Susan Morrison - Author of LORNE: The Man Who Invented Saturday Night Live

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Dana, today we have Susan Morrison, a writer. We don't always have writers.
We have SNL writers, but she's a writer of SNL. Yes, yes.
She wrote a big fat book about Lorne. And it's the 50th anniversary of SNL.
It's a good time to have it out. Lorne, the man who invented SNL.
And she covers a lot. She's telling things to you, listeners, that even we don't know.
You're going to hear something that's a little shocking, a little surprising. How's that for a tease? But if we do a deep dive, the man, the moment, Lorne Michaels, based on the book and what she learned by interviewing.
I got interviewed. I don't know.
My quotes are probably silly. I got interviewed.
Yeah. I got interviewed.
Everyone got interviewed. Everyone talked.
And it's just sort of a comprehensive look at Lorne Michaels through his childhood, all the way through his travails, seasons that were rougher than others and on and on. So it's a very interesting.
Upsdowns. Mombo, Seishon.
Oh, yeah. And they got, you know, Tina Fey and Steve Martin and John Mulaney.
There's all these quotes up front and everywhere you turn, you know, they're talking about. So very in-depth, took years to put this together years to put it together and it was very interesting talk we went on and on so uh yeah here she is and you're gonna learn a lot who's in morrison and i sort of forgot i i had forgotten until recently the the wonderful accent thing that says, the Eagles.
Oh, the Eagles. That's right.
The Eagles. So you claim to have a book.
I do. I actually can't even show it to you.
It's coming out. Okay.
I don't know when this airs, but it's February 18th. It's called Lorne, the man who invented SNL.
That's right. Invented Saturday Night Live.
We decided that Lorne has monomial status, you know, like Fidel or Madonna. You know, one name does it, Lorne.
You know, you can tell the rookies because Lorne is such a name that comes up millions of times in our podcast and in life. But the people that call them Lauren and they spell it Lauren, like the female name is pretty interesting because you know they're an outsider and I don't listen to one thing they say.
It's like the people who say skits instead of sketches. It's an immediate disqualifier, right? DQ.
Oh boy, I don't even mention. Oh, skits gets them going.
It's an immediate disqualifier, right?

DQ. Oh boy, don't even mention, oh, skits gets him going.
It's kind of interesting to me, I'm just thinking out loud to myself, is that because of his hallowed place and his Mount Rushmore, you know, thing that's been going on for the 50th, he had left for five years, did a lot of things, left SNL in 1980. None of them really landed, comes back in 85, has a rough season.
And then I meet him. So probably in this whole 50 years, that was, would it be a, I went to state school, his nadir or something.
I think, no, I think that's right. And Dana, I remember that when I interviewed you, you told me that when you showed up there, you thought you were probably going to be in the last cast of SNL.
You thought it was on its way out and it was kind of a Hail Mary pass. And it's interesting because I met Lauren when he was perhaps at an even lower point.
Even lower. Well, I worked for him when he did the new show, which was his one public spectacular flop.
And, you know, I don't think people thought he was going to be coming back from that. And he also lost his own money in that show.
It's strange. It was such a flop because it was packed with talent.
You know, the writer's room was incredible. Jim Downey, Jack Handy, George Meyer.
Wow. John Candy did amazing work on that show.
It's worth looking up Food Repairman. No, I watched it.
It was funny. It was just that besides In Living Color, which was a niche kind of primetime and it was on Fox in the day, primetime sketch.
I did one that didn't make it. Martin Short, you'd have to line them all up.
That's your next book. Why was there a bazillion sketch shows in primetime in the 50s, 60s, and into the 70s, and then so many swing and a miss? I don't know if you have, I've never totally figured that out.
I mean, I have a theory. I mean, Lorne loved, he loved, oh, sure.
We've been recording, don't worry. I'm kidding.
Lorne loved Variety TV. You know, he grew up watching, you know, Sid Caesar and your show shows and all that stuff.
And when he went to L.A. in the 60s and 70s, he just bounced around from one karate variety show to the next.
You know, Perry Como, Burns and Schreiber, Phyllis and Phyllis. Burns and Schreiber, what about Burns and Schreiber where he met his wife? But the thing is, he liked the form, but he thought that it was like stuck in the 50s.

You know, the people writing those shows were guys who had written for radio. And his big idea was to take that format and bring it into the modern world.
You know, movies were cool. You had Terrence Malick and Robert Altman.
Music was cool. But television was like a really weird backwater.
So he was the first person who said, let's make variety TV something that has something to do with what people in their 20s are like. You know, let's put drugs on.
Yeah. Yeah.
And in my age group, you remember that when George Carlin was on Ed Sullivan in a suit and tie and a short haircut. Yeah.
And then he was like, so a symbol of this change and one,

one lane of it when he became the hippie long hair and all that. So there was a whole, I don't want to call it counterculture.

Laugh and maybe was the last water cooler sketch show.

It was so different, of course, than SNL, but yeah, it was in the ether. And then Lauren picked up the toys off the carpet and said, okay, we're going to play with these.
But you know, I mean, the other thing that Lauren will say is that when he was pitching a show like SNL for years, nobody wanted it. And what happened is that they needed something in late night on NBC to replace Carson's reruns.
And Lauren had never thought of late night. And, but the thing it ended up being what made the show work because the way he put it, you know, the network thought of late night as like a vacant lot on the edge of town.
They weren't going to pay attention to what was going on there. They weren't going to med you know he just got to do whatever the hell he felt like and with no notes you know no interference right and you can be a little dirt like even tv shows on an eight versus nine when i was a sitcom you can say a little more at nine because kids are asleep you can say way more at 10 and when you're way up at 1130, they don't worry so much about content as

much. Yeah, I think he thought they were probably not even watching.
Well, they didn't care. It was

anti-slick and late. So right out of the bat.
I'm just a little curious. Sorry, David,

do you have something to say? Not at all. I'd like to interrupt him.
Did you see the movie

Saturday Night? And what was your reaction to it? I mean, obviously, it's trying to get a feeling

and I like to interrupt. Did you see the movie Saturday Night? And what was your reaction to it? I mean, obviously, it's trying to get a feeling rather than a linear story.
Yeah. But how did you feel about that? I guess I had several simultaneous reactions.
You know, the journalist in me was watching and my head exploding because there were so many things that were fictionalized or, you know, five years worth of events were kind of crammed into one night. But I did think that it captured some of, as you guys know, you've lived this, you know, just some of the nail-biting, knife-edge chaos that I think gives the show, continues to fuel the show.
It's funny, I talked to some of the current people, the people at the show now, some of the writers and cast, and they were indignant about it. They said that it was sort of like watching somebody, you know, screw up your song at a karaoke bar or something, you know, that someone, they were feeling proprietary about it.
What did you guys think? Well, I went into it with a, you know, kind eyes because I knew it was an impossible thing to really capture. So we interviewed Jason, the director, and there were things that I really liked.
You know, in real time that there probably wasn't a a bulletin board on 8h with like 80 sketches on it right before air or that Lorne Michaels was the update guy until right before air so you have to kind of give into it and see did it capture the essence I wasn't there then they weren't famous the show wasn't famous because as it evolved it would never no one would go ice skating right before the show and most of the show is disappointment even in the best seasons and the best shows i'd say maybe if you can get one out of five great sketch pretty good most time i was just there for 10 weeks most of the time we all went well i guess that's it just walked off stage so go ahead i mean i found it enjoyable to watch it kind of you know it felt like the poseidon adventure or something you know it was almost like an adventure flick yeah no that's what i love that that reference i love the reference yeah there's got to be a morning after there has to be a party after the show other people i know told me they had similar reaction to to mine at the very end when it comes off and they do the wolverine sketch and chevy comes out and says live from new york it's saturday night i mean i kind of teared up a little bit because it made you realize how improbable the whole show was and how close it came to not happening. You know, it could easily have not happened.
I did like little things I didn't know. Now, Dana, I was going to ask Jason about that Lauren one for update because I did like the chaos.
I did like it was almost obviously too chaotic, but definitely knowing no fame. It just shows people.
It's like sort of here's what it was if you don't know how it started. This is they weren't famous.
No one thinks of Dan Aykroyd or Belushi as not famous, you know. So you have to go back and say, hey, they all get a job.
It's a cruddy place. They're just throwing shit together.
And then there's a you know billy crystal leaving those are cool moments where you go oh my god there's just so many things that happen where everything there was life-changing you get me the first sketch chevy's on update like this this he's a big good-looking dude i thought there was a lot of parts about i really did like and uh and you're right when it all came Like, what are the bricks on the stage? I don't even know. Like, I don't know what part was real, what wasn't, you know, fictionalized.
That was real. So that was real.
They were hammering those bricks in the day of the first show. And, of course, the old timers on the crew looked at Eugene Lee, the designer, you know, who wanted, brought in old oak doors and bricks.
And they said, what the fuck are you doing? You know, we just use cyclorama walls. And, you know, the way it used to be in old variety shows where instead of a set, you'd have like, you know, a window frame or a tree in a pot suggests a park.
But Norton's idea was that you wanted this hard wall reality. It looked counterculture.
And I did love when, it was J.K. Simmons, he played Milton Berle, and he's doing a song and dance number.
And that was a really interesting juxtaposition because the variety shows, everything was shiny and clean, and 8-H still looks the same. It's kind of beat up.
And if you if you walk in there without an audience you're like it's kind of a shithole everyone thinks it's tiny people go this isn't where you because i went back to do hunter biden it was just again like when dana going back you go oh so here's tom and wardrobe uh you know there's a lot of the same people and a lot of it's obviously bigger and little fancier in places but you get out there it's the same tiny stools even people i was with were like this isn't where the audience is this is it this is this is where every sketch is this tiny room yeah i know wow it is that's the fun of it you know can i say i just unless you have something you need to say. Well, one thing I was just going to say to, you know, we were talking about the improbability of it and how those people weren't famous.
It's one of the things that was fascinating for me to learn is Lauren had trouble hiring people. Like who wanted to be on this late night show with this weird Canadian guy no one had never heard of, had ever heard of you know Chevy almost didn't come on because he was doing a play like a dinner theater with Paul Lind you know he almost didn't take the job I like Broadway yeah and I love that Paul Lind stood in the way of another hire Alan Sw Zweibel almost didn't come to her because he had been offered a job in prime time writing the questions for Paul Lind in the center square of

Hollywood squares.

I have a dirty joke about Paul Lind.

You want to hear it?

Anything about Paul Lind.

We'll cut it out.

Paul Lind walked into a party and he goes,

it smells like pussy in here. I think.
Anyway, Dana, back to you. No, I will say- I don't know.
I don't get the reference. I just thought he was a funny guy.
I mean, I don't understand. Paul Lynn was a hero, by the way, at Hollywood Squares.
Unreal. When I was a kid, I laughed everything that dude said.
Oh, he was always hilarious. And I'm bewitched.

Oh, my God.

And bewitched.

And wherever he was, he just had a great kind of rhythm.

You know, just naturally funny.

I was just curious.

So you knew Lorne during the news show.

Is that when you met him?

Yeah.

I was brought into the Brill Building in 83 by Tom Gammel, Gammill and Pross, who I'd gone to college with.

And I met Jim Downey for the first time.

And Jim hired me.

Just one second.

I can talk to you in a little bit.

I'll just be right back.

I'll be right back.

No, I want to talk to you.

I really do.

But I got to go.

Sorry.

Go ahead.

Stay right there.

Stay right here. So, but yeah.
So, jim in a rare act of decisiveness right hired me that day a rare act that's funny to be his assistant oh i was 23 i was 23 years old my job chiefly consisted of ordering shit loads of food fromi. I mean, you know, if I didn't know what chicken in the pot was, you know, then I- Writers eat.
They have to eat. Huxley's.
Just feed their brains. And, you know, it was a great thing for me.
I was really young. My mom had just died suddenly, and I was kind of at sea.
And so I got to go to this place with all these funny people every day and they were so kind to me you know and think about it I mean what a and Christina McGinnis and Lorne and George Meyer and Jack Handy you know it's why about it was really it was fun so I didn't have a lot of one-on-one time with Lorne but it was a a pretty small operation. And we were all just on the ninth floor of the Brill Building.
So, yeah, I mean, I knew him a little bit. And again, I didn't realize that what I was witnessing was this soul-crushing failure on his part.
How did he take that failure, if you could even all of you because i did a real i did a variety show that lasted eight episodes and kind of blew up the network yeah yeah so was this did you get a full season i don't know it wasn't there were we were i think we did like eight shows and then and this is the thing that was really weird about it. You know, Lauren had been used to working live, but the new show was taped on Thursday to air on Friday.
So it brought out all of Lauren's, you know, less genius impulses. I mean, people always say that Lauren always says that the show doesn't go on because it's ready.
It goes on because it's 1130. And, you know, he needs that deadline.
He needs a deadline. And that's when he gets into his kind of superpower mode, you know, the meeting between the dress rehearsal and air.
But if you think about it, so the new show, we would be taping and he would yell, cut, and then they'd start a sketch over. And sometimes these tapings would lasts for five hours.
And, you know, the audience was locked. Because you get perfectionist and you can't stop fixing.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I remember the audience trying to leave in droves and Tom Gamble coming out and going like, you quitters.
Sure. So they're watching the same sketch over and over again? Well, it's like a sitcom.
You know, you're trying to get it right. When you're on a movie and it's a big budget that happens where you just do take after take, someone's got to go, hey, are we any good? Like, can we just move on? Like, this is it.
The best we can do. And then they'd be up all night in the editing room, like splicing the takes together so that it leached all of the magic out of it.
I mean, you guys know, because you've done it, the adrenaline of live really adds something. But imagine these comedy sketches pieced together.
They had to add laugh tracks, right? It's all different. I remember knowing that it wasn't going well.
And then I guess Brandon Tartikoff said to Lauren after, I can't remember, maybe eight shows, like, why don't you just not make the rest of them? And instead, and here's the novel idea, let's make best of the new show ours. Best of? After only eight episodes, we're going to do best of? Finished up.
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By the way, I don't know what time we have. How did you end up writing this book? I'm just, that's popped in my head.
I was only, that was my only time in television. I switched to journalism after that.
But I stayed friends with all those writers and a lot of them, including Steve Martin and Jack, have written for me at The New Yorker and other places I've worked. So I was always kind of in the, you know, I would run into Lauren every five years and say hi.
I think our daughters knew each other in school. But after the 40th anniversary, I just, well, I was an empty nester.
I had this crazy idea I was going to have a lot of time. And I just realized, it really hit me how Lauren is like single-handedly responsible for what America thinks is funny, you know, across so many generations.
And I thought he'd be a great subject for a book. So I sold the book first.
I did a proposal. There was a bidding war.
I chose Random House. And then I went to see him in his office.
And I said, because I know, you guys know, Lauren, he likes to be out of the frame. He likes to be behind the curtain.
He's not a very public-facing guy. So I said, Lauren, I just signed a contract to write a book about you and the show.
I don't need anything from you. You know, I know your people and I kind of around, but if you wanted to talk to me and participate in it, it'll be a better and a richer book.
And, you know, your legacy deserves that. And at first he looked like he was going to have a heart attack you you know, and he just was like, ah.
And then, you know, he said, he'd think about it. And we had a drink a couple of days later and, and he just started telling those stories.
He just started talking. And so he, he was in, we didn't have any kind of agreement, you know, it's, he liked the fact that it was my book.
It's not a vanity project that he had any approval over or anything. But he's smart enough to know that that's better, to have a real work of journalism about you and not some silly puff book.
He had always told me I would never write a book because I couldn't tell the truth. So in terms of you're writing this, and like, what do I include you, Susan? What do I not include? Is this unflattering to Lauren who I have affection for? And I think it's seminal.
And so when he was sharing with you, it was stories that you felt were benign. I mean, the book's coming out.
Did he bury people? What did he say about me? Oh, Dana, you know, what he said about you is, it's a fucking show pony. I mean, you, both of you, both of you are really, really up there in his pantheon.
No, I think that he, I think one of his reservations in the beginning, and this is very smart of him, he knows that people have very selective memory. You know, I don't know that he read deeply in those, like the oral history by Tom Shales and Jim Miller, but he certainly knew that over the years, people had put out versions of things that were wildly exaggerated, you know.
And he also knows that comedians like to kind of embellish a story to make it funny, right? That's a human thing. So I think he was a little worried about that, but he, you know, I asked him lots of questions.
He told me lots of stories. I'd say in the final two years of the reporting, what I was doing was I'd go over there on a Friday night and I'd say, okay, now what we're going to do is try to do some fact-checking.
Because a lot of times I'd have three or four different versions of an event. And I wanted him to try to be a tiebreaker.
Like, what do you think actually happened here? And he was very honest. A lot of times he just said, God, I don't know.
It was the 70s. but I but again because I you know work at the New Yorker and we're fact checking and accuracy

you honest, a lot of times he just said, God, I don't know. It was the seventies, but I, but again, because I, you know, work at the New Yorker and we're back checking and accuracy are important.
I worked really hard to try to get, get it, get to the bottom of things. And there were definitely things.
And I brought all these things to him. There were definitely things that maybe stung a little bit or that he would have preferred not be in the book, but he never said like, oh God, don't put that in the book.
He understood that. Yeah.
And God, I really respect the hell out of him for that. I mean, he knew I was going to write a real book.
But the response among his world and his publicists and the people around him has been really positive. People think that I really got him.
But, you know, I mean, going into something like this with a character as mysterious and feared as Lorne is, I always knew that there would be a contingent of people who said, like, oh, God, this is just a blowjob. And then there would be other people who would say, this is a hatchet job, you know? Right.
So I think, I mean, I'm, I really, I, I, I'm in awe of Lauren and I really admire him and I admire and like him even more at the end of this process than I did at the beginning. I think what he's done is incredible, but you guys worked there when people would be bitching about this or that.

It's a tough place, right?

Did you talk to any cast that said anything or any personalities just very different than what you thought once you get them on the phone?

Huh.

Let's see.

Or is everyone kind of…

That's such a good question. Did you hang up with someone and go wow i they were very one person who blew my mind uh was dan akroyd because he talks in these yeah sentences have you guys ever talked to him we did a live podcast with david's house you know what i mean like he talks in perfect paragraphs and would never have thought that he, you know, he's somebody who, and he's so thoughtful and uses such interesting words.
Let's see. You know, they didn't know what to do with the lumber back in Canada in 1954.
He has a lot of facts, especially in Canada. The steel manufacturer.
Very interesting. Yeah, he is like this.
And he made it one of his comedy rhythms. He did it as Coneheads.
Coneheads has a lot of that talk in it. Long, free consciousness kind of speeches.
So it's part of his comedy. Well, it makes you realize that, you know, Beldar Conehead and Van Ackroyd are very similar, aren't they? Very close.
Parental units. I told someone, are you with your parental units tonight? And then I said, after I've said this a million times, I go, you know, that's from Coneheads.
They're like, what is that term? I go, I think so. Isn't it? Remember he goes parental units.
It is, sure. And no one knew that.
I go, oh, that's so funny. It just gets in the ether and people, you had some good quotes here from a lot of the stars.
I think some are funny. Some are just straight ahead.
Interesting. And I like Steve Martin says, Dave Letterman is genuinely self-deprecating.
He genuinely doesn't think he's any good. Those issues don't come up for Lorne.
That's so funny. And also, I mean, go ahead.
Oh, Jane Curtin saying, he spent a lot of time talking about where he's going to eat. Is that very true? Or so.
Or so tonight. At nine o'clock, Chevy will be there.
Chevy Chase? No, no, no. Chevy Wilson.
One of the Pauls. You'll find with Susan, she's that thing of like, you know, she wants to please and yet she has an eagle eye.
And she sees what others don't. Bill Hader's is funny too.
Bill Hader. Yeah.
Bill has a great Lauren. You have different, you just have very much very quiet.
He says, Dana, if you start drowning, he's not like, hey, here's a life jacket.

He's like, ooh, that guy's drowning in my pool.

Let's go here and let's go hang with Alec Baldwin. Well, you know, it is funny.
One of the things that is so interesting about Lorne is that even though people early in the show, as the show started getting successful and Lauren started getting richer with fancier friends, people would bitch and moan about that. Belushi referred to Lauren's fancy friends as the dead, all those socialites and everything.
But I think that it was kind of interesting the way Lauren managed to parlay that into kind of a comic character on the

show you know um like the lauren that you see in the smigles tv fun houses like a fun huh you know and come back with my show yeah you know he kind of i feel like he almost you know the Lorne

Pasha like producer

character became a

character on the show as much as Church Lady did.

Yes, the aloof producer that just stands there with a beer or something or a glass of wine.

And I remember, you know, actually, I mean, I hope we hear more of your Lorne data today.

But I remember asking Alec Baldwin at one point, who do you think does the best Lauren impersonation? And Alec just said, Lauren. Telling.
Right. It's that thing of like, I never met anyone who talked like that, you know.
But I do believe that that's what i'm kind of curious about and yeah so you you went on this journey and it's not so much just like what makes lauren tick but it's sort of like where's the where's the marshmallow inside this this veneer you know because i think he wants to be one of the guys and he i think he is very observant and wonders what people are thinking of him and gets easily wounded in a way.

But he's also so resilient.

I mean, he's Trumpian.

Yeah.

In just that way to which we probably talked about.

Just keeping the show consistent.

Now, 50 years, we have data now. A a fucking half century where did this guy come from yeah who is he will that be answered when i buy the book i think you're gonna get your 38 worth but no i everyone i talked to about lauren it's the same they're all kind of trying to unriddle him you know conan conan, everybody thinks that Lauren has a secret.
You know, part of that is that he isn't, unlike a lot of guys who got rich and famous in the 80s, you know, like Barry Diller, Michael Milken or people like that. He's never been like a show-off workaholic.
You know, he's not one of those people who says, I get up at 4 a.m. and work out with a trainer.
And then I, you know, he does seem to know how to live. You know, he's not one of those people who says, I get up at 4 a.m.
and work out with a trainer. And then, you know, he does seem to know how to live.
You know, he kind of invented work-life balance. But in terms of, you say, the marshmallow inside, I don't want to be too psychobabble-y or, you know, too much of an easy answer.
But a lot really does take you back to Lorne suddenly losing his father when he's 14 years old. He was completely at sea.
And his father collapsed one night after having a big argument with Lorne. He had a big fight.
Father collapses, disappears into the hospital. Lorne never sees him again.
This gives you some indication of wine. Oh.
that he speaks in the register of a man announcing a golf tournament, you know?

Yes. But I think that his whole world got smashed when he was 14.
Then he had a bad year. His mother thought he was going to be a juvenile delinquent, to use the term.
Juvie. Popular, a juvie.
And he had to kind of rebuild. He had to put it all together.
I think it gave him a kind of resilience,

that a kind of rebuild. He had to put it all together.
I think it gave him a kind of resilience that helped him throughout his whole career. You know, just when I was starting the book, I interviewed Judd Apatow for the New Yorker Radio Hour.
And he said something that really resonated with me. When Judd was 14, his parents had a really bad divorce.
And I think there were financial problems, his whole world kind of fell apart. And he told me that he definitely, because of that, that's why he kind of early in his life abandoned his dreams of being a performer and instead became a director and producer.
Because when you're that guy guy you've got the clipboard you got call sheet you're making sure that everything works you're making sure that it's not going to be chaos you're taking care of everything as opposed to you know you're a performer you're just kind of looking you're doing strutting your own stuff and and i thought that that reminded me so much of lorne you know because he also was a performer early in his life, but you know, he is, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he,

he,

he,

he,

he,

he,

he,

he,

he,

he,

he,

he,

he,

he,

he,

he, doing strutting your own stuff and and i thought that that reminded me so much of lorne you know because he also was a performer early in his life but you know he is he's determined to not let anything fall apart because his own world fell apart when he was 14 that'll be 350 for that i always thought it was people who started out in comedy and just saw that it wasn't going to happen for them. And then they became a writer, a writer or a director.
It's a more consistent job. I did not realize when I was on Saturday Night Live that every single writer essentially wanted to be in front of the camera.
You know, I didn't realize that. I didn't know that until I started reporting this book.
So every, you know, think about all the people who were just writers.

Mulaney, Odenkirk, you know.

Yeah.

Those guys never got on stage.

Robert Smiley.

They all want to be, they all want to be, trust me.

Conan.

I love that kind of, Lauren, you know.

Well, do you think Michael B. here, he's visiting,

it's not very far from, you know, the bleachers

to where the cameras are, you know.

He has so many sayings.

It's a little short walk yeah that's funny yeah but when you do lauren you get to kind of inhabit lauren and i do think

because the show is magnificent chaos that's also part of his his methodology is he'll be the calm

was anybody angry oh well yeah there's definitely some people who are angry. Because, you know, it's one of the things I would say that maybe Lauren's biggest achievement was just creating this kind of culture with walls around it.
You know, it's a tribe and you're in it or you're out of it. You know, it's like the Godfather kind of.
And, you know, there are a handful of people who, you know, I mean, I think that's one of the reasons it was so painful for Conan when he lost The Tonight Show and went to TBS. He was kind of, you know, he had spent his whole career at NBC.
And for a while, he had a little bit of a frosty rupture with Lorne. I think he was off the t-shirt list.
Stopped getting the Broadway video. You guys still get those? The Broadway video t-shirts? I don't know if I still do.
I think so. Yeah, I do.
Yeah, Lorne, he wants to be in the loop. He did not produce the Conan Tonight Show, right? For some reason.
That's right. He produced Late Night for Conan.
And then when Conan went to LA, NBC, I mean, it was kind of a drama. NBC told Conan and his producer Jeff Ross, oh, you don't need Lauren to be your EP.
But I think that was a misstep. I think it probably would have been a good.

Yeah.

I think in the end of the day,

and there's been even current things

that I will mention with different people,

is just that's important to Lauren.

And maybe it's how he reacts to other people in his life.

You show respect.

You want to give Lauren the chance to say,

I think you should do it without me

you know if you started

with him and he gave you your break

then you do kind of have that

feeling but it's a hard

back and forth to say Lauren do you want to

produce this movie because now you're putting it on the

spot sometimes

if he doesn't but if you

don't and it's success he's like

why wouldn't you bring that to me

it's very touchy because you don't want to go

I want a new favorite Thank you. If he doesn't, but if you don't and it's success, he's like, why wouldn't you bring that to me?

It's very touchy because you don't want to go, I want a new favor. Sounds hard.
Yeah, I want a favor from you. Also, this thing about networks is tough because, you know, let's say I did a show for a network, like I've done sitcoms, and they're always whining and dining you for a sitcom the whole run.
and the second it's over let's say you do a pilot

or something

or even just

they cancel your show

there's always

part of it and dining you up for a sitcom the whole run and the second it's over let's say you do a pilot or

something or they even just they cancel your show there's always part of you that thinks mistakenly but this network we were friends like how could they do that's the weirdest thing that you realize it's all just for the moment things are going good everything's great but don't get too chummy because you're just a you know a card on a on a you know board where they say we don't need that anymore we're putting this here they don't think like that they don't go oh someone's feelings gonna get hurt they're just like this does better than that that we got to put that there it's very hard it's very rare they go hey i mean they might say it but they're not just saying hey just because're all buds, we should keep this on forever. Yeah, I think that for Lauren, it's a relationship business, you know, and he really does.
For that, yes. One of his old Canadian friends told me that even from the very beginning, you could tell he likes rabbit's feet.
You know, he likes to have these familiar people around. And I think, you know, one time he was kind of half joking, but he compared himself to, he said, I'm like Prometheus.
You know, I brought, I'm the bringer of fire to these young people. You know, the people he hires in his life, he changes.
And he is aware that, you know, he's very aware that you want to stay tight with the people who were there for you

at the beginning sure you know it's why he kept Bernie I'm sure I'm sure he was paying Bernie

Brillstein 15 percent you know up to the very end when when was the last thing Bernie did for

Lauren you know even when it went to 10 percent he's probably still paying him 15 whatever yeah

yeah I by the way Prometheus for all the kids those is a rapper. Lil Prometheus.
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Terms and conditions do apply. By the way, I have it off the grid here.
The new show, is it possible you would remember this? I think this is a dumb joke for the new show. A.
Whitney Brown and Louie, were they both on it possibly? I don't think they were, Weren't they? But on camera. No, they weren't on it.
They weren't on the new show? No, they weren't. They weren't.
Okay, because this joke is from something else. It could have been.
But weren't they on Dana's show? Louis C.K. I hired as my head writer.
No, Louis Anderson. And.
Whitney Brown was not writing for it. I remember a sketch with Louis Anderson and Whitney Brown.
What could have that been on? Louis Anderson and Whitney Brown. It could have been on a bad episode of SNL.
On a figment of my imagination. Might have been in the 85 season.
I think that's when A. Whitney got hired.
Here's the joke. Yeah.
Okay. Uh-oh.
It's like a just quick cutaway like I'm laughing. They walk out in Roman togas.
One's ripped and one isn't. And Whitney goes, no, yeah, Whitney goes to Louie's that's ripped and says, Euripides? And he goes, Eumenides? And that was it.
That's right out of Ed Sullivan. Isn't that a weird...
That's Topo Gijo right there. Topo Gijo.
I'm pretty sure I'm lying, but why would I even think of this when you were talking about the new show? But you know, that reminds me of when Lauren directed his show in college,

UC Follies, which was very much like a proto-SNL thing,

there was a Shakespeare parody in it that Lauren wrote.

This is actually one of the first funny jokes

that Lauren Michaels wrote to my mind.

There was a character in it named Handenbrah.

Get it?

Okay.

Got it. Instead of Fortenbrah.
Yeah. Handenbrah.
You got it? I like it. I got it.
It's pretty good. I like a good pun.
That's it. That's the beginning, middle, end.
Handenbrah. It's very economical.
It was the 50s, people. I love it.
That was the big deal. 50s.
Listen, I laughed harder at Hee Haw. I don't know what, you know, I can't hear any reference.
I laughed at Donnie Marie. Oh, that's what Bernie Brillstein told me.
They take your hee-haw money in London. Because he was producing hee-haw.
That's right. You didn't like, I don't like fake art.
You just thought the art scene was ridiculous. You know, it's funny when people say like, you know, Belushi only made $400 a week on SNL and he made 10 grand for Animal House, which is not bad money, especially when you're an unknown.
They forget that they weren't a huge star in the cover of Time magazine. Did Belushi get on the cover of Time? I heard Chevy did.
Did Belushi? Belushi was on Newsweek. Oh, Newsweek.
Chevy for Animal House. And Chevy was on New York magazine at the end of season one.
They called him the heir apparent to Johnny Carson. And that's basically what started all kinds of splintering in that first cast.
Because the idea wasn't for one person to emerge as a star. That kind of screwed everything up, right? Immediate problems.
That's always been there since then. Yeah.
Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
You were talking about the, asking about the new show. I just remembered one funny little conflict that happened there.
I remember Gamble and Pross wrote a sketch called Time Truck. It was a time-traveling truck.
And it was for a show Kevin Kline was hosting. And the idea was Kevin Kline was supposed to play Abe Lincoln.
And they were supposed to go back in time to prevent uh lincoln from getting shot but lauren thought that it would be much funnier to have his close personal friend paul simon play lincoln just as a side gag right the writers are like paul simon is not a comic actor yeah and he's very quiet it was paul yeah anyway yeah's very quiet. Anyway.
Reason number 800 why the new show didn't fly off the shelves. Did we talk about just, well, obviously you mentioned Lauren hacked life.
That's the new phrase. You go to Buttermilk and you ski and then you're in st bart's and you go to wimbledon and paul and i would often go out and just buy socks you go downtown so and he did pace himself that's part of the half century is he does pace himself he knows when it's important for him to lock in and that's the especially this saturday that 30 minutes is where everything's made.
And the whole show is based on ADD and procrastination. So at Lauren's core, does he have both those elements? Cause I do.
Yeah. Well, you know, Jim Downey had a really smart way of describing this.
He said, Lauren is a guy bad at term papers, great at tests, you know? So if you give him an open-ended thing that he has to sit down and fiddle with, he's just never going to finish it. But when there's a deadline, when there's an alarm bell that goes off, I think someone said the deadline is Lauren's cocaine.
It's the thing that gets him galvanized. Can you imagine if that show was taped? you would have that moment you know at 10 30 where he's saying but um yeah i think that he uh he definitely he definitely has said to me a bunch of different times that he he was always his whole life reluctant to burn a bridge or to close a door you know he always felt always felt like, oh, if I do this, then I won't ever be able to do this.
I mean, he's, and he also told me a story, this kind of related, he told me, it's a real memory of once his father taking him to a diner when he was a little boy and saying, just order anything you want off the menu. So he ordered a hot dog and a hamburger and grilled cheese and onion rings and French fries and couldn't eat it all.
And then his father said, let this be a lesson to you. Your eyes are bigger than your stomach.
Now, I don't know how Lauren converted that into a lesson about comedy, but he did. And I think that if you think about that plate full of junk food at the diner, it's not unlike what the show is like Saturday going into, you know, they still have way more than they can use.
Sure. And it's chopping it down.
And you don't need everything. You don't need everything.
You don't need everything you think you need in life also is a bigger way. It's true.
Right, right, right, right. I want to go to lunch with his dad yeah i need to learn things that's a good one buy me a hot dog um yeah we both have dad stuff i mean do all comedians have mom or dad stuff right no i don't know well i thought it was you know a lot of people talk about these different rules lauren has about comedy these la these Lauren-isms.
And I think all the comedy ones are interesting, but it was also really interesting for me to hear how many of them were just about how to live your life. So many people talked about how Lauren would say, buy yourself an apartment that you think you can't afford.
Because then you'll come home after a hard day at work and you'll go, wow, who lives here? And you'll go, wow, I live here. you know then you'll come home after a hard day at work and you'll go wow who lives here and you're like wow i live here you know and he told me that he said bye he said get yeah it matters where you live so if you're torn get the nicer one he does his lorne and a lot of it is just good old-fashioned wisdom yeah well well crafted did we talk about the one that one that sort of took me by surprise, about this generation or whatever, snowflakes or anxiety or whatever? We were raised in the wilderness and got civilized.
They're raised civilized, and then we want them to go out into the wilderness, which is sort of brilliant. I said that at Howard Stern and go, what does that mean? I go he said that to me too and I totally get it yeah yeah but you know it was also I spent so much time hanging out there that it was really interesting for me to see he's so patient kind of with the millennials and some of the snowflakey you know sensibilities but one day he said something that really cracked me up.
This is in the book. We were walking in the theater district, and we walked past the Mean Girls Marquis.
And he had just got tickets for his friend Margaret Trudeau to go. But he was really mad because one of the leads had called in sick uh because she had to take her dog to the vet the dog had eaten glue or something and he and he and he just said if it was Patti LuPone the dog would be dead he couldn't believe you know that this person's pet was I think in the new, there's just options you didn't have.
Like you can just not do things anymore. In the old days, it's like, no, you go, no matter what you go to work, you go to school, you do this.
And now it's like, if you feel like it, unless you want to call on a day, you're not mentally feeling like it. It's like, are you having anxiety? If I had the word anxiety back then, I would have used it all day.
I think Lauren has a classic characteristic of somebody who is, has power in a meeting. And that is if things are going around the room and then Lauren will sort of sum up something or say something that's not exactly on topic, but related to the topic in very few words, you know, and it's like, I just think I, you know, I don't, this is a hackneyed one, but I, it just needs to breathe or whatever, you know, make sure that the audience knows you're actually performing, you know, sort of, you know, don't just do it to each other.
So that's kind of one of his superpowers. And that's really important with the suits and universal and stuff.

I had, I was at parties with the suits and Lauren.

He doesn't talk a lot, but when he does, it's usually, it's pretty hard.

Or it's interesting, you know?

Yeah.

No, he has a lot of things like that that can kind of close off discussion. Like he'll say, it'll get there, you know, or he'll say, it knows what it is.
Stuff like that. Yeah.
Really good, good things. Yeah.
All I'm saying, you know, he never really says do this. All I'm saying is like, do we really have to go there with that right now? I thought it was also interesting that even though, you know, in that meeting between dress and air.
he really is like a general, you know, and that's the time at which he famously yelled at Bob Odenkirk once.

Odenkirk, if you talk again, I'll break your fucking legs, you know.

But mostly.

That's when he's most confrontational because there's no time left.

No time for any fun bullshit.

It's like, go, go, go. Right.
But even though he is, you know, that is his moment, he rarely forces somebody to change something. I mean, writers are always telling me.
That's true. Yes, he'll give you the note.
He'll say maybe this, maybe that. But he isn't going to say you have to change the ending.
You know, he lets it belong to the writers, which so unusual some you know some of mine got dirty and he would say to interrupt you he would say i don't know if you need that yeah yeah put it if you want i don't know if you need it and that's a good way of saying oh you feel like it's a little dirty it's kind of smart the way it is i don't know if you need that and you go yeah okay

like okay well if you say it i'm obviously younger and just new on the show i think i would take your gut feeling over mine i know because i said to lauren just in the fall when i was there i said you're like an ai like you have downloaded the show in your brain that's a good so lauren's blink is the best blink because he can't even, he's going back to, you know, Danny did that in my early days, similar to a Chevy idea, you know. So that's why his blink is really good.
He kind of knows, he can't even totally describe what's wrong in a way, but his spider sense because he's downloaded the show.

