Live From New York: An Uncensored History of Saturday Night Live (64 page)

The biggest problem with Steven Seagal was that he would complain about jokes that he didn’t get, so it was like — you can’t explain something to somebody in German if they don’t speak German. He just wasn’t funny and he was very critical of the cast and the writing staff. He didn’t realize that you can’t tell somebody they’re stupid on Wednesday and expect them to continue writing for you on Saturday.

DAVID SPADE:

He didn’t want to go along with what the plan was that week, and as a result, I think that was the first week that I heard talk about replacing the host and just doing a cast show.

JULIA SWEENEY:

When we pitched our ideas for Seagal at our Monday meeting, he gave us some of his own sketch ideas. And some of his sketch ideas were so heinous, but so hilariously awful, it was like we were on
Candid Camera.

He had this idea that he’s a therapist and he wanted Victoria Jackson to be his patient who’s just been raped. And the therapist says, “You’re going to have to come to me twice a week for like three years,” because, he said, “that’s how therapists fucking are. They’re just trying to get your money.” And then he says that the psychiatrist tries to have sex with her.

TIM MEADOWS:

I love Chevy Chase. I do. He rubbed some people the wrong way, but when he was here, it was like just watching a car accident over and over again just watching him deal with people. Because he didn’t care about what he said. He has no qualm about telling you you’re an idiot, but not just saying it but showing you, you know, treating people really bad and being a real smart-ass. But I actually like him, though. He didn’t call me an idiot, he was nice to me.

CHRIS ELLIOTT:

I remember having dinner with John Travolta and Lorne. He talked to Lorne about
Saturday Night Live
and how it had influenced him and how he had always felt that
Welcome Back, Kotter
was kind of the prime-time sister show to
Saturday Night Live.
And I remember Lorne just politely sort of nodding and going, “Right, right,” and then afterwards walking back to Rockefeller Center with Lorne and how that really bugged him, that Travolta brought that up: “I was surprised to hear that we were the sister show to
Welcome Back, Kotter.
”

DANA CARVEY:

Keith Richards I remember. There was a horse backstage that week, and I was in my dressing area and I saw Keith Richards go up, hold the horse’s face in his hands, and go, “You’re a fine horse, aren’t you?” I’ll never forget that. Working with the athletes was great, like playing catch with Joe Montana, because I had a “Church Chat” where he threw a football to me — playing catch and running patterns with Joe Montana. With Wayne Gretzky we did a “Wayne’s World” thing. I had never been on skates or played hockey, so Wayne Gretzky kneeled down and put on my shin guards. Wayne Gretzky showed me how to hold a hockey stick. I mean, that’s like unbelievable. He was the most humble superstar I guess I had ever met.

TOM HANKS,
Host:

The second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth times I did the show were just a blast. It’s a one-week performance camp where everybody’s operating from a sense of just incredible amounts of glee and manic energy as well as vast amounts of fear and flop sweat. That’s
Saturday Night Live
, and there is absolutely nothing else like it.

KEVIN NEALON:

Musicwise, it was just a dream come true, because I grew up with the Beatles and James Taylor and Paul Simon, and those are people who came through a lot. You know, sitting next to Paul McCartney as he’s playing “Hey Jude” during rehearsal. And Mick Jagger came on the show. And Eddie Vedder from Pearl Jam, he’s doing three songs and he’s not sure which three to do, so he’s asking during rehearsal, “So, what do you think I should do?” So that’s why I loved the show and the only reason I stayed so long, is because I loved doing it, I loved living in New York City, and I loved being able to work with all of these talented people who came through every week. A lot of people just wanted to use that show as a stepping-stone to get out and move on. But I just loved being there.

AL FRANKEN:

Paul McCartney was the musical guest. The musical guest usually rehearses on Thursday afternoon, and if we had someone like Clapton or Paul McCartney, 8H would just fill up with people from 30 Rock to see the rehearsal. The place was just jammed.

Paul does two songs, and Lorne comes up to him and says to him, “Paul, could you do ‘Hey Jude’?” And Paul goes like, “Huh. I’m not sure if I remember it really.” And I go like, “Hey Jude, don’t be afraid —” and he goes, “No, stop! Stop! You’ll get it wrong.” And then he thinks about it for a second and he goes, “Okay, okay, okay,” and he goes to this guy and talks to him and then sits down and they do “Hey Jude.” And “Hey Jude” was like the song that when you were sixteen and you were driving and got to your destination and “Hey Jude” was on the radio, you just sat there and listened to it.

He’s playing “Hey Jude” and I’m beginning to tear up and think about what’s happened to my life since I’ve been sixteen, where’d my life go, and everybody else in the place is beginning to cry. So Saturday, the music rehearses after dinner or during dinner and we stop blocking and they do the music rehearsal. So again it’s McCartney and again the place is jam-packed with people. He plays “Hey Jude” and the same thing happens. People start crying and I get kind of misty. And then I see a set. We’re doing the Gap Girls that week, and every time we do the Gap Girls we have the set that has thousands and thousands of dollars’ worth of Gap clothes in it, including a shelving of jeans, and they always put a guard in front of it so nobody would take any of the clothes. And I’m looking at the guard and the guard is crying. And, you know, I haven’t had any time to shop. So we get to dress and “Hey Jude,” and the audience is going like, “Unbelievable! He’s playing ‘Hey Jude,’ I can’t believe it.” I’m looking at the guard, who’s still very moved. I’m thinking I’m not going to have time on Sunday to go shopping and I need some jeans. So on-air, the Gap set was dark and the guard was totally focused on McCartney singing “Hey Jude,” so I just started looking for some 34–30 jeans and took them.

I went to Dan the prop guy and told him I took two pair of jeans. I was willing to pay for them, I just didn’t want to spend the time shopping.

CHRIS ELLIOTT:

Joey Buttafuco, that was the lowest point for me at
SNL
, walking back to my dressing room and seeing this guy just walk by me and go, “Hi, Chris,” and I just said, “Hi, Joe.” And then I had to be in a sketch with him.

It literally was the worst year of my life. I went there too late after I had a career. I had already done my own TV show and had eight years with Dave, and then I got there and it was a huge cast. I kept thinking every show, “Okay, I’ll do something next week that’s better,” you know. And I never did. And the year got away from me. And it was devastating, because I think for everybody who’s like my age and in comedy,
SNL
was probably the reason that we tried to get into it. For the first few years at
Letterman
, I thought, you know, it was a stepping-stone — to
Saturday Night Live.
And to fail that miserably there for me was a big deal.

DAVID SPADE:

They say that if you go with the flow it’s always better, and that would be my recommendation to anyone going on the show: If you’re going to go on, then just make fun of yourself and have a great time. It is always endearing to watch someone make fun of themselves. You can’t hate someone that actually says, “I’m an idiot. I’m admitting I know you think so, and I’m okay with it,” and it kind of goes away, and it’s funny. But to fight every possible sketch and everything that makes you look not cool and all that is exhausting.

TOM HANKS:

“The Five-Timers Club” is still one of my favorite sketches. By that time I had figured that the secret of being the host of the show is to concern yourself only with the monologue. Because if you have a good monologue, everybody thinks the entire show was great. If you have a poor monologue, it means you have to go and win back the favor of the people who are watching at home. So by the fifth time, I was like pushing for something slam dunk. We must have a magnificent monologue. And I think Lorne said, “Well, why don’t we do something like, you get to join a select club?” And that was that.

I think that was the first time I met Paul Simon. He did a cameo. So there was definitely truth to the idea that I felt I was entering a pantheon of
Saturday Night
legends. The other great thing about that “Five-Timers Club” was, they had Ralph Nader outside the door trying to get in, because he had hosted the show once. So it’s a heady atmosphere, man. Suddenly you’re like goofing with Ralph Nader and Paul Simon.

ALEC BALDWIN,
Host:

I did a sketch once in the early days when we did this really silly send-up of Brando in
The Wild One.
We did “The Environmentally Sensitive One.” I do my Brando impersonation and I roll into town, and Victoria Jackson is the girl I pick up in town, and she’s got the tight sweater and the huge boobs sticking in your face. Phil Hartman plays her father, who’s the head of a chemical manufacturing company that’s dumping waste into the local lake and killing everybody. It was this incredibly silly, silly sketch.

In the end, when the chemical factory is exploding and killing everybody in town, I’m offering Victoria a chance to ride off on my motorcycle with me. Phil Hartman beseeches me, he says the line “Take me with you,” and it was just the way he said the line, I always remember that as one of the times I almost cracked up on-camera. He just grabbed me and with this incredible yearning, this incredible panic, said, “Take me with you.” I thought I was going to piss in my pants in the middle of the show.

I can be sitting there in one of those NPR sketches saying “wiener” and “balls” and “lick my balls” and “sweaty balls,” and I don’t think that that’s funny; I appreciate that other people do. But Phil Hartman could walk up to me and say, “Take me with you,” and he had that little sob inside the line, you know, and I thought I was going to pass out. It was all I could do to keep from laughing.

TOM HANKS:

I think you figure out after a while that there are some sketches out there that are floating around and they have yet to land on a show and they keep bringing them back again. You realize there’s a reason these sketches are still just floating around and haven’t landed on the show. There’ve been times we’ve been at the read-through and you can tell by everybody’s groans that you’re reading for the fourth time some sketch that somebody just thinks is great, hilarious, and they’re submitting again, hoping that the host will click with it or something will happen like that.

I know there was one sketch that we’d actually put on its feet — I can’t remember what show it was, but it was called “The Penis Song.” It was all about us singing this song called “Penis, Penis, Penis, Penis, Penis, All Day Long. Penis, Penis, Penis, Penis, Penis Song.” It just went on and on and on — and it got cut. And so I thought, “Well, that’ll never be seen again.” But then it showed up about three shows later. Somebody else was hosting. And so somebody else got to sing “The Penis Song” on TV, God bless him. Can’t remember who it was.

On one of the earliest times I did the show, when NBC still had Standards and Practices, we read a hilarious sketch called “Jew, Not a Jew,” which was a game show in which you try to figure out who’s Jewish and who’s not. Standards and Practices wouldn’t let it on the first time but, like when I did the show, I don’t know, either the fourth, fifth, sixth time, by that time there was no Standards and Practices, and so we were trying to figure out something to do. Then Al Franken said, “Well, how about ‘Jew, Not a Jew’?” I said, “You guys haven’t done that yet?” And so we pulled out “Jew, Not a Jew” and it killed. It was hilarious.

But when you’re there for a while, you begin to get — you recognize the patina of a sketch that has yet to be on the air because no one has quite fully committed to it.

VICTORIA JACKSON,
Cast Member:

Lorne said I could stay as long as I want, but I was burned out. I was just tired of trying to think of ideas. The only thing I figured out how to write was “Update Handstands.” How many different ways can you do a handstand? They had one with a flag on my butt.

DANA CARVEY:

By ’93 I’d done seven years, George Bush had run its course, “Wayne’s World,” Church Lady had all been done — basically I thought I’d done as much as I could do. My younger friends who were right behind me — David Spade, Chris Farley, and Adam Sandler — were bursting with energy. They’d been on the junior varsity two or three years and it just seemed like a natural time for them to take over the show. Dennis Miller had left, Jon Lovitz had left, and Nora Dunn had left. Bonnie and Terry Turner were leaving right around that time. It was a close call, because Phil Hartman was still there, but it felt like the right time to go. I just didn’t want to stay too long.

Very quickly you feel incredibly old after you leave the show. What happens is that people come in, you’re thirty-one, and then all of a sudden you’re forty in the blink of an eye, and then there’s a cast member who’s twenty-four, looking at you like you’re Chevy Chase or Dan Aykroyd and shaking when they talk to you. And you go, “But I was just the new guy a second ago.”

I know that Lorne didn’t want me to leave, so it was bittersweet that way. He definitely wanted to keep me through the election, which I did until Clinton was sworn in and stuff, and that added a year and a half. I stayed. I definitely felt some sense of loyalty in that sense. I didn’t want to leave him in the lurch.