and who
can stay up late.
Speaker 16 (20:57):
And I think the Muppets were there because Bernie Berlstein,
who manages also managed the Muppets.
Speaker 2 (21:02):
Albert Brooks has done a short film which is very funny.
Speaker 16 (21:05):
The tone of the show didn't fit in with puppets,
even though I love the Muppets, you.
Speaker 15 (21:12):
Know, Jesus, it must be something else so much.
Speaker 4 (21:14):
There are extremely few sketches involved in what they called
at that time but not ready for primetime players. The
cast of the show was not involved all that much
on the program.
Speaker 16 (21:26):
We had very little to do. I don't even remember
what I did. I think we were just bees, so
I had no lines.
Speaker 19 (21:35):
So when that first show ended that night, what did
you do after?
Speaker 16 (21:39):
There was a party at some dark restaurant and I
remember Paul Simon being there.
Speaker 4 (21:45):
And the second show is in essence a Simon and
Garfunkel reunion show. It's essentially a music special. It's around
this time, though you do see some elements of the
show start to creep in Belushi does his first Joe
Cocker impression. You also have the first recurring characters in
show history.
Speaker 3 (22:04):
The bees.
Speaker 4 (22:05):
The bees also do something that SNL would do frequently
throughout its time, which is breaking the fourth wall.
Speaker 3 (22:09):
With the audience.
Speaker 4 (22:10):
The bees are actually addressing us, and they're and something
else SNL does extremely well is taking what happens behind
the scenes at SNL and putting them in front of
everyone to see.
Speaker 8 (22:21):
Oh no, that's it, that's it, stop it now now.
Speaker 6 (22:24):
If you saw the first show, you saw what George
Colin The bees did not work, and then the second
show the bees were horrendous. How many times life to
say it, I don't want the damn bees.
Speaker 10 (22:34):
I'm sorry if you think we're ruining.
Speaker 20 (22:36):
Your show, mister Ryner, See, you don't understand.
Speaker 12 (22:41):
We didn't ask to be bees.
Speaker 4 (22:44):
The bees in this show are complaining because they're not
on the show enough, and the cast is upset. Well,
the cast was upset they weren't getting the time they
thought they wanted. They weren't getting the chance to develop.
And then you have episode four. That's when something clicks.
They found a great host.
Speaker 7 (23:02):
Candice Bergen. She shows up as a big movie star.
She's really the first host that is really down with
the program. She knows what the show is about. She
knows what the show could be, and she throws herself
completely into this new format form good evening.
Speaker 19 (23:20):
This is Kandice Bergen reporting from one of those little
third world countries, and I'm talking to the ruler of
that country, is Royal Highness King to Safuka. Listen, I
can't pronounce this name. Okay, here's your pin back. Allow
me to just stick it up your nose.
Speaker 8 (23:43):
Why would you think I would want pendon nose?
Speaker 7 (23:46):
It's really when you start to see more sketches, fewer
taped bits. And then at some point she introduces a
young comedian.
Speaker 19 (23:57):
Boys and girls, this is a man that I love
very much. Genius comes to mind, but I will let
you decide for yourselves.
Speaker 12 (24:03):
And his name is Andy Kaufman.
Speaker 10 (24:07):
Right now, I would like to do for you some imitations.
Speaker 6 (24:13):
So first.
Speaker 10 (24:16):
I would like to imitate Archie Bunker. You stop it.
You are so stupid. Everybody stop it. Get get out
of my chair, meet head. You got in the thing,
but get into the kitchen making the food. And every
(24:39):
everybody is stupid. I don't like nobody. It's so stupid,
Thank you very much.
Speaker 7 (24:48):
Virtually everything that he does is genius, and it's something
that people at home had not seen on television. You
couldn't see this stuff anywhere else on television.
Speaker 4 (24:58):
The Burgen episode is all so important because it's the
first time that chevy Chase on weekend updates.
Speaker 8 (25:03):
Says, good evening, I'm chevy Chase.
Speaker 3 (25:09):
I'm chevy Chase, and you are not.
Speaker 4 (25:11):
Also important, it's the first time that chevy Chase plays
Gerald Ford. First time SNL really delves into political humor.
Speaker 13 (25:18):
Chevy's did this thing that could make me laugh more
than anything, which.
Speaker 15 (25:22):
Was he'd fall, but he'd fall in.
Speaker 13 (25:24):
A restaurant he could take out you know, you could
take out a table.
Speaker 15 (25:28):
He was just brilliant doing it.
Speaker 13 (25:29):
Then somehow Ford fell, and then somehow Chevy became Gerald Ford.
Speaker 21 (25:36):
A final Christmas tree ornament on the trade.
Speaker 7 (25:43):
No problem.
Speaker 4 (25:46):
The first time that you could say that SNL is
impacting culture, SNL is satirizing Gerald Ford pretty hard. Chevy
Chase playing him as a dunce can't walk down the
hall without crackushing into a wall.
Speaker 3 (26:01):
There's a story about Al.
Speaker 4 (26:03):
Franken running into Ron Nesson, who is the Press secretary
for President Ford, and there's an idea in the White
House and Ron Nesson that says, if we go on
the show and laugh at ourselves and show we're in
on the joke, it will blunt the effectiveness of this
humor because they could feel that what SNL was doing
(26:23):
was having an effect on how Americans were viewing the president.
And Ron Nesson comes on to host fear in the
White House was that they were going to do a
show that was hyper critical of the president. They were
going to make fun of the president in front of
the president's guy, and that's not what happened. Instead, what
SNL did was put on the crassest, grossest comedy that
(26:48):
they could come up with. They're literally pureing a fish
live on television. It was a different kind of counter culture.
That Nesson episode is the first time when you see
this dreams cross so to speak, comedy, politics, culture.
Speaker 1 (27:07):
And you've been listening to Scott Bertram and Christian Schneider
telling the story of SNL with all kinds of voices
in between, some you know, some you may not. When
we come back more of this remarkable story, the story
of Saturday Night Live here on our American story, and
(27:37):
we returned to our American stories and the story of
SNL telling it or Scott Bertram and Christian Schneider, host
of the podcast, Wasn't that special? Fifty years of SNL.
Let's get back to the story.
Speaker 4 (27:55):
This was not a ratings smash hit. At the beginning.
The first show was a twenty three share. The Bergen Show,
while Great, was a sixteen share. Now remember you have
essentially three networks at this time, So if NBC's got
a sixteen share, that means ABC and CBS are combining
for an eighty four share. So those numbers are bad.
NBC was losing a lot of money on SNL in
(28:18):
the beginning of that.
Speaker 3 (28:19):
First season, but there were bright spots.
Speaker 8 (28:23):
It was raw, immediate, unpredictable. The culture of America's baby
boomers had finally found its way to TV. The revolution
was being televised.
Speaker 4 (28:34):
Seventy five percent of SNL viewers were between the ages
of eighteen and forty nine, the largest percentage of those
viewers of any show on television.
Speaker 22 (28:45):
I think that generally when people talk about the best cast,
I think, well, that's when they were in high school.
Because in high school you have the least amount of
power you're ever going to have. You don't get to drive,
you don't have any money, staying up with friends later
on a Saturday is great attached to a cast.
Speaker 4 (29:01):
And everyone associated with SNL at that time acted as
if success was guaranteed. It was going to happen. The
people aren't with us now, but they will be. Called
it a manifest destiny hit. If we just keep doing
what we're doing, the people will find us and will
love us. This show is going to be a hit.
That's how everyone carried themselves, even in the early going.
Speaker 22 (29:24):
The show stands on their shoulders. They were them and
every aspect of the taste of the show came from
really seriously creative people.
Speaker 2 (29:35):
It's like you put it in the room, these writers
and cast members and they're all nuts, and you know
that you're crazy, and everyone's nuts, and you say you're crazy.
Speaker 15 (29:42):
I know you are too.
Speaker 12 (29:44):
There is no manual on how to write for SNL.
