RE-RELEASE - Laraine Newman

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Speaker 2 Yeah, me too. I mean, I'll open the fridge in December and it's like half a pizza and an orange from 1997.
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Speaker 1 So it's today we got Lorraine Newman. We're showing.

Speaker 1 This is like vintage, great shows that were really early on. She was within the first 10 episodes we've ever done.

Speaker 2 I didn't even, the sounds a little off because it was so new. It was only our fifth show that I kept the mic.

Speaker 2 way away from me. And so, you know, I didn't, that was how early it was, you know.

Speaker 1 Well, she did a great job. Very interesting to be in the original OG SNL cast from 75.

Speaker 1 Millions of stories about that. And I saw her when we did, I think, was it our Phil Hartman tribute?

Speaker 1 Yes. We were live because we have a photo backstage with her.

Speaker 2 And she does a lot of voiceover work. So we were at the Secret Life of Pets premiere.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 she really does. I mean, you know, there's the original cast and everybody else.
It's just the way the world works. They were the first,

Speaker 2 and they changed. And the show's still on.
But yeah, she has great stories about Chevy and John Belushi and Dan.

Speaker 2 This was really fun and easy. I'd like to have her back on again.

Speaker 1 Gilda, Jane Curtin. Yeah.

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Anyway, here she is. You'll love it.
Lorraine Newman.

Speaker 2 Everyone loves Lorraine.

Speaker 4 Lorraine,

Speaker 1 you have a great voice. And

Speaker 1 not that I'm flirting, but

Speaker 1 when women say, or people say, what do you like about women?

Speaker 1 One of my weird things, it's not that weird, but aside from the basics, oh, I like this and this, that all guys like, a voice is very interesting because it's very unique on every person.

Speaker 1 And even as you get older, people recognize your voice. Like they know mine from the Emperor's New Groove, which was a cartoon movie I did a long time ago.
And so when I'm in 7-Eleven, people

Speaker 5 touchy.

Speaker 1 No, touch me.

Speaker 5 Everybody in my family, all my kids know that reference.

Speaker 1 Oh, they know that reference.

Speaker 3 Did you ever think?

Speaker 5 Did you ever think?

Speaker 1 No, but I was telling that whole story just to get to see if they knew my movie.

Speaker 5 No, but you have.

Speaker 2 You have a recognizable voice, David. You have a recognizable voice.

Speaker 1 And she has a good voice that's right off the bottom.

Speaker 2 Drain has a very seductive,

Speaker 3 smooth,

Speaker 2 feminine voice.

Speaker 1 You know where it really came in handy? E-Buzz Miller. Weren't you the girlfriend or something?

Speaker 5 Christy Christina, a character that I never understood why anybody thought that was funny. I never, ever thought that character was funny.
I just was like, you know, well, they gave me the part.

Speaker 5 I'm going to do the best I can. And they even made this kind of piece.
that gave me those

Speaker 5 boobs with the

Speaker 5 little bullet nipples because it was actually a rubber piece that went under the leotard.

Speaker 1 So it's a weird meaning that they probably don't have anymore.

Speaker 5 Who knows? Yeah.

Speaker 1 Well, okay, Lorraine,

Speaker 1 when you do a part like that, I think SNL people want to, and we can talk about anything, but on the SNL tip, when

Speaker 1 Dane and I have been in that mix and it's probably similar when you were there, but is that Danny Aykroyd is writing something up or someone else, they walk by, knock on your door and go, hey, do you want to be in this thing?

Speaker 1 We're writing it up. It's Tuesday night where you play.
Is that kind of how it goes?

Speaker 5 The way that it went with you is exactly the way it went with us. I remember listening to Andy Samberg on a radio show, and he talked about the schedule, like Monday,

Speaker 5 meet the host, pitch some ideas. Lauren says, work on that.
Everybody works until Wednesday to read through, you know, the whole thing, choosing what, you know, build the sets.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I mean, and you guys didn't have, they probably ironed out a lot of the problems. You probably had a little rougher as far as

Speaker 3 well.

Speaker 2 We didn't, we, we didn't have WordPress. We didn't have, I wasn't there during being online and stuff.
So I did go back to host at one point. Bill Hayter and John Mulany were there.

Speaker 2 And they're like, oh, well, we'll click up this sketch that you did from dress that was cut in 1987.

Speaker 3 So they have everything in a database.

Speaker 1 I wouldn't even think of that.

Speaker 2 And I, I, you know, when you never know what's going to land with people. So I had done a sitcom with Mickey Rooney and he's the freakiest person ever, you know, hysterical.

Speaker 5 I have a Mickey Rooney story, but go ahead.

Speaker 3 Mickey Rooney.

Speaker 2 And so then I just took Mickey's lines. There's some sketch Bonnie and Terry Turner were doing, old-fashioned movie stars.
So I just told them stuff Mickey had said.

Speaker 2 I was the number one star in the world.

Speaker 3 You hear me? Bang.

Speaker 2 The world. So I just did Mickey's lines, and I had prosthetic makeup.
So I go there, and Bill Hayter and John Mulaney, they just go, well, our favorite thing you've ever done is Mickey Rooney.

Speaker 3 So

Speaker 3 just one of those things.

Speaker 5 Well, that's a great impression of him.

Speaker 5 What is the language code on this show?

Speaker 2 Oh, you can tell you. What the motherfucker...

Speaker 3 What were you saying?

Speaker 5 So I did a movie that I had had nightmares that had been released, and I would wake up sweating.

Speaker 5 And it was called Revenge of the Red Baron. And it was the kind of thing where I said to my agent, just ask for this amount of money.
They'll never agree to it and it'll be over.

Speaker 5 Well, they agreed to it.

Speaker 3 And it was a Roger Corman.

Speaker 5 It was a Roger Corman movie, okay? And I'm thinking, well, you know. Catherine Bigelow started with Roger Corman, but no, this was some schlepper that had been cutting his movies for 20 years.

Speaker 5 But Toby Maguire played my son.

Speaker 5 Clifty Young was in it. And a lot of, it was written by Mike McDonald from the Groundlings and Mad TV.

Speaker 3 Okay, so it could be good.

Speaker 5 And there were some Groundlings in it. And so I thought

Speaker 5 Mickey Rooney would say those things, you know, I was the biggest star. And then as he's, as he's hitching his trousers,

Speaker 5 when I was having my single and he was in my peripheral vision, he would spit in his hand and make masturbatory gestures and then squirt the spit out of his hand

Speaker 3 like it was semen. Talk about painting a picture, Rooney.

Speaker 3 Thank you. Thank you.
Yes.

Speaker 5 Yeah. Can you imagine?

Speaker 1 I thought I was the only one that did that on sets.

Speaker 3 That's always a real thing.

Speaker 5 I know we shouldn't speak ill of the dead.

Speaker 3 No, not at all.

Speaker 2 He was just the most bitter person. It was so funny.
He had a 38 revolver with him, and he would pull it out sometimes. This script is ca-ca.
And he's kind of waving it around.

Speaker 4 She's reliving it in her head.

Speaker 2 I would go to work. It would be Rockefeller Center on the sixth floor, six years before I got on the eighth floor.
And I'd hear him down the hallway.

Speaker 3 You know, Judy Garland never owned her car.

Speaker 3 Never owned a car.

Speaker 2 And then he would get really close to your face, because they pumped her so full of drugs, they killed her. He would talk until the air, there was no more air left.

