Saturday Night Live

[swo17]

Going for character over comedy

Yeah, even the show's basic premise requires the lead to tank her TV debut, and there are a lot of "funny" ways that could happen, but many of them would go against the idea that, y'know, her character is supposed to actually be good at this sort of thing. So they find another way

[swo17]

Just realizing you can generally find old skits that have been otherwise suppressed online by locating them within their whole episodes on Internet Archive. For instance, here (at 18:30) is Terry Sweeney as Nancy Reagan and here (at 15:00) are Vanessa Bayer and Amy Schumer as Delta flight attendants

[hearthesilence]

I never understood why SNL insisted on maintaining the same insane schedule since the beginning, when it basically evolved out of a drug-fueled environment. They basically work all-night under a lot of deadline pressure and it seems to make it unnecessarily difficult (and quite frankly explains why so many of their sketches are thin, one-joke variations that aren't very refined either). It's something Dick Ebersol supposedly carried through during his years because he didn't want to mess with the show's "proven" structure. (With no comedy background, I think he simply decided to replicate what was done before as a secure fallback.) But plenty of people hated it and quit because of it, like Martin Short who said it "wasn't much of a life" - says a lot when he had already done plenty of sketch comedy work for television. Larry David even blew it off once to Ebersol's irritation:

I remember writing a couple of sketches, some news pieces. I was fortified for the first show. And at seven o’clock at night, maybe six o’clock I don’t know, it’s a Tuesday night and the next day is the first read-through.

And I press the button for the elevator, and the elevator doors open, and the executive producer — it was Dick Ebersol — and he said, ‘Where are you going?’ I said, ‘I’m going home, you know.’ He said, ‘You’re going home, really?’ I said, ‘Yeah, I wrote, I got two or three sketches in. Got two news pieces.’ And he said, ‘Well we don’t uh, we stay up all night on the night before the read-through.’ And I go, ‘Why? Why would you stay up all night?’

And he said, ‘Well, that’s how we do it.’ How you do what? I don’t understand. They’ve been there a month you know, six weeks. What is gonna be accomplished for the next what, eight, nine, ten hours to stay up all night? For what? And I said, ‘Well, you know, I did the work. So I’ll see you tomorrow.’ I left. Never got a sketch on.

Anyway, not surprisingly Adam Samberg gave an interview where he points to the schedule as the reason he left.

Physically, it was taking a heavy toll on me and I got to a place where I was like I hadn’t slept in seven years basically. We were writing stuff for the live show Tuesday night all night, the table read Wednesday, then being told now come up with a digital short so write all Thursday, all Thursday night, don’t sleep, get up, shoot Friday, edit all night Friday night and into Saturday, so it’s basically like four days a week you’re not sleeping, for seven years. So I just kinda fell apart physically...

[Samberg consulted with his former co-stars like Amy Poehler when the time came to decide whether or not he would continue with the show. Part of the reason he was so nervous to leave was because not being on the show meant he’d no longer have such an instantaneous creative outlet.]

I was like, once I go, when I have an idea, I can’t just do it. The craziest thing about working there is once you get going, if you’re just in the shower and you have an idea that shit can be on television in three days, which is the most like intoxicating feeling.

[beamish14]

Despite the huge volume of work that their staff produces, they still go with the boring, ultra-topical talk show format more than half the time because they’re more economical and Michaels pushes for them

[therewillbeblus]

Mixing up Adam Sandler and Andy Samberg's names is fair

[hearthesilence]

Oops! (lol)

[Matt]

Teyana Taylor hosts this weekend. Promo parody of Waiting to Exhale

[Brian C]

Not a strong showcase for her, unfortunately. Actual quality of the show aside, it’s often tough on hosts who don’t have a natural energy for live comedy. I think there was only one sketch that was built around her, she was mostly an awkward bit player for most of it.

Geese were great, though. I know their album has gotten a lot of critical acclaim, but they’ve got to be the least mainstream act to be on the show since…??? I can’t even guess.

[ryannichols7]

I don't watch SNL at all any more but my sister made sure I saw the One Battle After Another themed sketch, with shoutouts to both PTA and Bill Hader involved. I think it's hilarious, shame to hear the rest of the show was eh

as for Geese, you're right, aside from a good run of more indie acts showing up on SNL, there really haven't been any lately

[Gregory]

I've been watching episodes from Season 5 that I'd never seen before, and it's as inconsistent as anyone would expect. The Burt Reynolds episode was particularly bad. He didn't even try at all with his Marlon Brando impression in the last skit.
Everyone in the cast left the show at the end of this season.
I was reading about Season 6 on Wikipedia, and good god, what could have been:

Jean Doumanian hired Denny Dillon, Gilbert Gottfried, Gail Matthius, Joe Piscopo, Ann Risley, and Charles Rocket as repertory players, and Yvonne Hudson, Matthew Laurance, and Patrick Weathers as featured players. In doing so, she passed on then-unknown performers like Jim Carrey, Mercedes Ruehl, Sandra Bernhard, John Goodman and Paul Reubens. Andy Kaufman offered to contribute a weekly segment but was turned down.

