Susan Morrison - Author of LORNE: The Man Who Invented Saturday Night Live
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It pays to slay. It pays to discover. See terms at discover.com slash credit card. 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. Lauren, 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 into

The man, the moment, Lorne Michaels, based on the book and what she learned by interviewing. I got interviewed. My quotes are probably silly. I got interviewed, yeah.

that were rougher than others and on and on. So it's a very interesting. Up, down. 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 a very interesting talk. We went on and on. So here she is. And you're going to learn a lot. Who's in Morrison?

And I sort of forgot, I had forgotten until recently the wonderful accent thing that everybody says, the eagles. Oh, the eagles. That's right. 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 Lauren has monomial status, you know, like Fidel or Madonna, you know, one name, does it, Lauren? You know, you can tell the rookies because Lauren 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. 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 thing that's been going on for the 50th,

Um, 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, then I meet him.

So probably in this whole 50 years, that was, would it be a Nate? I went to state school, his Nader 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, you know, it's interesting because I met Lauren, um,

When he was perhaps at an even lower point, you know, I work for him. Well, I worked for him when he did the new show, which was this one show. Yeah. I remember public spectacular. 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 Repair Man. No, I watched it. It was funny. It was just that besides In Living Color, which was a niche kind of show,

prime time and it was on Fox in the day, prime time 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 prime time in the 50s, 60s and into the 70s

And then so many swing and a miss, you know, I don't know if you have, I've never totally figured that out. I, I mean, I, I have a, I have a theory. Okay. I'm going to press record. He loved, uh, oh, sure. We've been recording. Don't worry. I'm kidding. Lauren loved variety TV. You know, he grew up watching, um, you know, Sid Caesar and your show shows and all that stuff. Um,

And when he went to LA in the sixties and seventies, he just bounced around from one karate variety show to the next, you know, Perry Como, Burns and Schreiber. What about Burns and Schreiber where he met his wife? But, but, um,

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. Let's put drugs on screen. In my age group, you remember that when George Carlin was on Ed Sullivan in a suit and tie and a short haircut. Yeah. He was like so a symbol of this change in 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-In maybe was the last water cooler sketch show that 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 and nobody wanted it,

And what happened is that they needed something in late night on SN, you know, 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 meddle. You know, he just got to do whatever the hell it felt like. And, and,

But 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 there 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, did you have something to say? Not at all. I don't like to interrupt. Did you see the movie Saturday Night? No.

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? Well, 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. Right.

But I did think that it captured some of, as you guys know, you've lived this, 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 members,

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 they, 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, um,

There were things that I really liked. You know in real time that there probably wasn't 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, 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 points

Great sketch. Pretty good. Most of the time, I was just there for 10 weeks. Most of the time we all went, well, I guess that's it. Just walk 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. It was almost like an adventure flick. I love that reference. I love the reference. It's hysterical, yeah. There's got to be a morning after this.

There has to be a party after the show. Other people I know told me they had similar reaction 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 that

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 that

no, 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 is 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 it there's, 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 in 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 it I really did like. And you're right when it all came together. 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 were,

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. And it looked counterculture. And I did love when it was JK Simmons who played, 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 eight age still looks the same. It's kind of beat up. And if you walk in there without an audience, you're like, it's kind of a shithole. It's tiny. People go, this isn't where you, because I went back to do a hundred Biden and it was just again, like when Dana going back, you go,

Oh, so here's Tom in wardrobe. You know, there's a lot of the same people and a lot of it's obviously bigger and a 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 sit. This is it. This is, this is where every sketch is. This tiny room. Yeah. I know. Wow. It is true. That's the fun of it. You know? Yeah.

Can 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 ever heard of. Right.

You know, Chevy almost didn't come on because he was doing a play, like a dinner theater with Paul Lynde. Hey! He almost didn't take the job. I like Broadway! Yeah, and I love that Paul Lynde stood in the way of another hire. Alan Swipe Bell almost didn't come to work.

because he had been offered a job in primetime writing the questions for Paul Lind in the center square. 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 at everything that dude said. Oh, he was always hilarious. And 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 Gamble, Gamble and Frost, 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. Okay.

So, but yeah, so Jim in a rare act of decisiveness, right. Hired me that day. Rare act of decisiveness. That's funny. To be his assistant. Oh, okay. I was 23. Oh my God. I was 23 years old. My job chiefly consisted of ordering shit loads of food from the Carnegie deli. I mean, yeah.

If I didn't know what chicken in the pot was then, I knew it. Writers eat. They have to eat. Huxleys. Just feed their brains. And 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. And think about it. And Christina McGinnis and Lorne and George Meyer and Jack Handy, it was fun. So I didn't have a lot of one-on-one time with Lorne, but it was 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 remember, or all of you? Because 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 how long. No, it wasn't. I think we did like eight shows. Okay.

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, Lorne 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 last for five hours. And, you know, because you get perfectionist and you can't stop fixing. Yeah. And I remember the audience trying to leave in droves and Tom Gamble coming out and going like, you quitters. So they're watching the same sketch over and over again. Well, it's like a sitcom, you know, you're, 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 ofs? Finished out. I'm like...

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introduce things. You know, it's kind of part of my brand, you know, new things. What could you introduce me to? All I want to hear about is a new podcast. If it's not that, I don't want to hear. Let me think for a minute. Oh, have you heard of this one?

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By the way, I don't know how much time we have. How did you end up writing this book? I'm just, that's popped into my head. Well, so, you know, 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... I would run into Lauren every five years and say hi. I think our daughters knew each other in school. But I

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 Lorne 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

I sold a 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 Lorne, 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, Lorne, 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'm 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 know, and then, you know, he said, you 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,

And so he was in. We didn't have any kind of agreement. 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 sort of puff book. He had always told me, I would never write a book because I couldn't tell the truth.

So in terms of like 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 that's seminal. And so when he was sharing with you, it was stories that you felt like

were benign i mean the book's coming out uh 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 um both of you are really knows me really up there in his pantheon no i think that he uh

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 know that comedians,

like to kind of embellish a story to make it funnier, right? That's a human thing. So I think he was a little worried about that, but I asked him lots of questions. He told me lots of stories. I'd say in the final two years of the reporting process,

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 like 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, you know, he was very 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 fact 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. You know, he, he, he understood that,

Yeah. And I, God, I really respect the hell out of him for that. You know, I mean, he knew I was going to write a real book and, but the response among, you know, his world and his publicists and the people around him has been really, has been really positive. People think that I've 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'd 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 work there when people would be bitching about this or that, or, you know, it's a tough place, right? Uh, do you, uh, do, did you talk to any cast that

said anything that or Ernie 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, they were very... One person who blew my mind was Dan Aykroyd because he talks in these sentences. Have you guys ever talked to him? We did a live podcast with him at David's house. You know what I mean? He talks in perfect paragraphs. And I just would never have thought that 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 didn't care for the lumber at all. Yeah, he is like this. And he made it one of his comedy films.

He did it as Conehead. Conehead 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 Aykroyd are very similar, aren't they? 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. 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. Go ahead. Oh, Jane Curtin saying, he spent a lot of time talking about where he's going to eat. Ha ha ha.

Or so tonight. At 9 o'clock, Chevy will be there. Chevy Chase? No, no, no. Chevy Wilson. One of the Pauls. