Live From New York: An Uncensored History of Saturday Night Live (69 page)

NORM MACDONALD:

I was never bitter. I always understood that Ohlmeyer could fire me, because he was the guy that owned the cameras, so that didn’t bother me. Ohlmeyer seemed honest to me about it, you know, straightforward. I was always happy that
SNL
gave me a chance. Other comics, when they were young, wanted to be on Johnny Carson. To me it was like that, you get to be on
Saturday Night Live
, it’s a dream come true, and then everything after that is not going to be as good. To me, just getting there was the thing.

WARREN LITTLEFIELD:

Of course myself and others said to Don, “Why are you doing this? What is the agenda? We finish out the year and make the change.” I think Don felt he had to send a message, and there are times where Don just felt he had to exert executive power because he could. That public firing was probably the greatest perception ever that it wasn’t Lorne’s call. That was probably the toughest thing Lorne ever had to endure. Really unfortunate.

NORM MACDONALD:

So then I thought it would be funny to go on
Letterman
and talk about it, because I knew that Letterman had been fired from NBC and stuff like that. I got fired on a Monday, so I called up the people at
Letterman
and said, “Hey, you should have me on, because I got fired. It would be funny if I just said on the show that I got fired, you know?” And so they booked me and I went on. I told Lorne that I’d already been booked on
Letterman
and could I still do it, and maybe I shouldn’t do it, and he said, “Go ahead, do it.” I didn’t tell him that I had done it on purpose.

And I remember Letterman during a break goes, “This is like some Andy Kaufman thing with fake wrestling, right?” And I go, “No, no. It’s serious.” Like he thought it was just a gag. Then the next day there was like some big reaction at
SNL
. All of a sudden people didn’t want me to get fired, because they saw it as some sort of a big network president against the little guy. So then they pretended like they liked me the whole time. Lorne was trying to figure out what to do, because he didn’t want it to look like he’d lost control of the show or the network was making decisions for him.

After that, I just tried to get off the show. Ohlmeyer wouldn’t let me off; he just wanted me not to do “Update” and do like sketches or whatever. I didn’t want to do sketches. So everybody’s kind of embarrassed about the whole situation; they just want you gone. But Lorne had always told me, “In the show, you have to have an exit strategy.” Which is a way to leave the show in exactly the right way to move on in show business. So I guess after I got fired, my idea was to have an exit strategy — to get out of there without just slinking away after getting fired. And that worked to some extent, in the sense that it gave me a little bit of publicity, which is sort of currency in show business.

TIM HERLIHY,
Writer:

I’m very good friends with Norm and very good friends with Colin Quinn, so it was tough making that “Update” transition. It was like right around the time Chris Farley died, that first week that we were trying to put together “Weekend Update” with Colin, wondering whether Norm was going to show up or whether it was all going to reverse. We kind of had to plow into it, and put together a whole new set and a whole new everything and try and get Colin ready.

“They’re going to fire Norm, they’re going to fire Norm” — and, you know, this had been going on for weeks and weeks. And all of a sudden they fired Norm. We just kind of couldn’t believe it. There was a real sense of disbelief, and there was a sense that this was just the latest chess move in something that was going to go on for a long, long time.

COLIN QUINN,
Cast Member:

There was no inkling. Maybe some people knew and we just didn’t realize it. But there was no inkling. And I think at that point I was well enough known in the show where I probably would have heard if there was some big rumor flying. I mean, sure, a couple of people knew. But there was no inkling. And Norm had been so good about letting me do pieces on “Update.” Not only were me and Norm tight when shooting pool, I lived in the same building as Norm. So it’s like, here he is, ten floors below, and I’m hearing this shit.

What happened was, they called me and told me about Norm just because we knew each other. So it’s like, “Oh my God!” But here’s how I felt: I felt horrible that it wasn’t going to be Norm, but — and I even said it to Lorne when I met Lorne after that — if it’s not Norm, I’m not going to stand here and say I don’t want it. Because I don’t want some other guy from outside who I don’t think is fucking funny to take the job just because I was being respectful of Norm. And I think Norm felt the same way.