But he might say, as David was just saying, he might say, well, do you think it's working? Yeah, stuff like that. That's how he would do it.
Do you think it's working? But Dana, this is reminding me, what David just said is the story you told me about the time he thought church lady got too dirty with the football players. Yeah.
Yeah. And he was, he right it was just um you know it was joe montana and walter payton and i'm doing a church chat and so it was just became vaudevillian sexual innuendos like we're playing football squeeze the between your legs and let me you know it was just a lot of that all the

lauren was like you know does it really it was like a little you know and he didn't want church lady for a while like the church lady i think she needs a name you know and stuff like that and he didn't really like the superior dance he wanted to be more grounded in reality but like he never told me yay or nay but he the the mon joe montana one um because maybe it was lowbrow or something it was later in the show but it killed so hard that the old-timer sound man said i've been here for 20 years i've never seen the needles go that high so i anyway you know that superior dance thing i mean i didn't know he didn't like that because boy i think that's so funny but uh well i i i think he wasn't a fan of it but maybe he probably accepted it as the as the character grew got bigger yes she became a signature yeah because i know conan told me that uh or maybe lauren told me maybe they both told me, rare instance of everybody agreeing that Lauren was always telling Conan to get rid of that string dance thing that he did, where he would touch his nipples and go, oh, yeah. Lauren hated that.
But Conan stuck with it and it worked. There are people, I guess.
Well, that is the thing about catchphrases and or repetitive physical things your signature johnny carson does the golf swing i don't know if there's something homey to your brain you know oh conan's doing that again you know we all do it right right well mark mckinney told me that at the original at the initial read through of the kids in the hall uh series the one thing that Lauren just didn didn't like didn't understand was the i'm crushing your head guy and and that went mark and you know that sketch yeah yeah the camera's set up so it looks like you're yeah as a little kid when i first read it lauren said like oh so it's a funny voice thing you know but he didn't. You can say that better than me.
But but then when he saw it, when he saw that it was a visual, you know, like that. Right.
Then he got it and he liked it. So, again, you have to have you really have to have a sense of yourself, I guess.
Right. Because a more of a fading violet kind of performer would have just said, OK, we'll cut that sketch.
Right.orne is he's he's open to if it works it works i mean he just loves a laugh so if you know that that makes him so high yeah you know and and you see the how he still just suffers if the show's going a little flat you see it in his body language his attitude if the show the show is lifted, it's just, you know, from across the way, your sketch destroys, it'd be like, you know, and that's like a really good coach that never overpraises, but when he does, it means a hell of a lot. So that's right.
Yeah. So many people told me about how they would come off stage and just feeling like they really killed.
And, you know, then in the Monday meeting, he wouldn't talk about that, but he would say,

you know, like, no, Nora, you were breathtaking as the fourth waitress,

you know, that kind of thing.

I thought Jen's exit was breathtaking.

David, I don't know if you know this about me but i've always been a fan of exploring new places not like you kind of you know no no offense and one of my best trips listen up is when i stayed at an airbnb felt like i was living like a local with all the space, comfort of home.

You know, hotels can be a hassle room service.

And then the housekeeper, it's a hassle.

So then you go to Airbnb and you can get whatever you want, a little cottage, this and that.

It's fantastic.

You have your own separate space.

So it's a great product for people who travel.

David?

Yes, I have friends doing one of these right now.

If you have a home, you can Airbnb it.

It's fantastic.

I mean, to monetize your home when you're not there seems like a good idea.

I mean, look, I'm on the road a lot.

I could probably do it.

It's something that people can do when they travel.

They have extra space or you're at a place not full time. You come in the winter, you leave in the summer.
So that's something you should think about. It's a way to get some extra money and it's a cool experience.
Your home might be worth more than you'd think. Yep.
Find out how much at airbnb.com slash host. Omaha, Omaha, Dana.
That's what Peyton Manning used to yell out. Oh, yeah.
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checkout. Well, Susan, Dana, anything else for this young lady who's writing a great book? So now your book is emerging.
Yeah. Within this gigantic SNL 50th.
Yeah. Whatever you want, extravaganza, you know? And I can't keep track of all the documentaries, people.
I't you know were you in that one the cowbell one is great we gotta watch that it's a whole i just went to a little house they rented for me and said will you talk about cowbell i go okay so i'm doing it and then they were talking about loran i don't even remember what i said but it's such an extravaganza um and then your book's coming out i I guess that's a good thing rather than if the book had come out during just a regular year. Well, it took me so long to write it, but only 10 years.
This wasn't part of the plan. Yeah.
I love that. It fell into right now is good.
It really, yeah, it really worked. And I'd say, I mean, it definitely works.
And especially because so much of the hoopla, so much of the other stuff, you know, it's like snippets of sketches. But my hope is that, you know, people really don't know that much about Lorne.
You know, the comedy cognoscenti know that he's Obi-Wan Kenobi and everything else. But I think that the greater world doesn't know how complicated and fascinating and strange and brilliant he is.
And, you know, I hope, as you were saying, Dan, I hope I'm kind of able to explain that a little bit. The one thing people ask me today about the show that I don't have an answer for, just a basic answer, I guess, but how the numerologically the cast has started to expand and then become an expansionist cast.
So like 20 cast members. So people will ask me, why don't they have all those cast members? And I go, well, I guess a safety net or did he ever talk about that? I think that's a really good question because I know there was a time in the 90s when he was trying to do the changeover between the Hartman cast to the Sandler cast.
He was hiring a lot of people. I thought it was maybe just to create a buffer.
And then there was some big budget cutback and he had to get rid of a bunch of them. But yeah, I don't know the answer to that unless, and I'm speculating here, unless it's a diversity effort, you know, to just try to get a more diverse cast, but I don't think it serves the show because I think that there's so many people you're kind of, who's that? You don't know for sure.
You don't know for sure. It's too hard.
It's very hard. I talked to some of the young cast members because if you're not in it a lot and then you get in there and then you maybe flub a line or don't totally score, then you go back again.

where I think I was part of the last small cast.