[beamish14]

I've been watching episodes from Season 5 that I'd never seen before, and it's as inconsistent as anyone would expect. The Burt Reynolds episode was particularly bad. He didn't even try at all with his Marlon Brando impression in the last skit.
Everyone in the cast left the show at the end of this season.
I was reading about Season 6 on Wikipedia, and good god, what could have been:

Jean Doumanian hired Denny Dillon, Gilbert Gottfried, Gail Matthius, Joe Piscopo, Ann Risley, and Charles Rocket as repertory players, and Yvonne Hudson, Matthew Laurance, and Patrick Weathers as featured players. In doing so, she passed on then-unknown performers like Jim Carrey, Mercedes Ruehl, Sandra Bernhard, John Goodman and Paul Reubens. Andy Kaufman offered to contribute a weekly segment but was turned down.

Paul Reubens was extremely close to getting it, as he discusses in his HBO Max documentary. Jim Carrey was turned down repeatedly across the span of the 80’s, but he probably made far more money as a stand-up in Las Vegas, anyway. Sandra Bernhard was a contributor to The Richard Pryor Show, which was more bold than SNL ever was

I love that Terry Southern was hired as a writer and the show was willing to let William S. Burroughs do spoken word

[hearthesilence]

Doumanian also refused to make Eddie Murphy a cast member despite a strong push by literally everyone else on the show. He was originally hired as a warm-up comedian, and she compromised by letting him appear on the show in a limited capacity (it's possible he wasn't officially a "featured player" when he first appeared) and by season's end he worked his way up to full-fledged cast member when it became blatantly obvious that he was better than everyone else.

Gottfried likened her to a real-life Margaret Dumont character, and long story short, she had no business running the show. She got another break producing Woody Allen's films, but she and her business partners fucked that up when Allen discovered they were embezzling profits. She was still able to produce more films by other people, but for the most part, she found much more success producing Broadway productions.

[domino harvey]

Eddie Murphy at the start of his career was one of those once in a lifetime gifts from God, I doubt the show would have ever survived without him

[hearthesilence]

IMHO he's the greatest cast member SNL ever had partly for that reason - he's the only person that without a doubt single-handedly saved the show from cancellation. NBC pretty much fired everyone, including Doumanian, except Murphy and his foil of choice, Joe Piscopo (they were pretty much in every sketch together). They literally had no other reason to renew the show except for Murphy's own popularity. Even Doumanian's replacement, Dick Ebersol, was simply a loyal and successful NBC executive who was known primarily for sports (especially the Olympics) - the network just installed someone they could trust despite having no personal experience with comedy.

[The Fanciful Norwegian]

I love that Terry Southern was hired as a writer and the show was willing to let William S. Burroughs do spoken word

Both of those were apparently down to Michael O'Donoghue, who was brought back by Ebersol to serve as showrunner (and was convinced that the show was doomed and intended to run it like a "Viking death ship"—nobody was surprised when Ebersol canned him halfway through the season). I can't recall anyone identifying a single sketch that Southern actually got on the air, and O'Donoghue's writing partner Nelson Lyon says he added Southern's name to his scripts so he wouldn't get fired. (Southern was similarly credited as a co-writer with O'Donoghue and Lyon on the insane, unproduced Easy Rider sequel Biker Heaven even though his contribution amounted to just a few lines.) Probably the one visible achievement of Southern's stint was recruiting Miles Davis as a musical guest.

Even Doumanian's replacement, Dick Ebersol, was simply a loyal and successful NBC executive who was known primarily for sports (especially the Olympics) - the network just installed someone they could trust despite having no personal experience with comedy.

Ebersol started out in sports at ABC, but at the time of Doumanian's ouster he was the head of NBC's late-night programming, and before that he'd spearheaded its late-night weekend lineup. He'd done some one-off sports programming in those roles to fill gaps in the schedule, but his NBC experience had mostly involved comedy and variety, and he'd worked with Michaels to develop SNL in the first place (although Ebersol himself admits he didn't do much with the nitty-gritty creative details). That was why NBC saw Ebersol as someone who might be able to right the ship, and without making him out to be a comedy savant, he pretty much succeeded, at least in terms of the show's viability—his last season even had a slight ratings uptick despite losing Murphy and Piscopo, albeit at the cost of higher salaries for established names like Short* and Crystal. Ebersol left because NBC vetoed his plans for a radical overhaul (which included basically eliminating the "live" aspect) and the network lured back Michaels, whose comeback season was such a disaster that the show was nearly canceled again before he found his footing in the '86 season.

*Ebersol had been indirectly responsible for getting SCTV on NBC: he only agreed to take over SNL if the network canceled the show he was currently producing, The Midnight Special, which left a 90-minute hole in the Friday late-night schedule. NBC had no time to develop a new series and commissioned SCTV to fill the time slot instead, which annoyed Ebersol since he'd planned to raid SCTV for new SNL cast members. (Catherine O'Hara actually signed on but left after one week when SCTV got picked up, and John Candy turned Ebersol down after SCTV agreed to a more generous contract; SNL ultimately had to settle for Tony Rosato and Robin Duke.) Ebersol was also responsible for getting the show off NBC, as the network replaced it after two seasons with Friday Night Videos, an even cheaper, Ebersol-produced music video series.

[hearthesilence]

Ebersol started out in sports at ABC, but at the time of Doumanian's ouster he was the head of NBC's late-night programming, and before that he'd spearheaded its late-night weekend lineup. He'd done some one-off sports programming in those roles to fill gaps in the schedule, but his NBC experience had mostly involved comedy and variety, and he'd worked with Michaels to develop SNL in the first place (although Ebersol himself admits he didn't do much with the nitty-gritty creative details). That was why NBC saw Ebersol as someone who might be able to right the ship, and without making him out to be a comedy savant, he pretty much succeeded, at least in terms of the show's viability—his last season even had a slight ratings uptick despite losing Murphy and Piscopo, albeit at the cost of higher salaries for established names like Short* and Crystal. Ebersol left because NBC vetoed his plans for a radical overhaul (which included basically eliminating the "live" aspect) and the network lured back Michaels, whose comeback season was such a disaster that the show was nearly canceled again before he found his footing in the '86 season.

Ah, never mind! I knew he was more interested in doing sports and even got his start working for the 1967 Olympics broadcast on ABC, but I thought he was already on his way to running NBC Sports when that actually didn't happen until 1989.

It's been a while since I read his interviews about SNL, but he came across as someone who knew his limitations and as soon as he took over. He adapted a basic management approach that seemed feasible in any context: follow a proven template (i.e. how Michaels ran the first five seasons) and tapping people with better connections to scout for talent (which IIRC led to all those Second City recruits - I think John Belushi might have been involved where he contacted his close friend Tim Kurzinsky from their improv days and Kurzinsky then tapped his network for potential recruits). Once he righted the ship, I think he felt more free to try different things, partly out of necessity (like pre-taping a lot of Eddie Murphy's final episodes just so he could remain on the show).

I remember his rationale for recruiting proven talent coming from George Steinbrenner and his famous free agent acquisitions. I always thought it was funny and bizarre how Lorne Michaels tried the same thing twice, and both times it was for disastrous seasons that nearly led to the show's cancellation: his first season back (the Brat Pack actors and Randy Quaid before it became clear he was batshit insane) and that season with Chris Elliott, Janeane Garofalo and Michael McKean among others. It probably worked in Ebersol's case because he picked people who were good collaborators and in many cases good friends, though I'm not sure how long it would have lasted:

I just loved it. I also felt like, all right, I got one under my belt. Now, I could really do something else. So I was willing to come back. Nobody else wanted to come back.

I remember on my wife’s birthday, walking home at four in the morning, and going into an all-night deli and picking up this sad little cake. I thought...this doesn’t seem like a life.

[The Fanciful Norwegian]

Going from SCTV to a pressure-cooker environment like SNL couldn't have been easy—Tony Rosato said his time on the show significantly worsened his drug problem. A big reason John Candy didn't join was his impression that it would be like getting tossed into a den of wolves and that he wasn't temperamentally cut out for it. I feel pretty confident he would've had a miserable time. (He did cameo as a weatherman in the George Kennedy/Miles Davis episode, flouting producer Andrew Alexander's flat-out refusal to let Candy take time off from the SCTV production schedule.)

Just stumbled on this interesting piece from New York magazine on the first few episodes of the post-Doumanian era, with revealing looks at Ebersol, "baldish wraith" O'Donoghue, and Murphy ("I don't think I'm going to be as popular as Richard Pryor or Bill Cosby by the time I'm 22, but I hope I'm at the top by the time I'm 25"), plus the surprising-to-me detail that SNL reruns were already airing in weekday syndication.