Read Online Live From New York: An Uncensored History of Saturday Night Live by Tom Shales, James Andrew Miller - Free Book Online
Authors: Tom Shales, James Andrew Miller
Tags: General, Performing Arts, Comedy, History & Criticism, Television, Saturday Night Live (Television Program)
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came to the Marmont and discussed it with Lorne. I remember talking a lot about Chevy as a writer. Marilyn Miller we knew from Lily Tomlin. Anne Beatts and Michael O’Donoghue were celebrities, especially O’Donoghue, who was, you know, the darling of the Lampoon , so they came presold. O’Donoghue had a lot of charisma and he was very dark. He was an exciting character in his subversiveness. Al Franken and Tom Davis were a two-for-one kind of bargain basement. They were just starting and anxious to get into the business — you know, let’s give them a tryout. I was definitely in the conversations about all that stuff.
ANNE BEATTS:
I truly think you can say that without Michael O’Donoghue, there wouldn’t have been a Saturday Night Live , and I think it’s important to remember that. I think Lorne would probably be generous enough to acknowledge that. Because I always said Michael was Cardinal Richelieu. He wasn’t very good at being the king. He was much better at being either the person plotting revolution or the power behind the throne, telling the king what to do and think. I’m not saying he was manipulating Lorne. It doesn’t always have to be about manipulation. It could be about actual helpful guidance.
AL FRANKEN, Writer:
Tom Davis and I had known each other since high school in Minnesota. In 1974 we were a comedy team out in L.A. We were the only writers hired by Lorne who he didn’t meet. We always thought that if he had met us, we wouldn’t have gotten the job. We weren’t making money at the time, and the only variety shows around were Johnny Carson’s — and we’re not joke writers, so we couldn’t do that — and Carol Burnett’s, which was a good show but not our territory. Oh, and I think Sonny and Cher was on, which was a piece of shit.
Actually, we wrote a perfect submission for Saturday Night Live , a package of things we’d like to see on TV — a news parody, commercial parody, and a couple sketches. Basically from that, we were hired. We heard that Dick Ebersol wanted to hire a team from New York instead of us so he could save on the airfare, but Lorne insisted on us.
Michaels was aghast at the condition of NBC’s historic Studio 8H, which despite its noble traditions was technically primitive and had been allowed to deteriorate. He didn’t think it had hosted a weekly live TV show since Your Hit Parade succumbed to rock and roll and left NBC in 1958.
Meanwhile, NBC brass were consumed with nervousness about the content of the show — about giving ninety minutes of network time a week to Lorne Michaels and his left-wing loonies. On the first show, with sometimes-racy comic George Carlin hosting, the network planned to use a six-second delay so that anything unexpected and obscene could be edited out by an observer from the Department of Standards and Practices (the censor), who would theoretically flip a switch in the control room and bleep the offending material before it went out naked onto the American airwaves. Over the coming months and years, various hosts or musical acts would make NBC executives more nervous than usual, and the notion of making the show not quite precisely literally live kept coming up.
JANE CURTIN:
NBC sent me out on a limited publicity tour weeks before we went on the air. I didn’t really know what the show was going to be like, but I was the only one in the cast that they weren’t afraid of. They knew I wouldn’t throw my food.
BERNIE BRILLSTEIN:
In the first six months, Lorne threatened not to come in to work a lot. He had no way of dealing with these network people. Because Lorne had a vision, and they didn’t understand his vision. This was a new show at that time. He made them rebuild the goddamn studio, and they didn’t understand that. And he made them get great sound in the studio because they were going to have rock acts, and they didn’t understand that.
HOWARD SHORE:
What we were going to be doing was really quite
ANNE BEATTS:
I truly think you can say that without Michael O’Donoghue, there wouldn’t have been a Saturday Night Live , and I think it’s important to remember that. I think Lorne would probably be generous enough to acknowledge that. Because I always said Michael was Cardinal Richelieu. He wasn’t very good at being the king. He was much better at being either the person plotting revolution or the power behind the throne, telling the king what to do and think. I’m not saying he was manipulating Lorne. It doesn’t always have to be about manipulation. It could be about actual helpful guidance.
AL FRANKEN, Writer:
Tom Davis and I had known each other since high school in Minnesota. In 1974 we were a comedy team out in L.A. We were the only writers hired by Lorne who he didn’t meet. We always thought that if he had met us, we wouldn’t have gotten the job. We weren’t making money at the time, and the only variety shows around were Johnny Carson’s — and we’re not joke writers, so we couldn’t do that — and Carol Burnett’s, which was a good show but not our territory. Oh, and I think Sonny and Cher was on, which was a piece of shit.
Actually, we wrote a perfect submission for Saturday Night Live , a package of things we’d like to see on TV — a news parody, commercial parody, and a couple sketches. Basically from that, we were hired. We heard that Dick Ebersol wanted to hire a team from New York instead of us so he could save on the airfare, but Lorne insisted on us.
Michaels was aghast at the condition of NBC’s historic Studio 8H, which despite its noble traditions was technically primitive and had been allowed to deteriorate. He didn’t think it had hosted a weekly live TV show since Your Hit Parade succumbed to rock and roll and left NBC in 1958.
Meanwhile, NBC brass were consumed with nervousness about the content of the show — about giving ninety minutes of network time a week to Lorne Michaels and his left-wing loonies. On the first show, with sometimes-racy comic George Carlin hosting, the network planned to use a six-second delay so that anything unexpected and obscene could be edited out by an observer from the Department of Standards and Practices (the censor), who would theoretically flip a switch in the control room and bleep the offending material before it went out naked onto the American airwaves. Over the coming months and years, various hosts or musical acts would make NBC executives more nervous than usual, and the notion of making the show not quite precisely literally live kept coming up.
JANE CURTIN:
NBC sent me out on a limited publicity tour weeks before we went on the air. I didn’t really know what the show was going to be like, but I was the only one in the cast that they weren’t afraid of. They knew I wouldn’t throw my food.
BERNIE BRILLSTEIN:
In the first six months, Lorne threatened not to come in to work a lot. He had no way of dealing with these network people. Because Lorne had a vision, and they didn’t understand his vision. This was a new show at that time. He made them rebuild the goddamn studio, and they didn’t understand that. And he made them get great sound in the studio because they were going to have rock acts, and they didn’t understand that.
HOWARD SHORE:
What we were going to be doing was really quite
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