December 10, 2025 • 38 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, Scot Bertram and Christian Schneider have spent years tracing the unlikely beginnings of Saturday Night Live, and they return to share how the show first took shape. They follow its earliest days, when a quiet Canadian named Lorne Michaels gathered a scattered group of young performers and tried to build something that didn’t exist yet. What emerged was a late-night experiment that caught the country’s attention and set the rhythm for modern sketch comedy.
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Episode Transcript
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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
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 by By.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
New York and Saturday Night.
Speaker 3 (00:43):
So the show is Saturday Nights. 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 4 (00:59):
The phrase I heard Lauren is once was the show
goes on at eleven thirty nine because it's ready, but
because it's eleven thirty.
Speaker 3 (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 5 (01:16):
Be back in New York hosting Saturday Night Live for
my eleventh time.
Speaker 3 (01:20):
Varying hosts have been totally horrible. Who he's last yer,
Stephen Sagall, Listen to me carefully. I don't want you
to talk about anything to me anymore. I don't want
you to say my name anymore.
Speaker 5 (01:31):
I ain't see you any movies.
Speaker 6 (01:32):
And what's the afro anywhere you look like link from
the mod Squad.
Speaker 3 (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 a Day or Bruce Springsteen. They will do three
songs during the chorus of the night. There aren't a
lot of rules. 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.
(02:02):
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. I mean. 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
(02:24):
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 nuclear fallout at three Mile
Island and he grows into a giant.
Speaker 7 (02:41):
Mister President, you're glowing, don't touch me.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
I'm a nuclear engineer and I'm pretty wird right now.
Speaker 3 (02:51):
And that sketch was something ridiculous like fifteen or sixteen.
That it's long. 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? Can it absolutely? Here's the thing. Does it
have to have an ending? No, not necessarily. There are
(03:13):
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 going to
be two minutes or ten minutes? Well, what's funny? Is
it going to have two cast members or ten cast members? Well?
(03:34):
What's funny. Who do we have available? Do we need
to get extras into play some people who if we
don't have a big enough cast. The only rule is
be funny.
Speaker 8 (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, and.
Speaker 9 (04:06):
None of us want more in that whole area out
over there. But as commander in Chaef, 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 8 (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 8 (04:40):
That's almost a great almanac of American history.
Speaker 3 (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 we
can Update anchor who is on the air.
Speaker 8 (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 is still very much alive, but when
you're watching the show at the time.
Speaker 3 (05:22):
In nineteen eighty two, eighty three, whenever it was.
Speaker 10 (05:25):
You don't know that.
Speaker 8 (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 they're going to say
on live television. It just turns into this relevant and
(05:48):
high wire act. That's really what the show had going
for it.
Speaker 3 (05:53):
There are three names you have to know at the
beginning of Saturday Night Live. Without any of these three people,
there would be no SNL. Herb Schlosser, 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 2 (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.
Speaker 10 (06:25):
I think I was probably on a course to.
Speaker 2 (06:28):
Do something sensible.
Speaker 10 (06:29):
I think I would have gone to law school.
Speaker 9 (06:31):
Probably.
Speaker 3 (06:33):
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 6 (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.
Speaker 11 (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 they guarantee to
stay on the air six months, so they gave.
Speaker 6 (07:13):
You six months.
Speaker 3 (07:14):
Yeah, and Lord Michaels is the name that sort of
rises to the top of the list as potential executive producers.
Speaker 10 (07:22):
And 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, Lee hbib here, and
I'm inviting you to help our American Stories celebrate this
country's two hundred and fiftieth birthday coming soon. If you
want to help inspire countless others to love America like
we do and want to help us bring the inspiring
and important stories told here about a good and beautiful country,
(07:50):
please consider making a tax deductible donation to our American Stories.
Any amount helps go to Ouramerican Stories dot com and give.
And we return to our American Stories and the story
(08:11):
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 3 (08:27):
You know, Lauren is an interesting guy. There are a
few things he's famous for. He always has fresh popcorn
in his office. Always. There are assistants to Lorne Michaels
whose only job is to make sure he always has
fresh popcorn at the reading. He does not like firing people.
In some cases, it's almost as if he wants you
(08:49):
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. 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 on
his business and eventually talk to you when he was ready.
(09:11):
I wish there were a very in depth look at
him and what he's done on the show, because for
many people he is still something of an enigma.
Speaker 12 (09:21):
You don't like to talk about yourself, do you not?
Speaker 11 (09:23):
Much?
Speaker 13 (09:23):
Now?
Speaker 10 (09:24):
You're very private, very personal.
Speaker 2 (09:25):
I don't know how private I am, but I think
you know it's yeah.
Speaker 3 (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 10 (09:44):
And he chose me, which was a very smart choice.
Speaker 3 (09:47):
And he took on this challenge of designing something from nothing.
Michaels was thirty one 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 6 (10:07):
That's him on the left, playing straight man to a beef, and.
Speaker 3 (10:15):
That was important. Lorne knew not just what he wanted
SNL to be, but he also knew what he wanted
SL to not be.
Speaker 6 (10:25):
Writing for TV comedies surprised him. It wasn't much fun.
Speaker 10 (10:29):
Stop telling jokes.
Speaker 2 (10:30):
It's just that spirit, the goofiness, just the fun of
it was missing.
Speaker 8 (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 14 (10:47):
Will set in.
Speaker 8 (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 6 (11:18):
Michael's envision to show more like Britain's moddy Python, groundbreaking,
unconventional and less predictable.
Speaker 3 (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 shows of
the fifties and the sixties.
Speaker 6 (11:40):
He tried to communicate that to the suits at NBC.
Speaker 2 (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 3 (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 2 (11:56):
I knew that it would be a repertory company and
I needed to be a different host every week.
Speaker 3 (12:01):
So guest stars. At some point they considered having a
rotating group of three or four hosts and instead went
with a different host each week, essentially, and I.
Speaker 10 (12:11):
Knew that there'd be short films on it.
Speaker 3 (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
(12:34):
bring to the show.
Speaker 6 (12:37):
The network bought Michael's concept. They had no idea. They
had just agreed to host a revolution.
Speaker 2 (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. We looked at various places for
offices and ended up on the seventeenth floor, and then
I began hiring people.
Speaker 3 (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 6 (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 8 (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 3 (13:52):
It was rough at first.
Speaker 8 (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 2 (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 6 (14:27):
Michaels offered Chevy a job as a writer. Chevy wanted
to be a performer. They couldn't make.
Speaker 15 (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 ord 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 10 (14:47):
That offered still good, and he said, yes it is.
Speaker 6 (14:51):
Lemmings also featured a young Christopher guest.
Speaker 8 (14:54):
They ended up with a young man named John Belushi.
Speaker 6 (14:57):
Belushi wanted to be on Michael's new show, yet he
acted as though TV was somehow beneath him.
Speaker 2 (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 10 (15:12):
There's nothing good on television.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
So I say, right, I mean, I certainly respect that,
but you know what I'm doing is a television show.
Speaker 10 (15:22):
So thanks for coming in. And he said, well, no,
I mean.
Speaker 2 (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 6 (15:32):
Michael's hired Belushi.
Speaker 8 (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. And that's how it
started off. At the beginning, nobody really knew who Gilda
(15:56):
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.
Speaker 3 (16:03):
That really is it.
Speaker 8 (16:04):
And Lauren Michaels for the entirety of this show has
been the primary talent evaluator, which is incredible.
Speaker 3 (16:11):
He still does it today.
Speaker 8 (16:12):
Lauren just has the eye.
Speaker 10 (16:13):
He deserves all the credit.
Speaker 3 (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 were on this
Saturday Night Live, including Brian Duel Murray, Christopher Guest, and
Bill Murray. Two. That show was a total flop and
it was canceled very quickly. And so two and a
(16:59):
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 13 (18:16):
Before we say goodbye again. 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 10 (18:39):
This is Bebby Chase.
Speaker 14 (18:42):
Were you named after the town in Maryland?
Speaker 13 (18:43):
Or is that your real's?
Speaker 3 (18:44):
My real name?
Speaker 10 (18:46):
I was named that two days after I was born.
Speaker 2 (18:49):
Dan Aykroyd, Jane Curtain, Jane Scarrett, Morris, Kilda Radner, John Belushi,
and Lorraine.
Speaker 13 (18:58):
Will As every week doing improv or repertoire or how
does it work well?
Speaker 3 (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 minutes 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 now.
Speaker 13 (19:28):
The first host is George college You probably I will
say the seven words which cannot be set on television.
Speaker 2 (19:35):
Live. Yeah, there is a six second delay, but some
of those words have eight or nine letters.
Speaker 11 (19:41):
So you know the seven, don't you that you can't
say on television?
Speaker 3 (19:47):
Big name.
Speaker 7 (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, 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 me
(20:12):
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 11 (20:19):
And then he did.
Speaker 3 (20:21):
When you watched the first few episodes of Saturday Night Live,
it is barely recognizable to what you see today. What
should we look for on your program?
Speaker 6 (20:32):
Anxiety?
Speaker 3 (20:34):
Yeah, or really what you'd see by the end of
season one. That's how quickly they began adjusting.
Speaker 12 (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 12 (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 12 (21:05):
The tone of the show didn't fit in with puppets,
even though I love the Muppets, you.
Speaker 16 (21:12):
Know, Jesus, it must be something else so much.
Speaker 3 (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 12 (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 16 (21:35):
So when that first show ended that night, what did
you do after?
Speaker 12 (21:39):
There was a party at some dark restaurant and I
remember Paul Simon being there.
Speaker 3 (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 the bees. The bees also do something that
(22:06):
SNL would do frequently throughout its time, which is breaking
the fourth wall with the audience. The bees are actually
addressing us and they're and something else SNL does extremely
well is taking what happens behind the scenes at sil
and putting them in front of everyone to see.
Speaker 6 (22:21):
Oh no, that's it, that's it, stop it now now.
Speaker 5 (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.
Speaker 8 (22:30):
How many times life to say it, I don't want
the damn bees.
Speaker 14 (22:34):
I'm sorry if you think we're ruining.
Speaker 17 (22:36):
Your show, mister Ryner, See you don't understand.
Speaker 3 (22:41):
We didn't ask to be bees. 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 8 (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.
Speaker 16 (23:19):
Good evening. 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 14 (23:43):
Why would you think I would want pend in nose.
Speaker 8 (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 16 (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 3 (24:03):
And his name is Andy Kaufman.
Speaker 14 (24:07):
Right now, I would like to do for you some imitations.
Speaker 5 (24:13):
So first.
Speaker 14 (24:16):
I would like to imitate Archie Bunker.
Speaker 3 (24:21):
You stop it.
Speaker 14 (24:23):
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
everybody is stupid. I don't like nobody. It's so stupid,
(24:44):
Thank you very much.
Speaker 8 (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 3 (24:58):
The Burgen episode is all so important because it's the
first time that chevy Chase on weekend updates.
Speaker 6 (25:03):
Say is good evening, I'm chevy Chase.
Speaker 3 (25:09):
I'm chevy Chase and you're not. Also important, it's the
first time that chevy Chase plays Gerald Ford. First time
SNL really delves into political humor.
Speaker 2 (25:18):
Chevy's did this thing that could make me laugh more
than anything, which.
Speaker 10 (25:22):
Was he'd fall, but he'd fall.
Speaker 2 (25:24):
In a restaurant. He could take out you know, you
could take out a table.
Speaker 10 (25:28):
He was just brilliant doing it.
Speaker 2 (25:29):
Then somehow Ford fell, and then somehow Chevy became Gerald Ford.
Speaker 11 (25:36):
A final Christmas tree ornament on the tree no problem.
Speaker 3 (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. There's a story about
Al Franken running into Ron Nesson, who is the press
secretary for President Ford, and there's an idea in the
(26:10):
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 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
(26:31):
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 they could come up with. They're literally pureing a
fish live on television. It was a different kind of
(26:55):
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 a 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 3 (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 first season, but there were bright spots.
Speaker 6 (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 3 (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 18 (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 Saturday is great attached to a cast.
Speaker 3 (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 18 (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 7 (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 10 (29:42):
I know who you are too.
Speaker 8 (29:44):
There is no manual on how to write for SNL.
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 3 (29:56):
The writer's room is, by all accounts, is insanely competitive.
You were competing for a ninety minutes a week. 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.
(30:19):
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 17 (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 3 (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 19 (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.
Speaker 3 (31:33):
Don't have any ideas.
Speaker 6 (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 3 (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 6 (32:00):
Every writer and cast member is expected to have at
least one idea.
Speaker 3 (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 6 (32:12):
To me, it's like, you know, like final exams every week.
Speaker 3 (32:17):
It's that intense, and there are legendary stories about what
fuels those Tuesday all nighters.
Speaker 5 (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. Yeah, but
it sounded.
Speaker 3 (32:42):
So the read through is on Wednesday. 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
you've got to get scripts ready. 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
(33:02):
going to go and how you're going to transition in
a three minute commercial break from one thing to another.
Speaker 20 (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 20 (33:18):
Whatever you thought, if they disagree, they're right, So we
will readjust from that. Things that you thought were surefied
don't play.
Speaker 18 (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 3 (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 eleven thirty five.
Speaker 2 (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 3 (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 6 (34:27):
Lauren Michael still controls the show he invented.
Speaker 3 (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 10 (34:41):
I've heard a lot of words associated with you.
Speaker 13 (34:44):
I'm gonna throw a couple of the match, Sure, give
me a yes or no, I'm okay, youthful, handsome, youthful, yes, controlling.
Speaker 18 (34:54):
Controlling it, you know, sort of has a negative.
Speaker 10 (34:58):
Context.
Speaker 18 (34:59):
I'd say in charge.
Speaker 3 (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 4 (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 10 (35:25):
That a little bit, you know. So he's not like
your daddy.
Speaker 4 (35:29):
Now, He's He's kind of like the principle a little
bit here.
Speaker 18 (35:33):
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. I think boundaries
and structure have to exist.
Speaker 3 (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.
All to get a I've just switched knock knock, Who's
(36:05):
thatsh Let me tell you a little story about a
man named Shit. It's very weird. 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. Now
for nearly fifty years, he is snl Its legacy is
(36:32):
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, forty five of the
fifty seasons of the show. It's an incredible amount of
(36:54):
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's fifty years on the air, and look,
you'll never see anything like it again. I think about
all that has to go in to create a live
show like this on a weekly basis, the chances NBC
(37:16):
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 10 (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 2 (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 because
we were first. I think you could only be first.
Speaker 10 (37:46):
Once, and you can only have that experience once.
Speaker 2 (37:49):
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
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 by By.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
New York and Saturday Night.
Speaker 3 (00:43):
So the show is Saturday Nights. 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 4 (00:59):
The phrase I heard Lauren is once was the show
goes on at eleven thirty nine because it's ready, but
because it's eleven thirty.
Speaker 3 (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 5 (01:16):
Be back in New York hosting Saturday Night Live for
my eleventh time.
Speaker 3 (01:20):
Varying hosts have been totally horrible. Who he's last yer,
Stephen Sagall, Listen to me carefully. I don't want you
to talk about anything to me anymore. I don't want
you to say my name anymore.
Speaker 5 (01:31):
I ain't see you any movies.
Speaker 6 (01:32):
And what's the afro anywhere you look like link from
the mod Squad.
Speaker 3 (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 a Day or Bruce Springsteen. They will do three
songs during the chorus of the night. There aren't a
lot of rules. 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.
(02:02):
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. I mean. 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
(02:24):
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 nuclear fallout at three Mile
Island and he grows into a giant.
Speaker 7 (02:41):
Mister President, you're glowing, don't touch me.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
I'm a nuclear engineer and I'm pretty wird right now.
Speaker 3 (02:51):
And that sketch was something ridiculous like fifteen or sixteen.
That it's long. 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? Can it absolutely? Here's the thing. Does it
have to have an ending? No, not necessarily. There are
(03:13):
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 going to
be two minutes or ten minutes? Well, what's funny? Is
it going to have two cast members or ten cast members? Well?
(03:34):
What's funny. Who do we have available? Do we need
to get extras into play some people who if we
don't have a big enough cast. The only rule is
be funny.
Speaker 8 (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, and.
Speaker 9 (04:06):
None of us want more in that whole area out
over there. But as commander in Chaef, 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 8 (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 8 (04:40):
That's almost a great almanac of American history.
Speaker 3 (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 we
can Update anchor who is on the air.
Speaker 8 (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 is still very much alive, but when
you're watching the show at the time.
Speaker 3 (05:22):
In nineteen eighty two, eighty three, whenever it was.
Speaker 10 (05:25):
You don't know that.
Speaker 8 (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 they're going to say
on live television. It just turns into this relevant and
(05:48):
high wire act. That's really what the show had going
for it.
Speaker 3 (05:53):
There are three names you have to know at the
beginning of Saturday Night Live. Without any of these three people,
there would be no SNL. Herb Schlosser, 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 2 (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.
Speaker 10 (06:25):
I think I was probably on a course to.
Speaker 2 (06:28):
Do something sensible.
Speaker 10 (06:29):
I think I would have gone to law school.
Speaker 9 (06:31):
Probably.
Speaker 3 (06:33):
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 6 (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.
Speaker 11 (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 they guarantee to
stay on the air six months, so they gave.
Speaker 6 (07:13):
You six months.
Speaker 3 (07:14):
Yeah, and Lord Michaels is the name that sort of
rises to the top of the list as potential executive producers.
Speaker 10 (07:22):
And 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, Lee hbib here, and
I'm inviting you to help our American Stories celebrate this
country's two hundred and fiftieth birthday coming soon. If you
want to help inspire countless others to love America like
we do and want to help us bring the inspiring
and important stories told here about a good and beautiful country,
(07:50):
please consider making a tax deductible donation to our American Stories.
Any amount helps go to Ouramerican Stories dot com and give.
And we return to our American Stories and the story
(08:11):
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 3 (08:27):
You know, Lauren is an interesting guy. There are a
few things he's famous for. He always has fresh popcorn
in his office. Always. There are assistants to Lorne Michaels
whose only job is to make sure he always has
fresh popcorn at the reading. He does not like firing people.
In some cases, it's almost as if he wants you
(08:49):
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. 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 on
his business and eventually talk to you when he was ready.
(09:11):
I wish there were a very in depth look at
him and what he's done on the show, because for
many people he is still something of an enigma.
Speaker 12 (09:21):
You don't like to talk about yourself, do you not?
Speaker 11 (09:23):
Much?
Speaker 13 (09:23):
Now?
Speaker 10 (09:24):
You're very private, very personal.
Speaker 2 (09:25):
I don't know how private I am, but I think
you know it's yeah.
Speaker 3 (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 10 (09:44):
And he chose me, which was a very smart choice.
Speaker 3 (09:47):
And he took on this challenge of designing something from nothing.
Michaels was thirty one 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 6 (10:07):
That's him on the left, playing straight man to a beef, and.
Speaker 3 (10:15):
That was important. Lorne knew not just what he wanted
SNL to be, but he also knew what he wanted
SL to not be.
Speaker 6 (10:25):
Writing for TV comedies surprised him. It wasn't much fun.
Speaker 10 (10:29):
Stop telling jokes.
Speaker 2 (10:30):
It's just that spirit, the goofiness, just the fun of
it was missing.
Speaker 8 (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 14 (10:47):
Will set in.
Speaker 8 (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 6 (11:18):
Michael's envision to show more like Britain's moddy Python, groundbreaking,
unconventional and less predictable.
Speaker 3 (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 shows of
the fifties and the sixties.
Speaker 6 (11:40):
He tried to communicate that to the suits at NBC.
Speaker 2 (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 3 (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 2 (11:56):
I knew that it would be a repertory company and
I needed to be a different host every week.
Speaker 3 (12:01):
So guest stars. At some point they considered having a
rotating group of three or four hosts and instead went
with a different host each week, essentially, and I.
Speaker 10 (12:11):
Knew that there'd be short films on it.
Speaker 3 (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
(12:34):
bring to the show.
Speaker 6 (12:37):
The network bought Michael's concept. They had no idea. They
had just agreed to host a revolution.
Speaker 2 (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. We looked at various places for
offices and ended up on the seventeenth floor, and then
I began hiring people.
Speaker 3 (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 6 (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 8 (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 3 (13:52):
It was rough at first.
Speaker 8 (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 2 (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 6 (14:27):
Michaels offered Chevy a job as a writer. Chevy wanted
to be a performer. They couldn't make.
Speaker 15 (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 ord 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 10 (14:47):
That offered still good, and he said, yes it is.
Speaker 6 (14:51):
Lemmings also featured a young Christopher guest.
Speaker 8 (14:54):
They ended up with a young man named John Belushi.
Speaker 6 (14:57):
Belushi wanted to be on Michael's new show, yet he
acted as though TV was somehow beneath him.
Speaker 2 (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 10 (15:12):
There's nothing good on television.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
So I say, right, I mean, I certainly respect that,
but you know what I'm doing is a television show.
Speaker 10 (15:22):
So thanks for coming in. And he said, well, no,
I mean.
Speaker 2 (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 6 (15:32):
Michael's hired Belushi.
Speaker 8 (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. And that's how it
started off. At the beginning, nobody really knew who Gilda
(15:56):
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.
Speaker 3 (16:03):
That really is it.
Speaker 8 (16:04):
And Lauren Michaels for the entirety of this show has
been the primary talent evaluator, which is incredible.
Speaker 3 (16:11):
He still does it today.
Speaker 8 (16:12):
Lauren just has the eye.
Speaker 10 (16:13):
He deserves all the credit.
Speaker 3 (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 were on this
Saturday Night Live, including Brian Duel Murray, Christopher Guest, and
Bill Murray. Two. That show was a total flop and
it was canceled very quickly. And so two and a
(16:59):
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 13 (18:16):
Before we say goodbye again. 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 10 (18:39):
This is Bebby Chase.
Speaker 14 (18:42):
Were you named after the town in Maryland?
Speaker 13 (18:43):
Or is that your real's?
Speaker 3 (18:44):
My real name?
Speaker 10 (18:46):
I was named that two days after I was born.
Speaker 2 (18:49):
Dan Aykroyd, Jane Curtain, Jane Scarrett, Morris, Kilda Radner, John Belushi,
and Lorraine.
Speaker 13 (18:58):
Will As every week doing improv or repertoire or how
does it work well?
Speaker 3 (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 minutes 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 now.
Speaker 13 (19:28):
The first host is George college You probably I will
say the seven words which cannot be set on television.
Speaker 2 (19:35):
Live. Yeah, there is a six second delay, but some
of those words have eight or nine letters.
Speaker 11 (19:41):
So you know the seven, don't you that you can't
say on television?
Speaker 3 (19:47):
Big name.
Speaker 7 (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, 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 me
(20:12):
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 11 (20:19):
And then he did.
Speaker 3 (20:21):
When you watched the first few episodes of Saturday Night Live,
it is barely recognizable to what you see today. What
should we look for on your program?
Speaker 6 (20:32):
Anxiety?
Speaker 3 (20:34):
Yeah, or really what you'd see by the end of
season one. That's how quickly they began adjusting.
Speaker 12 (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 12 (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 12 (21:05):
The tone of the show didn't fit in with puppets,
even though I love the Muppets, you.
Speaker 16 (21:12):
Know, Jesus, it must be something else so much.
Speaker 3 (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 12 (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 16 (21:35):
So when that first show ended that night, what did
you do after?
Speaker 12 (21:39):
There was a party at some dark restaurant and I
remember Paul Simon being there.
Speaker 3 (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 the bees. The bees also do something that
(22:06):
SNL would do frequently throughout its time, which is breaking
the fourth wall with the audience. The bees are actually
addressing us and they're and something else SNL does extremely
well is taking what happens behind the scenes at sil
and putting them in front of everyone to see.
Speaker 6 (22:21):
Oh no, that's it, that's it, stop it now now.
Speaker 5 (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.
Speaker 8 (22:30):
How many times life to say it, I don't want
the damn bees.
Speaker 14 (22:34):
I'm sorry if you think we're ruining.
Speaker 17 (22:36):
Your show, mister Ryner, See you don't understand.
Speaker 3 (22:41):
We didn't ask to be bees. 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 8 (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.
Speaker 16 (23:19):
Good evening. 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 14 (23:43):
Why would you think I would want pend in nose.
Speaker 8 (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 16 (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 3 (24:03):
And his name is Andy Kaufman.
Speaker 14 (24:07):
Right now, I would like to do for you some imitations.
Speaker 5 (24:13):
So first.