Speaker 2 And once you worked with Mickey, I mean, Nathan and I had so many stories about working with Mickey, but yeah, he could be crude.

Speaker 2 He said he had an idea for a show where every character's name was a swear word, and he would act it out for like 20 minutes. Hello, Mrs.
Fuck. I'm Mr.
Shit. How are you, motherfucker?

Speaker 2 And it went on for like 20 minutes.

Speaker 1 I could get that sold.

Speaker 5 Well, I actually saw him say to an actor,

Speaker 5 have you accepted Jesus Christ as your personal savior? Hey, would you look at the tits on that one?

Speaker 3 You know, it was like, right,

Speaker 3 you know,

Speaker 3 and he was phoning it in.

Speaker 2 He was in Sugar Babies on Broadway doing the sitcom. So we'd have to act to this guy who's like 30 years old, but he was five feet tall.
All week long, we would rehearse with him.

Speaker 2 And Mickey would have giant cue cards. He was just, and he would always had cash because he'd been broke for decades.
And Sugar Babies, babies, he was making money on the sitcom.

Speaker 2 So he'd pull out like $5,000 and put it right up to your face and go, think I can afford lunch?

Speaker 3 Oh my God.

Speaker 3 There's too many stories.

Speaker 2 We don't want to make it all.

Speaker 3 I'm just curious.

Speaker 5 What were you doing on the sixth floor for

Speaker 5 four years?

Speaker 2 I was doing, pretty long story short, I was doing

Speaker 2 stand-up in San Francisco. NBC people came up.
I had kind of this

Speaker 2 innocent Timmy lassie look going on. I was kind of funny, whatever.
So I got a deal with NBC, a holding deal, $50,000 up front against things I would be doing.

Speaker 2 I was on the Marie Osma and Variety Show as

Speaker 2 a sketch player for like a day.

Speaker 2 But anyway, then all of a sudden, I got a call from NBC. You're going to play Mickey Rooney's grandson on a sitcom in New York.
And Nathan Lane had... auditioned in L.A.
We flew back out on a 747.

Speaker 2 George Burns was playing cards.

Speaker 3 Anyway, everything was surreal.

Speaker 2 And it was in Rockefeller Center on the sixth floor.

Speaker 2 And then I would go up to the eighth floor on Thursdays, watching them run through the thing, Joe Piscopo and Eddie Murphy, and going, oh man, I want to be up here.

Speaker 2 But I was cast as a straight man for many years because I just had, and I had no confidence.

Speaker 2 I had no, I had ambition, but I had no real confidence, which kind of comes full circle a little bit to your story. When I'm watching Saturday Night Live from 75 to 80,

Speaker 2 you were the Beatles.

Speaker 2 You were rock stars. You were more than comedians because you were the first.

Speaker 2 And I was so in awe of the show, the idea that I would be on it. And I don't know how you felt because you get on, and the show is not the show yet.
It's still, maybe it'll get canceled. Yeah.

Speaker 2 So can you just talk a little bit about that very, very bare beginning? Were you there for the first show of the 75 season?

Speaker 2 You're there, and who's with you? Is everyone there? Chevy?

Speaker 5 Everybody's there. And the last,

Speaker 5 like,

Speaker 5 you know, the 11th hour, it was between Billy and Chevy.

Speaker 5 Really? Yeah, which killed me because I had never

Speaker 5 seen Billy except I, he was one of the first people I met. My first friend was Gilda Redner.

Speaker 5 And she took me up to a recording session for a national lampoon album, the one that's called That's Not Funny, That's Sick.

Speaker 5 So I'm on that album, but I meet Harold Ramos and Chris Chris Guest and Landle Murray and Bill Murray. And so I got a sense of what Billy had.
And then I saw his audition.

Speaker 5 I'm thinking, oh boy, you know, and then they chose Chevy.

Speaker 3 Wait, they weren't. And

Speaker 2 they couldn't have both of them?

Speaker 5 That's what I thought. That's what I had hoped.

Speaker 2 But they had Belushi and Ackroyd already.

Speaker 3 Yes.

Speaker 1 Well, now they have 32 cast members.

Speaker 3 Back then it was just.

Speaker 1 How many was it with you guys?

Speaker 5 Seven.

Speaker 2 So explosive. I mean, I really want to talk through this a lot, but just for a second, I just, because of

Speaker 2 everyone's love of Gilda Radner and your whole cast, but what, but she just seems so likable.

Speaker 2 I mean, was she just really fun and just a genuine, I mean, all of you and Jane, you know, I don't know, there's just a likability of that whole cast. But speak to Gilda for a second.

Speaker 5 Well,

Speaker 5 she was a really good person.

Speaker 3 That's nice to know.

Speaker 5 She was the person that, you know, made a fuss over your birthday.

Speaker 5 And just

Speaker 3 very sweet.

Speaker 5 You know, she and I found ourselves in some pickles, which I talk about in my book.

Speaker 3 Oh, and what is the name of the book?

Speaker 2 Maybe we'll get a big following later.

Speaker 5 May you live in interesting times.

Speaker 5 And,

Speaker 5 you know, one was that when we did the New Orleans Live from New Orleans special, the technology, you know, for doing green screen and shifting from one set to another was like a minute old.

Speaker 5 And everything that could have gone wrong did.

Speaker 5 But the days before, during the rehearsal process, Gilda and I were put into a room in a building at a part of town. We did not know where we were.

Speaker 5 We were scared to go out because we were literally getting mobbed.

Speaker 5 And we were in this room with nothing but chairs and a trash can with one of those lids that you step on a pedal and the lid goes up.

Speaker 5 They forgot about us for four hours.

Speaker 5 We were in this room for four hours and Gilda turned that trash can into a puppet

Speaker 5 because that's the kind of person she was, you know? That's nice. And, God, there's just so many times that she and I, for some reason, you know, but we also just,

Speaker 5 you know, would have breakfast together before we went into work. And

Speaker 2 that's, you know, I think it comes across, and I don't know if Lauren honed this later, or you think about there's the funny part, there's the likability part, and then there's the charisma.

Speaker 2 And finally, there's how might they work together? You know, will they, you know, kind of like a sitcom, you know, you have this, this piece, this piece, this piece.

Speaker 2 But I think everyone who's gone through that, you never lose a certain kind of bond with your cast, especially unknown people, not famous at all, no money at all, going on this television show.

Speaker 2 And I was 10 years later in 86, but don't you still feel that esprit de corps with your original cast if you run into Dan Aykroyd or whoever?

Speaker 5 It's an extraordinary experience. As you know, it is an extraordinary experience.
And I always liken it to a lifeboat where, you know, you all survive something.

Speaker 5 Some of us didn't. But you all survived something that was very extraordinary.

Speaker 5 I was on Dennis Miller's show a couple weeks ago, and we talked about the very same thing. And

Speaker 5 he mentioned the movie The Right Stuff, which I think of this scene every time people ask about the camaraderie of the cast and the closeness where they're backstage.

Speaker 5 I think Lyndon Johnson is introducing them.

Speaker 2 I think that's the only thing many times, yes.

Speaker 5 Yeah, that scene where they're backstage and they're all just kind of looking at one another like, I guess we did this thing that nobody else has ever done.

Speaker 5 You know, and obviously, I'm not comparing our show to space exploration, but you know, it was the same feeling. feeling.

Speaker 2 Well, I would say, you know,

Speaker 2 without that analogy, but in terms of show business, especially as the show grew live, I remember just doing a cold opening and one is the president or whatever.

Speaker 2 And just the whole weight of the show is on you. And then there's that Joe Disco, Disco, five seconds.

Speaker 2 And you're just... Five seconds.
You're like floating, and then you're just reading the card and hoping that you're articulating.

Speaker 2 That is a lot of pressure, you know, i think in in show business i don't know if there's any more anything that currently exists live like that and they weren't ready from that background i'm sorry what did you say dane uh everything i say is important so everyone has to listen closely

Speaker 1 um i was just saying that when dana and i were on

Speaker 1 there was a chance you could get famous or being just being on it you'd get a little bump in fame even if you suddenly didn't click or whatever but with you guys you seem like a very sweet woman and gilda and all those people together and not knowing that it's such a whopper and getting the biggest hit out of it that anyone's gotten must mess with your head.

Speaker 1 Like you were saying, just walking the street or getting breakfast and you feel like, do I deserve this? Or why, what's going on here? And why are so many people thinking this is so great?

Speaker 1 Even though you think it's fun, but I think it, I don't think anyone can prep for that.

Speaker 2 Well, you kind of, I mean, since you're part of this era, it really, when you think about

Speaker 2 the evolution of comedy from laugh-in, and Lauren used to say, it's fucking Carol Burnett. I'm sure he loves Carol Burnett, but he had a thing about breaking in scenes when we were there.

Speaker 2 He didn't want you to break.

Speaker 2 But the rock and roll, George Carlin, Richard Pryor thing had started, and then all of a sudden this sketch show manifests itself with this. kind of post-1960s, early 70s comedy sensibility, right?

Speaker 5 What was alt comedy? That's what I've come to realize is that, yes, you had your show of shows and Carol Burnett and

Speaker 3 Laugh-In,

Speaker 5 but those were really mainstream and written by actors, writers that were not our age, did not have our references or sensibility. And this was truly an amalgam of a bunch of really great...

Speaker 5 minds like Michael O'Donoghue and Herb Sargent and Franken and Davis and all these amazing people whose tone and style had never been seen before.

Speaker 5 And then you also have the references that we all came with. I mean, you know, I came with these characters that I had done at the Groundlings.
And so you, you know, you talk about the format.

Speaker 5 That's exactly what I came from: doing a sketch, running off stage in the dark, changing my costume, coming back in the dark, lights come up, and you go. I mean, that's what I came from.

Speaker 5 And that's, you know, Jane came from the proposition.

Speaker 5 You know, Gilda came from Second City and the Lampoon Show.

Speaker 5 So, you know, we all had that background.

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Speaker 2 Did you, were you the first or one of the first on television to do the valley girl voice kind of or it

Speaker 2 feels like I mean because that is still around and it's it's organic.

Speaker 3 You're welcome.

Speaker 2 How did you hatch that?

Speaker 2 Where did that come from? That was in your early groundling time?

Speaker 5 I had always noticed even in high school that the people from the valley spoke differently. And my twin brother was a surfer.
He still is, actually.

Speaker 5 And

Speaker 5 so I'd go to the beach with him every once in a while. And, you know, there was this whole thing about the valley surfers versus the Malibu surfers and the Westside surfers.

Speaker 5 And, you know, but I did, my ear picked up because I'd always loved dialects. I'd always picked up on them.

Speaker 5 There was, you know, when I was four years old, there was an Orange Julius stand in Westwood Village run by this Scottish couple who would say things to me like, Would you like your hot dog steamed or grilled?

Speaker 5 And I would just, you know, grab on to that kind of thing.

Speaker 2 So you were doing that at age four?

Speaker 5 No, I wasn't doing it. I was noticing it.
Yeah. You know, but then I was, I did start doing dialects very young.

Speaker 5 But that was, yeah, I started hearing that valley accent and realizing that it was a very unique accent.

Speaker 2 So many people have used it.

Speaker 3 I mean, it's just

Speaker 3 a single thing. Ubiquitous.

Speaker 2 I'm familiarizing with your take on it. Did you do the thing, oh my God, or how did you process it? That became later.

Speaker 3 I don't know who did that.

Speaker 5 No, I think that Moon Unit did, oh my God. Okay.

Speaker 5 But,

Speaker 5 you know, I break down that dialect in my book. And

Speaker 2 which is called, You Should Have an Interesting Life, or what's the site?

Speaker 5 May You Live an Interesting Dialogue.

Speaker 2 May you live an interesting life right now on Everywhere Books Are Sold. Ray Newman.

Speaker 3 Audible.

Speaker 3 Audible. And,

Speaker 5 you know, contractions like wouldn't, shouldn't, or couldn't would become won't, shouldn't, and couldn't. You know, and ing endings were E-E-N, so I'm going

Speaker 5 there. And things like that.
It's just, and then there was also words like bitchin

Speaker 5 and super that came before, you know, like in my monologue in the Godfather Group Therapy sketch, I said, you know, I had to get super reflective, you know.

Speaker 5 It was that, that was the language and the dialect that I kind of

Speaker 3 Oh, yeah, that is still around.

Speaker 2 That was like super reflective. Can you do that again?

Speaker 5 I had to get super reflective.

Speaker 1 God, even that like voice grainy,

Speaker 1 that's out there too with Every Girl in the Bachelor.

Speaker 2 Lorraine, what is underneath that? I just want to know for a second.

Speaker 2 I mean, like...

Speaker 2 Someone who talks like that, is it an elitism or is it trying to be cool? Or what is kind of behind someone who would change their voice? I'm just thinking out loud.

Speaker 3 I don't think people change their voice to it.

Speaker 5 I don't think they change their voice to it. I think that it becomes ubiquitous.

Speaker 2 Yeah. And is there a charm to it? I'm just a sexuality to it.
I'm just wondering why, where it came from. But anyway, we may never figure that out exactly.

Speaker 5 It doesn't charm me one fucking bit.

Speaker 2 Because the stoner dude, the male version was like most like

Speaker 2 what you're talking about, man.

Speaker 3 This is crazy, dude.

Speaker 1 But also, if she does that, then everything, even Moon Unit, it's all sort of a spin-off of that ground, laying the groundwork.

Speaker 1 Like, you know, someone doing Lauren the first time or Christopher Walken, and everyone's kind of doing that version, but you're laying, everyone's like, oh, that's a thing now.

Speaker 1 So they're kind of playing off that one and building on it. So that's the hard thing is to come up with the code.

Speaker 3 Frank Zappa?

Speaker 5 He loved that character. He absolutely loved it and wanted to do something with it.
And it just never happened. And he's also, he was from Kookamunga.
He was from the valley.

Speaker 3 So he absolutely, you know.

Speaker 2 I did him once on the show, and Michael Thomas did such a great job with my makeup. And I came out of the room and Eric Clapped was in the hallway.

Speaker 2 Sorry, folks, name-dropping, but that's what Saturday likes to do.

Speaker 5 Michael Thomas.

Speaker 2 He was my guy. Brilliant.

Speaker 3 Funny.

Speaker 2 So fucking funny.

Speaker 5 He made vampire teeth for me.

Speaker 2 Did he? Oh, Michael Thomas, for everyone listening, was one of the quintessential brilliant makeup artists. And he could move so fast and do little things.

Speaker 2 And you'd sit in the chair, and you'd get more and more into character, and he would keep doing stuff. And then he had such a funny ear.

Speaker 2 I was doing a show a few years later, and I was asked to do all these classic impressions, like Groucho Marks. It was an Easter special.
I was Rich Little, and I didn't really have him.

Speaker 2 And so he taught me Jack Benny, and then I would go out and do Jack Benny.

Speaker 3 And then he said, This is how you do Groucho.

Speaker 2 So he also had an ear, and he loved monsters, but God rest his soul.

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 3 Loved him.

Speaker 2 Loved him. I'm so glad you had a connection with him.
He was such a great.

Speaker 1 Did you start the Groundlings or you were part of the founding people?

Speaker 5 Yeah, one of the founding members. That's great.

Speaker 3 That's so cool. That was in LA.
Who knew?

Speaker 5 Yeah. Who knew?

Speaker 1 So SNL is like the Groundlings, but suddenly when you leave, everyone has seen it. It's so funny.
You can do a sketch, walk in your room, and someone could text you and say, great one.

Speaker 1 I was in Oklahoma. I just saw it.
And you're like,

Speaker 1 It's such a mind-blower.

Speaker 5 Yeah,

Speaker 5 there's a thing going on in the Groundlings now where people would stay in the main company and they just wouldn't leave.

Speaker 5 And even though it's like, you know, they're on series television now, they just don't leave.

Speaker 5 So what they started to do to get them to leave was to do a retrospective and a celebration to just, you know,

Speaker 2 to get them out the door.

Speaker 5 And I always marveled at the technology because they had the

Speaker 5 ability to film their sketches. And when we did our 40th anniversary,

Speaker 5 the people from the 1970s, we just did straight improv because there was no, we had never filmed any of our sketches.

Speaker 5 But later on, of course, everybody had, you know, early Melissa McCarthy, early Kristen Wigg, early Maya Rudolph. You know, it was just great stuff to see.

Speaker 1 I wish that when I was there, and it was sort of with all of us, if you missed a sketch, then you waited for the rerun six months later.

Speaker 1 And if the if you missed it again, you might have been in the best of in the summer. But that's that's a long shot.
And now I don't get to see the show as much.

Speaker 1 So if Monday on Yahoo News or wherever you are on your computer, sometimes it just says, here's a sketch from, and they give you the best one. And then you go, oh, the show is pretty funny still.

Speaker 1 Even though. who knows how much of the show it's always like hit and miss, but that keeps it alive.
I think that's a big part of why it's still out there and still killing it.

Speaker 2 Well, now it's 1.6 billion YouTube hits last year for their season, which is extraordinary. And then it's now at, I don't know if it still is, but Peacock.

Speaker 2 I think you can watch it live at 8.30 on the West Coast. So

Speaker 2 it's evolved in so many ways. The interesting part about you and Gilda and Jane being the first women, and there's all these, you know, the society has evolved.

Speaker 2 And we were talking to Anna Gastei, who's another great performer.

Speaker 2 Just the idea that how many women have emerged in such a big way in the last 20 years in some of the ones you were mentioning? But it was three on your cast. Then there were those intermediate casts.

Speaker 2 I know Julie Louise Dreyfus was on. We had

Speaker 2 Jan Hooks, Nora Dunn, and Victoria Jackson.

Speaker 3 Yeah. Jan Hooks, we, she's supernatural.

Speaker 2 I love her.

Speaker 3 As good as anyone to Jan Hooks, that's such a good one.

Speaker 5 So unbelievably funny.

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 3 Just balls out funny.

Speaker 5 Oh, God.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 funny offstage. We had so many laughs.
We would just get, you know, when you get so tired in a stressful job like that, you get laughed, laughing fits. Oh, yeah.
Like your little kids.

Speaker 2 I remember one time Phil had a suit on, the late, great Phil Hartman, and we called him the glue because he was like our Danny Aykroyd or something.

Speaker 2 What do you need this week?

Speaker 2 And he didn't even, it was effortless for Phil. But Jan and I just saw his tie or something.
And we were just like, it's like we were stoned. We were so tired.

Speaker 3 Oh, he's sure.

Speaker 5 That's a great place to be, though. Don't you know? It is.

Speaker 2 You're just so weak. You can't not laugh.

Speaker 1 I have a question about Lorraine. About, you know, we had in our run, Chris Farley.
You guys had John Belushi. And Jen.
Chris looked up to John so much

Speaker 1 because they were sort of, you know, bigger guys and

Speaker 1 very physical. I remember even in wardrobe.

Speaker 1 He would find pants for a sketch and he'd look in it and it would say, Belushi, they still had them.

Speaker 1 And he'd wear them and then he'd wear his pants over those because he wanted to have anything. And at one point, I said, Chris, you're as good as Belushi.

Speaker 1 I mean, I hate to sound like blasphemous, but I go,

Speaker 1 We all love Belushi. And I go, Chris, you're at the point where when we go down the street,

Speaker 1 you're so good that I would put you in the same

Speaker 2 and he would never buy that.

Speaker 3 Never, never buy it. Never.

Speaker 5 Here's the thing that I have to say about all of that because when I hear people say your cast was the best cast, I say, no, the cast that was on when you were an adolescent is the best cast

Speaker 5 because they've always had great casts, always,

Speaker 5 always had great casts and great writers. And, you know, I mean, guys, your years had

Speaker 5 you guys and the people around you, there have always been great casts. And people that don't even know ours.

Speaker 1 They said we're bad and then later they say we're good. It's so funny that when we're there, they're like, you missed the good people.
They were just here.

Speaker 3 You guys suck. And then later they say, Saturday Live Dead.

Speaker 3 That never ended.

Speaker 1 Lauren goes, Saturday dead. It's going to get every year.
It'll be a headline.

Speaker 5 That's a good impression. I can't.

Speaker 3 I can't let Dana do it. He's the guy.

Speaker 2 The problem with the critics, they're like really into their own thing. It's that thing of like, you know, you have to be really light on your feet.

Speaker 2 It'd be nice if this sketch was like, you know, funny would be a good thing.

Speaker 2 We love Lauren's sarcasm.

Speaker 5 Did he overcome saying things like absolutely or no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, we definitely have no, no, no, no, don't misunderstand me.

Speaker 2 Mostly it would be exactly if you were telling him something exactly.

Speaker 2 Well, you know, he was always the same, but

Speaker 2 now that we have data now, we have almost 50 years of this show, it's hard to imagine another human individual navigating it like Lauren. He was so good with the network and all that part of it.

Speaker 2 He was very good with the hosts. And he also was, I think, because he's a very, very smart guy, he could get all those Ivy League guys to come in and respect him, you know, the Harvard guys.

Speaker 2 And, you know, because I went to San Francisco State, but everyone, you know, they would all giggle when I would mispronounce a word and read-through.

Speaker 2 And I'd go, you fuckers, I'll get you on the stage. That was intimidating.

Speaker 1 I don't know if you guys, you guys had great writers, Lorraine, but

Speaker 1 it got very Harvard-y when I was there from Scottsdale Community College, and I could just tell it was very clear. I was in over my head.
And it takes a while

Speaker 1 to figure out, like, I don't know if you wrote, but I think you did, but how to write a sketch or how to fit in with these guys and just get to the level.

Speaker 1 I just want to go and read through and say, I don't want everyone to go, what the fuck? Who wrote this?

Speaker 1 I just want it to be like, oh, we're not doing it, but it's sort of mixed into the bunch, you know? Because sometimes I would write something and I didn't know how to write.

Speaker 1 And I just got that yellow pad. and they would be like, that's eight pages too long.
I'm like, well, no one is talking to me.

Speaker 2 No one tells you anything. Was that the same when you were there in the 70s?

Speaker 2 You have to learn it yourself or ask other cast members.

Speaker 3 Absolutely.

Speaker 5 Yeah, nobody tells you anything. And

Speaker 5 I didn't quite get that it would be good if I were to align myself with a writer who could really get me. But fortunately, it worked out that way anyway.

Speaker 5 And O'Donoghue and Schiller and Rosie Schuster, they really wrote beautifully for me.

Speaker 5 And, you know, I brought us some of the material that I had done at the Groundlings, I brought there, but that was basically how it worked because I did not know how I the things I did in the Groundlings were what we now call N1s or down lefts, which were just character monologues.

Speaker 5 I am a shitty improviser. Shitty.
You know, so,

Speaker 3 you know, I don't have a right to say that.

Speaker 2 It's saying you improvise on Saturday Night Live, but you don't improvise.

Speaker 1 No, people think you do.

Speaker 2 But backstage you do. You know, just for a second, Rosie Schuster came back, Lauren's ex-wife, one of them, and she was assigned to me.
I'd just done this character in my stand-up.

Speaker 2 I didn't do it all day long. I never wore a dress, was this church lady person.
Oh, my God. And so we sat for a couple of weeks, you know, making the talk show out of it.

Speaker 2 And she was the one who said, ah, church chat, you know? And she was very, very good.

Speaker 3 Oh, yeah. Yeah.
She really

Speaker 3 writer.

Speaker 5 Yeah. Really beautiful.

Speaker 2 yeah so that lauren loves that when the writers in the cast get together and i actually talked to a young cast member recently who wanted to talk to me i won't say you know who it was who's currently on the show and struggling a little bit with the process i said well

Speaker 2 find whatever your rhythm of your character is you know collect your your hooks or or what what makes it funny and crunchy to you seek out a writer that has influence and and maybe would want so at the ground floor while the sketch is being written your rhythms are being integrated.

Speaker 2 Don't wait where they've written jokes and you're trying to put your character into it. Exactly.
Make sure you do it together.

Speaker 2 So it sounds like you had that with Michael Donahue and Rosie and all the rest.

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 2 That's one Lauren loves that thing, too.

Speaker 2 It's like the Congress and the Senate are getting along or something. He doesn't want one side to dominate too much.

Speaker 5 Yeah, well, Conan O'Brien talks about not knowing how to write a sketch and how he really started out by just like

Speaker 5 telling somebody stories. And people would say, yeah, you should write that as a sketch.

Speaker 5 But, you know, the idea that any, any writer would come there not knowing how to write a sketch.

Speaker 3 Well, I auditioned to be on the show.

Speaker 1 And then they say, we're me and Rob Schneider. And they go, you're hired, but you're, they liked your stand-up, but they liked the writing of it.

Speaker 1 So, which is not, which is good and bad news because they go, he wants to be a writer performer. And then they go, oh, maybe Chevy was.
I don't know who was, but I.

Speaker 5 He was just hired as a writer. Chevy was just hired as a writer.

Speaker 3 Yes.

Speaker 5 Garrett and Chevy were hired as writers.

Speaker 1 I did not know that. That's cool.

Speaker 1 How long till Billy came home? Was it three years?

Speaker 5 No. Actually, it was right away.

Speaker 3 Oh, since it was a year ago. Yeah, because Chevy did like one and a half seasons.
Yeah, whatever.

Speaker 2 He was on the cover of Time or whatever he was. He just blew up from the show.

Speaker 5 Yeah.

Speaker 2 And then he always regretted leaving. You know, when he would come back and host, he talked about wishing he'd stayed longer.

Speaker 1 Sure, for sure. I mean, it's hard.

Speaker 2 Once you leave it, you can never go back.

Speaker 5 Once you what?

Speaker 2 Once you leave SNL, you're never going to do.

Speaker 5 I thought you said once you diva,

Speaker 3 you never come back. Oh, funny.

Speaker 2 That's better than what I just said. So I did say that, Lorraine.

Speaker 3 Once you diva.

Speaker 2 But once you leave, you can't go back to that experientially. And it haunts your whole career or life in some ways because it's New York.
It's the grease paint.

Speaker 2 There's a horse in the show and someone's juggling, and it's all chaotic and weird. And there's just nothing quite like that intensity

Speaker 3 of

Speaker 3 how hard it is.

Speaker 1 And you go, I could do that, and then you leave. I'm sure Chevy, after years, like and he sees the show stays huge and even huger, and you're like, Fuck, that was fun.
I was in that, I was in the mix.

Speaker 5 Yeah, that's the thing, is sketch comedy is so fun. Yeah, you know, I mean, when I

Speaker 5 was back for the 40th, just doing sketches

Speaker 5 is So goddamn fun.

Speaker 3 Oh, yeah.

Speaker 1 And the people you get to work with, they're always super sharp, funny. Yes.
You get to look around and go, God damn, all these people are great.

Speaker 1 And then they go on to do great things and you go, shit, everyone was good. I was not wrong.

Speaker 2 It feels like it's more pressure now, but you guys,

Speaker 2 when did you, for yourself, Lorraine, so you're on the show and the show's not the show yet, but you're becoming rock stars.

Speaker 2 When did, you know, I think the audience starts to discover, and they discovered Chevy first, probably because he was on update and had an N-1 at home base. It was like very potent Chevy.

Speaker 2 But when do you feel like, when did you personally get comfortable? You feel? Were you comfortable right away? It took me, I feel like 60 shows. 60.
To get,

Speaker 2 I'd say I was better after the third season, fourth season.

Speaker 2 It took me, you know, I mean, to be really having fun, to go back full circle to like just enjoying it because everything, this picking and wigs and going and then the cards and changing to get relaxed.

Speaker 2 Did you you feel you had a breakthrough with a certain character? I mean, was it the Coneheads or any sketch you remember where I've got this, we're winning, we're a winning team, we're rock stars?

Speaker 2 Or maybe it was immediate for you guys.

Speaker 3 I don't know.

Speaker 5 No, I was very young, and I was very inexperienced.

Speaker 2 You were like 21 or something?

Speaker 5 No, no, I was 23, but I was a very young 23.

Speaker 5 I was a young 23. That's what I have to say about that.

Speaker 3 But

Speaker 5 I was very inexperienced, and I did not have a lot of confidence. And so I can't say that I ever got to a place where I felt comfortable.

Speaker 5 When I was doing something either that I wrote

Speaker 5 or that I really had an affinity for and felt like I could score with, those were great times. I mean, Marilyn Miller wrote this Barbara Streisand song for me.

Speaker 5 And I was just thinking about it the other day because someone was talking about,

Speaker 5 I think it was the documentary on Mr. Kelly's, and that Barbara Streisand does the intro on that.
And I was thinking, you know,

Speaker 5 it was a complicated song. I was the only one who could sing a little bit better than everybody else of the girls.

Speaker 5 And I just remember afterwards

Speaker 5 that kind of explosive applause when it was over. And as I'm bowing and my legs are shaking, you know, it was such a great moment and experience to have.
But I didn't have a lot of those, you know.

Speaker 2 Did you, like singing, did you sit with someone?

Speaker 2 We had Cheryl.

Speaker 2 Mark Shaman. We had Cheryl and Mark Shaman.

Speaker 5 Mark Shaman worked on the show?

Speaker 2 He did. Well, I was there for a couple of years.
Then he went off and did movies, but he was there with Cheryl.

Speaker 3 I didn't know that.

Speaker 2 This is just for people listening.

Speaker 2 You know, if there's a musical number, it's so much fun to sit down. Well, let's just say Cheryl was so wonderful and she could just play anything and you had a song you wanted to do.

Speaker 2 I think she said she did Black Magic Woman. Is that Santana? I don't know who did that.

Speaker 2 She played the chords backwards for the church chat theme.

Speaker 3 Oh, my God.

Speaker 5 How brilliant.

Speaker 2 But she would help you with notes. And no, we're going to harmonize.
And we're playing Cowboys and we're harmonizing Woody Harrelson. And she would help you.
And I'll speak to you.

Speaker 2 I want to hear your experiences. I had one freaky thing of I was in a booth with Willie Nelson.
He had his old guitar. And then he was learning a song.

Speaker 2 Maybe I didn't, and I'm seeing him learn it in real time.

Speaker 3 Oh, wow.

Speaker 2 But you have those kinds of moments.

Speaker 2 In terms of the movies, the hosts that came along in those five years,

Speaker 2 does anyone stick out?

Speaker 5 Oh, the hosts?

Speaker 2 The hosts? Because then you're meeting like you had.

Speaker 1 You had the monster stars come through. It's unreal.

Speaker 3 Richard Pryor.

Speaker 5 Yeah, Richard Pryor. I had met Richard Pryor when I was 14 because he was friends with my sister.
Oh, okay. And he was playing the Troubadour guys, the Troubadour.
He was playing the Troubadour.

Speaker 3 And so, yeah.

Speaker 5 So I met him when I was 14. So when he came to host the show, I was like,

Speaker 3 I'm Tracy Newman's little sister.

Speaker 5 Do you remember me?

Speaker 5 And he was so great to me. He was just

Speaker 3 sweet. Wow.

Speaker 5 Always like there are three people who were my main influences. Eve Arden, Madeline Kahn, and Richard Pryor.
Those are like the holy trinity for me.

Speaker 1 Madeline Kahn's another monster. Did she come host?

Speaker 3 Twice.

Speaker 1 Oh, how great. Yeah.

Speaker 2 So

Speaker 2 that, how, so that's the exact example of what happens to you on Saturday Night Lives. You have this mentor who doesn't know, and then now you're in a sketch with them.

Speaker 5 I know.

Speaker 2 It's all surreal, right?

Speaker 3 Dana.

Speaker 1 What about Lorraine? Did I read that

Speaker 1 you were stopped? I mean, this is where your career just hits a zenith when you got stopped by John and Yoko. Is that true?

Speaker 5 Yeah,

Speaker 5 I was coming from a photo session with Francisco Scavulo.

Speaker 3 I was in makeup for the win-throw with Jules Fleibug.

Speaker 3 And out of my,

Speaker 5 I'm walking through the lobby of 30 Rock, and through my peripheral vision, I see these two forms, and they come into focus. Police.
It's John and Yoko.

Speaker 5 And as they pass in front of me, John goes, hi, Lorraine.

Speaker 5 You know, not hi.

Speaker 3 Hi, Lorraine. You know, wow.

Speaker 5 And I was like Lou Costello in those series, you know, like

Speaker 3 movie Frankenstein. I was like,

Speaker 3 exactly.

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 5 Yeah. That's exactly what I was like.

Speaker 3 John Lennon.

Speaker 2 I always, you know, there were so many intersections that happened to have my cast with different people and Paul McCartney and so forth. But yeah, it was always bittersweet.

Speaker 2 I would love to have met John Lennon.

Speaker 3 Oh, my God. Yeah.
Would love to have met.

Speaker 5 Well, Christopher Lee was the person that I was very excited to meet. I had lobbied for him to be a host for three years, but it wasn't until he was in a James Bond movie that he hosted.

Speaker 3 Put him in.

Speaker 5 And God was he a great host.

Speaker 5 Of course, he immediately said, I do not want to do Dracula.

Speaker 3 He's your Steven Seagal. Yeah.

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 2 I'm going to play Coco the Clown. I don't want to do Dracula.
It's not something that I'm thinking about.

Speaker 1 Elaine, I was just saying that because when Stephen hosted, I think I got a bad rap of being quoted in sometimes these stories that that's our worst host.

Speaker 1 But the truth is, I did like Steven Seagal and I liked his movies. And I was just trying to, I was

Speaker 1 saying he was sort of known to others as a bad host.

Speaker 2 He wouldn't roll with a flow.

Speaker 1 And I think both of you know that the best thing to do if you're a host is to just put your hands up and go, what do you want me to do?

Speaker 1 And if you're Christopher Lee, we'll make a drack that we won't make you look like an asshole. This will be a funny version.
People will like it. And he wouldn't do any karate

Speaker 1 monologue. And we wanted to do kung fu fighting or something stupid.

Speaker 1 and he and he just was latching on to wanting to be cool and and i got what he was saying he's like that's i have an image and it was just too hard to to trust us and talk him out of that that's all he wasn't a bad guy to me well i i didn't mean to imply that he was difficult he was absolutely great sure but a lot of people don't want to do that

Speaker 1 yeah i get that's what i'm saying a lot of a lot of people just say

Speaker 1 they get on there or the music you yeah we had that a lot the music doesn't want to do their hit song and you want to go, you get two songs. You could do whatever you want on the second one.

Speaker 1 But the first one, can you please do your hit?

Speaker 2 You know, it's kind of when it goes when a host comes in, like, you know, there's an athlete, or we had George Steinbreyer, a billionaire owns the New York Yankees.

Speaker 2 So George Steinbreyer, so he's got kind of, you know, he's a billionaire. He's George.
And

Speaker 2 Al Franken pitched him something to the effect in the sketch, he would be on all fours in a diaper with a dog collar.

Speaker 3 It's funny.

Speaker 3 Just you're like, ow,

Speaker 3 he's not gonna do that.

Speaker 3 Well, I think it's really funny.

Speaker 1 Remember, Conan was saying at dinner the other night.

Speaker 3 We saw Conan, he was saying he was,

Speaker 1 he and Bob Odenkirk had to go pitch to George Sheinbenner, and he and he fucking hated it and said, I'm not doing that shit. Get out of here.
And they leave. And Lauren goes, give it another try.

Speaker 1 What?

Speaker 3 Go back in? They go,

Speaker 3 oh my God.

Speaker 2 I did a sketch once. It was during Matthew.

Speaker 2 Married to Sarah Jessica Parker.

Speaker 2 Matthew Broderick. So we were all bare chested in diapers in the sketch.

Speaker 2 And so, and this, so the sketch bombs.

Speaker 3 I mean, it really bombs.

Speaker 2 I mean, it's dead quiet. And then you have to walk off.
There's no, it's too busy. No one puts a rope.

Speaker 2 You're walking through 8H through the audience with a big diaper on and a sketch that just shit itself. And then I looked at an audience member and did a little like, hey, how you doing, little wave?

Speaker 2 And they looked away.

Speaker 3 They were like, it was fair. It's the first season.

Speaker 3 They looked away. Oh, the pain.
The pain. I know.
And it's like, we're talking about humiliation.

Speaker 2 That's what comedy is.

Speaker 3 Dude, in a sketch, if it's

Speaker 1 the grossest feeling to sit there,

Speaker 1 you look at the cards. Your next line's coming.
You're like, we should end it right now. It's going nowhere.

Speaker 3 It takes your chances. The second step it kills at dress.

Speaker 2 And then on air, you're like, what happened?

Speaker 5 I know. That's the worst.
Well, that's the alchemy of the show. You know,

Speaker 2 well, it's sometimes the dress show is so hot, and you're like, I don't like this. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Because then that air show is not so hot, and a lot of invited guests, and then all of a sudden, the same, and it's half the laugh. And then you've gotten spoiled with the dress show.

Speaker 2 But sometimes the air audience was the best, so you never knew. But it was a high-wire act.

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Speaker 1 Lorraine, I don't want to keep you forever, but do you ever do you ever get mad and say MEPs?

Speaker 5 Say what? MEPS. MEPS MEPS.

Speaker 1 What are you saying, Coneheads? MAPS.

Speaker 3 It's MEBS. M-E-B.
Yes.

Speaker 5 Mebs. M-E-B.

Speaker 5 I've been saying it wrong.

Speaker 1 I've been saying it wrong every time I stub my toe.

Speaker 5 That's all right.

Speaker 1 I was in Cone Heads. I was in the Cone Heads.

Speaker 3 Really? Yeah, I played it. That's great.
That's right.

Speaker 2 I played it. You were in the Cone.
I wasn't in that one, but I just...

Speaker 1 Dana, it was almost jury duty. It was everybody.
It was... Eleanor Jenners, Phil Hyder, Sinbad, Schneider, San Francisco.

Speaker 2 I was too big at the time, and I had a beach house, and I didn't really.

Speaker 2 So the cone heads had cone heads.

Speaker 3 So I always loved that.

Speaker 2 And that's why I said the church lady is the church lady, you know, or people will talk about

Speaker 1 a sketch where he plays like a church lady.

Speaker 2 Right. Well, did that,

Speaker 2 I mean, did Carol Burnett and Flip Wilson or whatever, did they do that? Because that was the first time I saw it.

Speaker 2 It's a certain knowing, dry silliness that the character's name is what the character is. Does that predate SNL?

Speaker 3 But I love that.

Speaker 3 I don't know. I don't know,

Speaker 5 I don't know, Dana. I don't know what happened with Flip Wilson.

Speaker 3 Exactly.

Speaker 2 I love all those variety shows.

Speaker 3 They were great.

Speaker 1 Lorraine, do you laugh when you're going to do Coneheads in rehearsal? Does it kill at the table? Or it where is there any weirdness along the week going what if this just does not work

Speaker 5 i adored danny's writing i absolutely adored it and he could do more no wrong as far as i was concerned even if it was like something really subtle and tasty that i knew the audience would not get that was fun that is fun too because you know some of those sketches you're like i don't care how it does i love it we need to do it and lauren's good at keeping stuff like that on.

Speaker 1 He's like, I don't care if it doesn't work. This is what we, this represents us.
That's a good schedule. Jack Handy used to write a lot of really weird ones, and we all loved him at Read Through.

Speaker 1 And he goes, put it on.

Speaker 2 That's part of the magic of the show is that that sensibility is allowed, even if it doesn't kill. And yeah.

Speaker 2 Dan Eckroy would write these long, he would talk really super fast and have all this language coming out

Speaker 2 of him, you know? And you'd have to just figure out later what he was saying. But the coneds was silly and it was, I mean,

Speaker 2 how many times did you think you did that? It seemed like it was on a lot.

Speaker 5 Gosh, I do not know. I just know that the one time that we did an extended version where we filmed us going back to Remulak.

Speaker 3 Remulak.

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 5 We had never been in the cones longer than the length of a sketch, but this was like a whole day. And the spirit gum

Speaker 5 started to burn.

Speaker 5 You know, this is where it was anchored here.

Speaker 3 Unproven. Spirit gum starts to burn your spirit.

Speaker 5 Oh, oh oh my God. And so, you know, Jane and Danny were in the front seat and they just started smoking weed.

Speaker 5 And I was in the back seat and we had a lot of fun. Were you on location or something? Yes, we were shooting on location.

Speaker 3 Oh, I'd be terrified.

Speaker 5 All improvised, too, because, you know, we didn't get permits. We went to a gas station to fill the station.

Speaker 3 You just walked around.

Speaker 5 You know, Danny did a bit of drinking the gasoline, but, you know, it was like gorilla because you got no permits or anything like that.

Speaker 3 And you're in your outfit. You're a giant head and everything walking around.

Speaker 1 I got a question. When you do cone heads,

Speaker 1 did you have to do it either cold open or after update? Because there's so much work.

Speaker 5 It was always at the top of the show.

Speaker 1 When I did Gap Girls, it was so much work. They could only put it first

Speaker 1 or after update because that's the biggest chunk. You have update and music, and that's like 12 minutes or something.

Speaker 2 And did you get stone that day then?

Speaker 5 No, I didn't. Danny?

Speaker 3 I did. I didn't.
I've never,

Speaker 2 I never was able to perform high. I mean, I tried it with a couple of beers once out of work.

Speaker 3 I was working

Speaker 2 at Stone once, did more perfect.

Speaker 5 But you know, heroin is good for doing sketch work, dear.

Speaker 3 I think that's what I'm saying. The main thing about meth is what makes James Woods.

Speaker 2 The meth is what informs his choices. Marcy, please, more popcorn.

Speaker 5 Anyway.

Speaker 5 You know, that thing that you said about Lauren is very astute because that is what causes an audience to come to you.

Speaker 5 You know, it's like you don't write for them. You let them come.
You write for us. Yeah.
And you let them come to you.

Speaker 1 And some things like

Speaker 1 Cheeseburger, Cheeseburger, one of those, like that might not work the first time. There's a lot of sketches that might not work.

Speaker 1 And then by the time it comes on, you don't realize they really did like it. They had to watch it and think about it.
And then their friends talk about it. And you go.
That is good.

Speaker 1 It's kind of hooky or even if it's not a catchphrase, just a smart bit. And then you go, oh, fuck, that's bigger.

Speaker 2 But also, that was active and high energy. And I've said this before, but for me personally, when I was doing Johnny Carson on the show and sort of a new way.

Speaker 5 That's a great impression, by the way.

Speaker 5 Thank you.

Speaker 2 My kind of my favorite thing because

Speaker 2 I thought I enjoyed it so much, and I had Phil, of course, there

Speaker 3 that the drafts I did. I forgot he did.
God forgot he did anything. You are Correxa.
You are Correxa.

Speaker 2 For those of you at home who you're watching a television, and that's how you're seeing the pictures. We are not actively in your living room.

Speaker 2 You know, how Johnny would include everyone in the country in on stuff. And I didn't care.

Speaker 2 And I was in my sixth season or something, but I wasn't thinking whether it was going to get a laugh because I intrinsically knew it was so fucking, it was almost too funny.

Speaker 2 Some things that I'll watch sometimes are so funny that I know I'm going to, I can't even laugh as hard as I want to laugh. I'm going to laugh later.

Speaker 5 Because you want to hear it.

Speaker 2 I want to hear it and it hits you so hard. But the rock and roll sketches are easier.

Speaker 1 It was, or you look at an old sketch, like even from Lorraine's seasons and you go, I didn't even really really get that back then, like how funny it was.