Norm was such an ally of mine, getting all my “Update” features on, that in a way, he had a lot to do with the fact that I would be the guy to take over for him. “Huge whore” — he would say that a lot. And in that Canadian accent of his, it’s perfect. Yeah, he’s a funny fucking bastard. “Huge whore.” You know, if there’s one criticism of him, it is that he should have used that on more people.

In retrospect, I could imagine how people would be like, “Quinn’s not ready for ‘Update.’” But part of being a comedian is the delusion that you should be onstage at all times. Comedians could watch like Robin Williams and Chris Rock go on and the whole audience go crazy, and the whole time I know what they’re thinking — even the youngest new guys: “I should come to work this crowd. I’m telling you, I could kill right now.” That’s how comedians think. I see the young guys looking at me like, “Move over. You had a nice run. Beat it!”

LORNE MICHAELS:

Don’s not stupid. Don’s not even “evil.” But Don is like the greatest high school football coach ever. He’ll beat you to within an inch of your life, and he’ll force you to do things — but he won’t abandon you. I don’t think Conan O’Brien would have stayed on the air if not for Don Ohlmeyer.

Colin Quinn’s reign as “Update” anchor was relatively short-lived. When the show returned for a new season in the fall of 2000, head writer Tina Fey and cast member Jimmy Fallon took over “Update” and made it a showpiece again. It’s no longer a parody of a newscast; now it’s just a sexy pair of smart alecks sitting around and making fun of the world. One critic, leveling presumably the ultimate compliment, said that when at their most “ruthless,” Fey and Fallon “summon up the finest spirit of Belushi — the anarchic, savage Belushi, the one we all want to remember most fondly in our dreams.” Of course, Belushi was never an “Update” anchor, though he did appear occasionally with one of his commentaries, pieces that started out on a calm and reasoned note and rapidly degenerated into hilarious tirades — ending with Belushi twirling himself off his chair and vanishing behind the “Update” desk.

RALPH NADER,
Host:

In general, on the weekly news “Update” they bat about .275. More than one of four is really good. But there is some redeeming value to it. When the realistic freedom of dialogue and public discourse is restricted in any society, the quality of satire increases. That’s why the best satire in the world in the latter half of the twentieth century was in the Soviet Union, like
Krokodil
magazine. Our satire couldn’t come close to the satire in the Soviet bloc countries, because it was the only way they could get anything across.

We’re moving into that arena now, only it isn’t the government that’s doing it. It’s the censorship of the monetized moguls who run the communications industry and the television-radio industry. I think over time, there’ve been a lot of stupid and gross things on
Saturday Night Live
, but it does get across some current events with its skits and its “Weekend Update.” That is just a reflection of the decay of our culture. When the culture decays and the communications media decay, then something as weak as a .275 hitter on
Saturday Night Live
shines.

TINA FEY,
Writer, Cast Member:

I came here as a writer. I didn’t expect to be on-camera, but I had been performing at Second City doing eight shows a week and I was auditioning for other stuff outside as an actor. I never booked commercials and I never got two lines on
Early Edition
— nothing. So I was kind of at a crossroads and thought, “Well, maybe I should just be a writer.” I applied for this job as a writer and kind of left it open that if I got the job, that would sort of decide for me what I was going to do for the next stretch of time. After a year or two, I did start to miss performing, so I did a two-woman show with Rachel Dratch in Chicago one summer, and then we did it in New York all of last summer, and also I improvised all the time with the Upright Citizens Brigade down on Twenty-second Street. So we did our show, and I think Lorne came and saw the show last summer. Colin had said he was leaving early in the summer, and then Lorne came and saw the show, and it was Lorne’s idea for me and Jimmy to test together to do “Update.”