Speaker 14 (24:16):
I would like to imitate Archie Bunker.
Speaker 3 (24:21):
You stop it.
Speaker 14 (24:23):
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
everybody is stupid. I don't like nobody. It's so stupid,
(24:44):
Thank you very much.
Speaker 8 (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 3 (24:58):
The Burgen episode is all so important because it's the
first time that chevy Chase on weekend updates.
Speaker 6 (25:03):
Say is good evening, I'm chevy Chase.
Speaker 3 (25:09):
I'm chevy Chase and you're not. Also important, it's the
first time that chevy Chase plays Gerald Ford. First time
SNL really delves into political humor.
Speaker 2 (25:18):
Chevy's did this thing that could make me laugh more
than anything, which.
Speaker 10 (25:22):
Was he'd fall, but he'd fall.
Speaker 2 (25:24):
In a restaurant. He could take out you know, you
could take out a table.
Speaker 10 (25:28):
He was just brilliant doing it.
Speaker 2 (25:29):
Then somehow Ford fell, and then somehow Chevy became Gerald Ford.
Speaker 11 (25:36):
A final Christmas tree ornament on the tree no problem.
Speaker 3 (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. There's a story about
Al Franken running into Ron Nesson, who is the press
secretary for President Ford, and there's an idea in the
(26:10):
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 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
(26:31):
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 they could come up with. They're literally pureing a
fish live on television. It was a different kind of
(26:55):
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 a 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 3 (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 first season, but there were bright spots.
Speaker 6 (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 3 (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 18 (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 Saturday is great attached to a cast.
Speaker 3 (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 18 (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 7 (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 10 (29:42):
I know who you are too.
Speaker 8 (29:44):
There is no manual on how to write for SNL.
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 3 (29:56):
The writer's room is, by all accounts, is insanely competitive.
You were competing for a ninety minutes a week. 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.
(30:19):
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 17 (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 3 (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 19 (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.
Speaker 3 (31:33):
Don't have any ideas.
Speaker 6 (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 3 (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 6 (32:00):
Every writer and cast member is expected to have at
least one idea.
Speaker 3 (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 6 (32:12):
To me, it's like, you know, like final exams every week.
Speaker 3 (32:17):
It's that intense, and there are legendary stories about what
fuels those Tuesday all nighters.
Speaker 5 (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. Yeah, but
it sounded.
Speaker 3 (32:42):
So the read through is on Wednesday. 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
you've got to get scripts ready. 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
(33:02):
going to go and how you're going to transition in
a three minute commercial break from one thing to another.
Speaker 20 (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 20 (33:18):
Whatever you thought, if they disagree, they're right, So we
will readjust from that. Things that you thought were surefied
don't play.
Speaker 18 (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 3 (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 eleven thirty five.
Speaker 2 (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 3 (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 6 (34:27):
Lauren Michael still controls the show he invented.
Speaker 3 (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 10 (34:41):
I've heard a lot of words associated with you.
Speaker 13 (34:44):
I'm gonna throw a couple of the match, Sure, give
me a yes or no, I'm okay, youthful, handsome, youthful, yes, controlling.
Speaker 18 (34:54):
Controlling it, you know, sort of has a negative.
Speaker 10 (34:58):
Context.
Speaker 18 (34:59):
I'd say in charge.
Speaker 3 (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 4 (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 10 (35:25):
That a little bit, you know. So he's not like
your daddy.
Speaker 4 (35:29):
Now, He's He's kind of like the principle a little
bit here.
Speaker 18 (35:33):
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. I think boundaries
and structure have to exist.
Speaker 3 (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.
All to get a I've just switched knock knock, Who's
(36:05):
thatsh Let me tell you a little story about a
man named Shit. It's very weird. 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. Now
for nearly fifty years, he is snl Its legacy is
(36:32):
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, forty five of the
fifty seasons of the show. It's an incredible amount of
(36:54):
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's fifty years on the air, and look,
you'll never see anything like it again. I think about
all that has to go in to create a live
show like this on a weekly basis, the chances NBC
(37:16):
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 10 (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 2 (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 because
we were first. I think you could only be first.
Speaker 10 (37:46):
Once, and you can only have that experience once.
Speaker 2 (37:49):
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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