And then when David and Sandler and Farley all, you know,

we got some really great people to add to us and some left.

But me and Phil and John, I think we're just the three major male sketch players. So I was in four things, the first show or five things.
And I have a lot of empathy for the cast members that are, they're in the dugout. They're on the bench.
They're not playing. Do you quit or do you stay and you quit SNL? I didn't get anything out of it.
Like it's so hard to sit there and rot going, am I going ever score it really takes one good sketch then you're on the map what was yours david what was the thing that made you feel like it took a long time i think it was one where i played a receptionist was the first time i got any any sort of and you had a catchphrase did it at it was addressed the last sketch in the air it It was the first sketch. And so that was Roseanne.

And UR was the catchphrase.

And UR is so good.

Just a dry bit based on kind of Lauren going to see.

And the assistants.

Yeah.

And all that.

You know, the thing about the huge cast that's even harder now, Dana,

and when I was hanging around there a few years back, you know,

the cast would also, they would let you know. I mean, of course, it's thrilling for them when geniuses like you and, you know, Alec and everybody come in to play these cameos.
But during the first Trump administration, you know, so many, you know, you have all these stars coming in. And that also squeezes.
Matt Damon and so forth. All great people doing great parts.
But if you were in the cast, you might be pissed. Of course.
Well, I did ask and I was sincere about it when they asked me to do Biden. I said, does Mikey still want to do it? Does anybody want to do it? And, you know, and they said no.
Because Biden was sort of a thankless task. It was a difficult one.
And there was the whole energy around, should you make fun of his mental acuity or not? And threading that needle. So I was totally aware of that.
And they're all incredibly sweet. They seem sweeter than we were, but they're very nice people.
But we never, we had Dan Aykroyd come in and do bob dole that was it once yeah yeah and then it was all us playing it so i don't know i i mean lauren has his thing i don't think he likes when people leave i think when belushi and akroyd left it kind of left him flat-footed and so he he lights up i get. He likes a bench that can come in and, you know, so.
Right. 50 years.
Now a final question. Okay.
How much longer since you've been inside this Lauren brain, will he go? Well, I firmly believe, I don't think he's going to just say over and out, you know, he's never missed a show. He's never missed a missed a show.
I think they'd have to carry him out of there in a stretcher. But I don't buy any of the replacement theories.
I don't think Tina or Seth or... I can't see any of them doing it.
What I think is the likelier idea, and I hope this doesn't sound too McKinsey, but the way I see it, Lorne is completely essential two days of the week. He has to be there during read-through because he really pays attention to the room.
And then he picks the show after that with his deputy's help. And then Saturday, when he's sitting there under the bleachers.
It's a good theory you know and you know so i think he has this great team of people who could do the other stuff and if he came in you know was wheeled in on wednesday afternoon and on friday and on saturday stretcher well there's an element there's a there's like a soft element of that now you know yeah i would want an answer and. Because I would want an answer and they said, well, we'll let you know when Lorne gets here.

It's 4 o'clock.

That's right. Lorne knows how to pace himself and when to lock in.

Yeah.

So he's doing a soft version of that, you know?

Yeah, I think that's right.

And all those people, you know, Doyle and Kenward and Higgins, they really know him, you know?

So they can give a pretty good approximation. Yeah, when he'll come in, what he might say.
Yeah. But you know, there's no, there's no one could do what he does under the bleachers.
I mean, when I'm sitting there under the bleachers with him, and you guys, I'm sure you've done this, right? And he's, I mean, the funniest one, when we got, I was there for the the Jonah Hill show and Maggie Rogers, who was then just starting out as a singer, comes out on stage at dress wearing this big red caftan and no shoes. And Lauren just goes barefoot.
Where is she from? A place with roads? You know, he was so mad. i know well the funniest one is just that he watched the dress show and the chardonnay should be more pale you know stuff like that it's like but he notices things you're not even aware but yeah i think he's gonna go a while um he seems very you know he's very with it and alert and i've never seen him sick you know he he's taking good care of himself i don't hear that i never i never it doesn't look like you and i was there briefly it doesn't seem like he's you know barely getting to this 50th it's like 50th then they got the rest of the season after the big show and then uh they start working on next season.
I don't know when this podcast airs, but I bet you, Lauren, he is, he's only human. I mean, he will be kind of a little bit relieved when this whole hoopla is over because we can't, unless it was the mic drop, the show ends.
He knows that pretty soon. Okay.
We have 10 more fucking shows to do. Well, one thing he did tell me when the reitman movie came out um you know that was sort of the beginning of you know like his anonymity being blown in a way i mean he he told me he didn't see it i mean who knows who knows if i said i saw i saw it for you and you come up great you know i saw i said you don't have to see it but he said uh he said i just feel like i lost control of my life.
You know, it's like he, as a 50th approach, I think he's really excited about the show. And he's excited about seeing everybody.
You know, he loves everybody. But he does feel, I mean, even to some extent with a book, it's just like he's kind of stepping out.
You know, the Reitman movie put him center stage. This book puts him center stage.
It's, it's, it's, it's a, it's a shift for him. Right.
And in the end of the day, he, he is the linchpin. He's bigger than any cast member as far as the history of SNL.
He is sure. You know, well, he is, as I think I quote some agent in the book saying that when her, she is clients going to audition for Lauren,

she says, you got to remember, he is the star of the show. It's Lauren, you know, which is interesting.
Interesting. But he loves funny people.
And yeah, he really does. And he's funny.
He's a funny person, which a lot of people don't know. Extremely dry, droll wit.
Yeah, that hits you pretty hard sometimes. Wow.
Well, congratulations. It's hard to write a book.
Thank you, guys. And I'm sure it's going to do really well.
And what was your advance? How much did you have got so far? Hello. February 18th.
Thank you so much. February 18th.
This was really, really fun, you guys. This flew by.
It was easy. We love talking about our old boss.
Call back anytime, okay? I can't wait to read my chapter. All right.
Bye. Thanks, Lisa.
Have a good day. Bye-bye.
You too. Bye-bye.
This has been a presentation of Odyssey. Please follow, subscribe, leave a like, a review, all the stuff, smash that

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Fly on the Wall is executive produced by Dana Carvey and David Spade, Jenna Weiss-Berman

of Odyssey, and Heather Santoro.

The show's lead producer is Greg Holtzman.