Speaker 1 Like, I was too young, and now you look back and go, Holy shit, that's so well done, or smart, or because I was just like looking for the easy jokes, I'm younger, you know, and then it, then you get older and you start to like different stuff.

Speaker 1 But you go back and go, Oh, fuck, that was so good!

Speaker 5 Yeah, that's an interesting point. I've experienced that too.

Speaker 2 Yeah, did you go on update a lot and do characters?

Speaker 5 Um, I did it a couple of times when

Speaker 5 Sid Vicious murdered his girlfriend.

Speaker 1 There's a hilarious topic. Go ahead.

Speaker 5 I went on as his mother. I went on as his mother saying that he was a good boy, you know.

Speaker 5 And

Speaker 5 I think Brian was Sid Vicious, you know, and he just had the wig on and he just looked completely mad. You know, and I was just going on.
I was like, I did my best, you know.

Speaker 2 I did my best.

Speaker 3 I don't know.

Speaker 2 I don't know. We've had a great time here.

Speaker 3 Oh, my God. Michael Kane.

Speaker 5 But then, of course, I did

Speaker 5 the reporter, you know, Lorraine Newman, the reporter.

Speaker 2 Which was kind of in that sort of reporter dialect, in a sense. It's a language of breaking news right now.

Speaker 2 That kind of thing. Yeah, Joe.

Speaker 5 I'm standing here.

Speaker 3 You know,

Speaker 5 I always had heard, you know, I heard that song. And, you know, you know what I'm talking about, Dana, the song that they do, that is a newscaster song.
Oh, right.

Speaker 3 Well, no, the song in

Speaker 3 their dialogue. Yeah.

Speaker 3 Oh, got it. Yes, it is.

Speaker 5 You know, it is a song.

Speaker 2 I did it in stand-up, and I don't know if I got it from Robert Klein, but it was a newsman ordering dinner with his wife. If I can remember, it was like a surprise coming to my wife tonight.

Speaker 2 He's at a restaurant. She'll have the steak, meet and rare, and a cup of black coffee instead of the traditional cream and sugar.

Speaker 3 I'll have my coffee. That's a great bit.

Speaker 2 You did? I must have done it on a talk show or something. I could have done it on a talk show or stand-up.

Speaker 5 That's a great bit.

Speaker 2 I love, I love, I'm like you. I love all voices.
I love all dialects. And I so enjoy when I see

Speaker 2 people do them on Saturday Night Live.

Speaker 2 The new young cast member does a trump that is so brilliant.

Speaker 5 Oh my God.

Speaker 2 That's like so funny and so brilliant.

Speaker 2 I have to like watch it later almost because he's doing so many hooks, excuse me, and the people who a lot of people are saying many, and he's doing all that stuff.

Speaker 5 Biden is great too. His Biden is just

Speaker 3 doing this good stuff. We can do this.
We can do this. No, here's the deal.
My father lost his job. I'm not kidding around here.

Speaker 2 We can, in fact, do better. We can.

Speaker 3 Whispers,

Speaker 3 I'm out of my mind. Listen, let me smell your hair.

Speaker 2 Biden is an interesting one. You know, the evolution of doing a president is that the country still has to get used to to Biden.

Speaker 2 The kind of defensive guy is come out a little bit angry and then befuddled all the different flavors he has, but we're still discovering him. The whisper thing, and then he goes kind of loud.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 And sort of my dad would do that when he was 90.

Speaker 3 It was kind of a patronizing whisper because I know what I'm doing.

Speaker 5 Oh, man. That's right.

Speaker 3 We can do this.

Speaker 3 Number one, the one part.

Speaker 2 Number two, what the guy said. Number three, come on, folks.

Speaker 2 He's always admonishing us for not understanding. It's not rocket science.

Speaker 5 There's some really, really interesting new cast members.

Speaker 2 Chloe Feynman.

Speaker 5 She's a groundling. She's a friend of my daughter, Hannah's.

Speaker 5 I've been telling me about her for years.

Speaker 2 So I watched your daughter today.

Speaker 2 She's really, really funny and talented. I just saw her on Colbert because I knew I was going to be talking to you.

Speaker 2 And she reminds me of you. There's a droll drive.
Yeah, I mean, there's just,

Speaker 2 well, I would just say this. Her stuff is is very smart.

Speaker 3 Thank you.

Speaker 5 Yes, we're just, you know, beside ourselves.

Speaker 2 She belongs there. I mean, she's going to, she is having a career.
She's on hacks now.

Speaker 2 She's just really good. And so I can't imagine what that must feel like.

Speaker 2 to have a daughter, have someone have success because

Speaker 2 look at her mom, and now you're the daughter and following a big act to follow. And she's doing great.

Speaker 5 Well, her talent is completely different than mine. And my older child's talent is also, they're also, they started doing stand-up when they were 15.
And they're on Losa Spookies, Julio's show.

Speaker 5 And they both, their talent is completely different than mine. And that is exciting to watch.
But, you know, my only contribution really was, man, this is so inappropriate. But when

Speaker 5 I was driving them to school, I mean, this is like grade school.

Speaker 5 I would play the Sklar Brothers and Maria Bamford and Patton Oswald.

Speaker 5 Yeah.

Speaker 3 Okay.

Speaker 3 Maria.

Speaker 5 Because mommy needed to be entertained, damn it. You know, I was not going to listen to radio fucking Disney another second.
You know,

Speaker 1 you gave him some good stand-ups. Wow.

Speaker 2 Yeah. But your daughter, when she came on Colbert the first time, this is Hannah.
She did kind of like a little story about her mom and dad and sperm donors and stuff.

Speaker 2 And it was was very, very sketch. That's why it wasn't traditional stand-up.
That's why it reminded me of

Speaker 5 her set at Dynasty Typewriter this last Sunday, and it was pretty much new material and 40-minute set. And it was so good and so interesting.
It was like, how the hell did you come up with that stuff?

Speaker 2 Interesting. Wow.

Speaker 3 Well, that's

Speaker 2 a great way to close the podcast because that's like this gigantic, perfect full circle yeah talking about that and you know the apple does not fall very far from the tree you'll find uh but anyway that's that's very sweet Lorraine I'm so happy I think I met one of your daughters or both of them at that Al Franken thing we did it was probably Hannah probably Hannah yeah she's you know, whatever, just a sweet little girl.

Speaker 3 But now she's...

Speaker 2 Oh, that's cool.

Speaker 2 Well, I've really enjoyed this a lot.

Speaker 5 That was so fun, you guys. I really did.
And thank you for having me, too. And good luck with it.
I know it's a really fun thing to do.

Speaker 1 Hey, guys, if you're loving this podcast, which you are, be sure to click follow on your favorite podcast app.

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Speaker 1 Fly on the Wall is presented by Odyssey, an executive produced by Danny Carvey and David Spade, Heather Santoro and Greg Holtzman, Maddie Sprung-Kaiser, and Leah Reese Dennis of Odyssey.

Speaker 2 Our senior producer is Greg Holtzman and the show is produced and edited by Phil Sweet Tech.

Speaker 1 Booking by Cultivated Entertainment.

Speaker 2 Special thanks to Patrick Fogarty, Evan Cox, Maura Curran, Melissa Wester, Hilary Schuff, Eric Donnelly, Colin Gaynor, Sean Cherry, Kurt Courtney, and Lauren Vieira.

Speaker 1 Reach out with us any questions to be asked and answered on the show. You can email email us at flyonthewall at odyssey.com.
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