Speaker 7 (29:47):
You're basically thrown in the deep end and they hand you.
In the old days, he used to hand you a
pad and a pencil and say start writing.
Speaker 4 (29:56):
The writer's room is, by all accounts, is insanely competitive.
You were competing.
Speaker 3 (30:02):
For a ninety minutes a week.
Speaker 4 (30:05):
But when you take out commercials, you take out weekend Update,
you take out the musical performances. There are seven or
eight spots in which you are fighting for, and there
are legendary stories about people trying to submarine each other's sketches.
Maybe not laugh at a sketch in the read through
if you don't want it to hit the air because
you're competing for airtime.
Speaker 20 (30:26):
I'd say the first two years I was there, I
had a difficult time pitching my skits. I would be
very terrified that it would get the idea I thought
was so great. I would get shut down in the
room and there was no getting out of it. If
sometimes when you would pitch something on a Monday and
nobody laughed, I would have a bad spin on it already.
Speaker 4 (30:49):
And this gets especially dire in years when there are
a huge number of cast members at a huge number
of writers. But generally through the course of the week
it moves incredibly quickly. By Monday, you've got to put
the Saturday show behind you. There's a meeting with the
host of the afternoon late afternoon, and someone said, this
(31:10):
is the meeting in which you lie to the host
and say the show's going to be great because we
have all these ideas, but in fact you have nothing.
Speaker 23 (31:17):
It's a little schizophrenic in the sense that you can
have a tremendously successful Saturday night, everything's gone great, and
then you go to the party and you feel great,
and then you hip. You know, you're in New York,
and by Monday night, if you don't have anything, you're
reading a panic because you don't have any ideas.
Speaker 8 (31:34):
Finding out what's funny is often a matter of trial
and error writer and cast members in a search for silliness.
Speaker 4 (31:41):
Tuesday, the writers begin to bounce ideas. Sometimes they'll write alone,
sometimes they'll team up. Generally there are a lot of
two person written sketches. More than that, not so much.
But Tuesday's the writing day because by Wednesday you've got
to do read throughs. So Tuesday's the day you're writing.
Speaker 8 (32:00):
Every writer and cast member is expected to have at
least one idea.
Speaker 4 (32:04):
A lot of people will spend all nighters from Tuesday
into Wednesday writing, rewriting, getting things set for the Wednesday
read through.
Speaker 23 (32:12):
To me, it's like, you know, like final exams every week.
Speaker 4 (32:17):
It's that intense, and there are legendary stories about what
fuels those Tuesday all nighters.
Speaker 6 (32:24):
I always say it would be impossible to do the
kind of show we do week after week and do drugs,
which actually was the opposite of the truth.
Speaker 3 (32:38):
Yeah, but it sounded. So the read through is on Wednesday.
Speaker 4 (32:44):
By midday or so, you begin to have to make
some choices about what they think they're going to use
on the show because.
Speaker 3 (32:50):
You've got to get scripts ready.
Speaker 4 (32:52):
Q cards have to be written, right, because the Q
cards are written during the live show. You have to
get sets created built for all these different sketches and
find out where they're going to go and how you're
going to transition in a three minute commercial break from
one thing to another.
Speaker 21 (33:08):
And then you do address rehearsal, which is the first
time the three four hundred people come in and see it.
Speaker 3 (33:15):
But there are changes happening all the time.
Speaker 21 (33:18):
Whatever you thought, if they disagree, they're right, So we
will readjust from that. Things that you thought were sure
fired don't play.
Speaker 22 (33:29):
And a lot of it is placement where they were
in the show, like if it's a harder piece, if
you play it early, it probably won't work, and so
it's where you play things running order and also topicality.
Speaker 4 (33:47):
Cue cards are being rewritten all the time. Again that
famous Lauren quote. The show doesn't go on because it's ready.
The show goes on because it is.
Speaker 3 (33:54):
Eleven thirty five.
Speaker 13 (33:56):
In most things, people say, can I do it again?
I like to try that one more time. I think
I do a better job. Well, there's none of that
with us. The moment you're doing it, the audience is
seeing it, and it's real, and there's jeopardy, and that
leads to people being better than we have any right
to expect.
Speaker 4 (34:17):
The show's Saturday night in a Sunday morning, you recover
by Monday. You're writing to have things ready by Wednesday
already and doing it twenty or twenty two times a year.
Speaker 8 (34:27):
Lauren Michael still controls the show he invented.
Speaker 4 (34:32):
He is still as involved as ever in the production
and direction of the show. STL's voice is Lauren's voice.
Speaker 15 (34:41):
I've heard a lot of words associated with you.
Speaker 3 (34:44):
I'm gonna throw a couple of the match. Sure, give
me a yes or no.
Speaker 22 (34:47):
I'm okay, youthful, handsome, youthful, yes, controlling, controlling, you know,
sort of has a negative.
Speaker 15 (34:58):
Contest. I'd say in charge.
Speaker 4 (35:01):
He is the one who chooses the hosts, He is
the one who chooses which sketches make it on and
which don't make it. He is the one who makes
the last second changes based on what works in dress
rehearsal and what doesn't.
Speaker 5 (35:13):
He's kind of always just encouraged whatever ideas I've had,
but he also kind of keeps it a little bit
of a distance too, which I think he wants to maintain.
Speaker 18 (35:25):
That a little bit, you know.
Speaker 8 (35:27):
So he's not like your daddy.
Speaker 3 (35:29):
Now, He's He's kind of like the principle a.
Speaker 22 (35:32):
Little bit here. It's a very clear thing. We have
a job to do, and we have to get it done.
And I think structure is incredibly important to creative people.
Speaker 15 (35:41):
I think boundaries and structure have to exist.
Speaker 4 (35:44):
You will hear many many SNL alums with their own
variation of the Lorne Michael's impression. Doctor Evil in the
Austin Powers movies largely is based on a Lorne Michael's impression.
Speaker 7 (35:58):
All to get a I've just switched knock knock, Who's
thatsh Let me tell you a little story about a
man named Shit.
Speaker 3 (36:07):
It's very weird.
Speaker 4 (36:09):
The show is so hot. The show is loud, abrasive,
and laurne he's Canadian. I don't know how much that
has to play into it, but Lauren is very detached
and perhaps maybe aloof but there's no doubt that what
he's done has worked.
Speaker 3 (36:25):
Now for nearly fifty years.
Speaker 4 (36:27):
He is snl Its legacy is affecting American comedy at
a granular level for the better part of fifty years,
and its legacy is tied, I think intricately with Lorne Michaels. Clearly,
Lauren's been there for by the time season fifty happens,
(36:49):
forty five of the fifty seasons of the show. It's
an incredible amount of longevity with one show, especially for
a guy who is not the first person someone would
think of when they think of st Olt. There's nothing
like it. There hasn't been anything like it. It it's
fifty years on the air, and look, you'll never see
anything like it again. I think about all that has
(37:12):
to go in to create a live show like this
on a weekly basis, the chances NBC had to take
to allow a live show like this on the air.
If the trust they had been Lauren Michaels to produce
the show every week live on Saturday nights, and you
will never see something like this again.
Speaker 15 (37:28):
But I don't think it was ever that revolutionary. It
just looked different. It was fashion. You know, we were
a comedy show.
Speaker 13 (37:34):
You know, there were jokes that people remember, and there
were thousands of jokes that they don't remember because they
didn't work. You know, there's we had an impact.
Speaker 15 (37:42):
Because we were first.
Speaker 13 (37:44):
I think you could only be first once, and you
can only have that experience once. I think if we
were still doing, if we were still revolutionary the way
we were in the seventies, we'd be some on some
oldies tour and.
Speaker 1 (37:57):
A terrific job on the production, editing and stary sorry
telling by our own Montay Montgomery and his special thanks
to Scott Bertram and Christian Schneider. They're the hosts of
the podcast, Wasn't That Special? Fifty years of SNL. The
story of SNL Here on our American Stories
Host
Lee Habeeb
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