Reliving "Saturday Night"

From NY...the day I met SNL alum, Ben Stiller and Tina Fey ("are you an actor?").
Queens, NY, 2008. Photo ©Jeremy Clowe. All rights reserved.

Live from New York… it’s Saturday night… well, afternoon. It’s another punishingly cold, winter day, so I’m just hibernating here at home with my pooch. Fortunately, this month has offered us some interesting “event TV” to distract us from the weather. Indeed, the Super Bowl was one of the most exciting games I remember, and last Sunday they aired a three and a half hour special celebrating the 40^th anniversary of Saturday Night Live.

I enjoyed the SNL40 special (even if, like the regular show, the strongest material was at the beginning). The opening with Jimmy Fallon and Justin Timberlake rapping about the show’s history was impressive, and it was cool to see many of the former cast members return as favorite characters ("Wayne’s World, Wayne’s World!"). Will Ferrell was probably the highlight for me, and Celebrity Jeopardy! was hilarious (with Jim Carrey doing a spot-on Matthew McConaughey). The only true disappointment was the return of Eddie Murphy, who did not do much but thank the crowd. I learned later in the week that Murphy had been asked to portray Bill Cosby (the subject of so many rape allegations) during the Jeopardy sketch, which would have been amazing…but probably smart that he declined.

I was too young to have witnessed the brilliance of the original Not Ready for Primetime Players (John Belushi, Dan Aykroyd, Bill Murray), but have fond memories of Eddie Murphy’s stint on the show in the early 1980s. His impressions of Stevie Wonder and James Brown, Mister Robinson’s Neighborhood, Gumby, Buckwheat…  I was particularly mesmerized by the “Who Shot Buckwheat” sketches...  O-tay!

SNL's talented Season 10 cast- clockwise, left to right:
Billy Crystal, Gary Kroeger, Rich Hall, Pamela Stephenson,
Harry Shearer, Christopher Guest, Julia Louis-Dreyfus,
Jim Belushi, Martin Short, Mary Gross. Photo credit: NBC

One thing I have seen repeated in article after article about the show’s anniversary, is the idea that the show never seems as funny as we remember when we were 13 or 14 years old. This theory seems pretty accurate to me because, to this day, my fondest memories of SNL are reserved for the year I really started watching: 1984/1985. Eddie Murphy had left for the movies, and Season 10 was the year they brought in several “high-profile" comedians to save the show (jokingly referred to as the “Steinbrenner Season”).

Billy Crystal became a bit of a sensation with his “You Look Mahvelous” Fernando bit (my friends and I used to play his comedy album over and over). I was surprised to learn, later on, that he was supposed to appear on the first show with the original cast back in 1975, but his stand-up routine was cut due to time.  He made up for it during this season, where you could say he emerged the true star (his Sammy Davis, Jr. impression was amazing).

Christopher Guest and Harry Shearer were fresh off their success with the hilarious rock mockumentary, This Is Spinal Tap (1984), and they contributed some truly memorable skits and short films (including a hilarious 6o Minutes parody, looking at the manufacturing of fake novelty items like whoopee cushions and fake vomit). 

Guest and Crystal also teamed up for Willie and Frankie, two guys who were always hurting themselves (“I hate when that happens”).

As deadpan as Guest was, I think Rich Hall took the prize. The creator of Sniglets, he had some really funny stand-up segments, impersonated radio host Paul Harvey (“good day!”) and magician Doug Henning, and played a character who used to wander on to the news set.

The cast member who probably made the greatest impression on me that season was Martin Short. The spastic Ed Grimley... defensive lawyer Nathan Thurm… the weird albino performer, Jackie Rogers Jr (that “$100,000 Jackpot Wad” game show segment is a classic)… Short’s manic energy really fit the live show format. He also teamed up with Shearer and Guest for the unforgettable male sychronized swimmers film.

This was the last season before the show's creator, Lorne Michaels returned from a five year hiatus. All of the 84/85 cast, which included a pre-Seinfeld Julia Louis-Dreyfus, left at the end of the year to make room for a horrible cast that included Anthony Michael Hall and Robert Downey Jr. (who else suffered through that? Hands up). The show eventually got it’s groove back in the late 80s/early 90s with the introduction of such talents as Phil Hartman, Chris Farley, Mike Meyers, and Dana Carvey (who I think is one of the funniest comedians ever), resulting in a second "golden age" for the show.

But every once in a while I get a bit obsessive, trying to find out more details about that “oddball” tenth season that I remember from my youth. Last week’s special sparked that interest again. I can hear Ed Grimley... “this is insane!” So, in an attempt to put that fascination to rest and perhaps connect with other kindred souls, here’s what I learned (surprise, most of the cast wasn't that happy):

*Harry Shearer left halfway through the season, although he continued to be featured in the really cool Season 10 show opening credits (Who remembers? In the style of the Cars’ music video, “You Might Think”). It sounds like Shearer might have been hard to get along with, and frustrated with the lack of material he was getting on the air. This may explain why, when I met the Spinal Tap cast during an “audition” in Los Angeles back in 1991, they were a little cold about my suggestion to guest on SNL again (although Michael McKean later joined the cast in 1994). Shearer has gone on to do some funny political comedy on a radio show, and contribute several memorable voices to The Simpsons.

*Speaking of The Simpsons, apparently the character of Moe was based on Rich Hall. I was floored to realize this… but yes, can totally see it! I had a chance to see Hall perform comedy in my hometown many years ago, and was delighted to have the chance to meet him afterwards. I’m not sure the SNL format was for him, since he seemed most comfortable doing stand-up. Apparently he has become a big name in the UK... I’m glad to hear it, because I always appreciated his style (as well as the Brits, actually).

*Larry David, the creator of Seinfeld, served as a writer on Season 10. The catch is that he could never get his material on the air, and finally “quit” the show in a tirade against then producer, Dick Ebersol. Realizing what he had done (and the money he would be missing), David returned to work the following Monday, as if nothing had happened. David would later use this real-life event for the inspiration behind the Seinfeld episode, "The Revenge,” where George quits, only to sneak back to the job the next week. Ha ha… amazingly, in real-life, David was able to continue through the season… and he met future Seinfeld collaborator, Dreyfus, so it wasn’t a total loss.

*Martin Short also tried to quit after a couple episodes. Like Guest, apparently he was a little wary about his one-year contract, and the unrelenting pressure of the show was different from his experience on SCTV. Ebersol talked him out of it, and in his awesome new biography, I Must Say, Short notes that he found his groove on the show; perhaps that anxious energy made him so funny and memorable! I was pleasantly surprised by his lengthy part on the SNL40 special (singing against a wind machine alongside a hilarious Maya Rudolph, impersonating Beyoncé).

Of course, Crystal and Short went on to become big Hollywood stars, and Guest went on to become a pretty funny film director. Such movies as When Harry Met Sally and City Slickers (starring Crystal); and Waiting for Guffman and Best in Show (directed by Guest) are certainly classics. Some of their recent work strikes me as annoyingly “showbiz,” but I think that thread was present even back in their lone SNL season.

So, that brings the question… was the 84/85 season really as funny as I remember? On the whole, maybe not fall-down funny... but extremely clever. I admit that it is the type of comedy I tend to gravitate towards, and perhaps resulted in my interest in doing improv and such strange shows as Woman in Mind, Lives of the Saints and Under Milkwood (where I impersonated, SNL-style, a half a dozen bizarre characters). There was also something “heart-warming” about that season; the comedy was far from mean-spirited, with the likable cast and other writers continually presenting a “tolerance” for the weirdness that was unfolding (maybe some SCTV carryover there). A reserved, artistic teen at the time, I think I appreciated that message.

So here’s to Saturday Night Live and, in particular, the season of 1984—this “big brother” has certainly been watching. To my delight, NBC has just posted highlights from every episode and season of SNL on their website... now that looks mahvelous!

Related Links:

"Saturday Night Live" website

"The ‘S.N.L.’ 40th-Anniversary Show: Very Funny, Except When It Wasn’t," 

New York Times, February 16, 2015

"'Saturday Night Live': All 141 Cast Members Ranked," 

Rolling Stone, February 11, 2015

"9 SNL Cast Members Who Made the Most of Their Only Season," Paste, 
January 8, 2015

"Howard Stern Grills Larry David About His Utter Failure at SNL," 
Mediate.com, January 8, 2015

"Martin Short: I watched Larry David's profane 'Saturday Night Live" exit," 
Salon, November 15, 2014

Martin Short interview, "The Howard Stern Show," November 5, 2014

"Martin Short: My 'Saturday Night Live' hell," Salon, November 2, 2014

"The Lost Year of 'Saturday Night Live': 1984," Hollywood.com, May 7, 2014

Harry Shearer interview, "The Howard Stern Show," March 3, 2010

Season 10 (reviews), Saturday-Night-Live.com Forum

Saturday Night Live: 1984-1985 Transcripts, snltranscripts.jt.org

"Revived, from New York, It's 'Saturday Night'! New York Magazine," October 1, 1984

(I’ll continue to add more links here, and if you’re a fellow SNL 84/85 admirer, 

please give me a shout--that would be “pretty decent, you know.”)