JIMMY FALLON,
Cast Member:

Originally I didn’t even want to do “Update.” Honestly, when they asked me if I wanted to do it, I had no idea about the news or anything. I don’t read. I read
USA Today;
that’s the only thing I read, because it’s got colored pictures and stuff. Now I find out the news through setups we do for jokes.

I said “Update” wasn’t my bag and didn’t want to do it at all. And then Lorne kind of talked me into it. And I said, “The only way I’m going to do it is to do it with two people, because I don’t want it to be The Jimmy Fallon Thing.” So we look at the auditions — because a lot of the cast auditioned to be “Update” host — and Tina Fey’s was awesome. It was great. They were going to hire some other dude, but she was just so cute and so awesome, it was unbelievable. And she had a point of view that I hadn’t seen on “Update.” So I thought it would be really cool if we both did it, and like immediately Lorne loved it. He knew it right there. He said, yes, definitely: “Tina’s going to be the smart, brainy girl, and you’re going to be the kind of goofy guy that doesn’t do his homework and asks her for answers and stuff.” You know, Lorne is brilliant with that stuff. So it was like, “Okay, I like that.”

We did a test with just me, Tina, the cameramen, a director, and Lorne. And after one take, he would come out with, “Okay, relax a little bit more.” And, “I like Tina on this side and Jim on this side.” Lorne said, “What we’ll do is, we’ll do it until Christmas, because it takes a long time to get into it, and if you hate it or it’s not working, we can find something else.”

TINA FEY:

All we had from Lorne was that he wanted it to seem that we liked each other, which we do, and that the whole thing was a good time. And underneath that, I know for me, I wanted to make sure I felt that the point of view of the jokes was in keeping with — you know, if I’m reading it — my own point of view of the story. And Lorne said to not worry about it as a parody of the news so much anymore. We use that when it helps us and not worry about it when it doesn’t. Because there’ve been so many parodies and satires of TV newscasts over the years.

Jimmy and I looked at a few tapes when we were preparing our test. We did watch Chevy specifically, because Lorne talked about it. It was an interesting point. He said you have to go out there with a little detachment — “These are the jokes they gave me” — which for me was particularly different, because a lot of times I was writing them. But it is true that to get away with it, you want that sort of playful detachment. Like, we’re just out here trying to deal with this. We’re not that invested in it.

JIMMY FALLON:

After the first “Update,” I was so stressed. When it was over with, I thanked Lorne. I was like, “This is the coolest thing ever.” It’s such a rush, man. Because I’m wearing a suit, for God’s sake. I don’t have any suits! I don’t! I’ve got to wear suits now. So I wear suits and talk about the White House and all that stuff. It’s cool. Then De Niro came on. It’s just fun. It’s absolutely fun. I’m peaking soon. It’s got to peak, because otherwise I’ll go insane, and then where are you?

The way I look at it is, it’s mine and Tina’s little six-minute thing. It’s a theater show. If I want to talk to the audience, I’m going to. One time, the applause sign didn’t go on. And it was just dead air. And I was like, “Did they not press the applause button? What’s the deal?” Meanwhile, on the cue card it says, “Thank you, everybody.” So I am not going to read the card and say, “Thank you, everybody,” if no one clapped. Thanks for what? So instead I just said, “Thanks, Tina — and no one else, apparently.”

TINA FEY:

We knew that Jimmy was more than charming enough for the two of us. So we’d have that.

ALEC BALDWIN:

I would say the show’s less politically wicked than it used to be. Now they make fun of people, but they don’t make fun of people and make a political statement at the same time. It doesn’t seem that it’s as biting satirically as it was before. They should be having a field day with those two huge oil whores that we have in there now, Cheney and Bush. God, you could be just cooking them and eating them every week.

I still think Tina Fey is hysterically funny, though; I think she has the perfect kind of meter and cadence for the news thing. And that’s something where you do still have some of the edginess of the show. I used to not even watch the “Weekend Update” segment before, because I thought it was just a lot of tired LaToya Jackson jokes. Now it has some real bite to it, and I think it’s because of Tina and Jimmy. They’re really funny.

DON OHLMEYER: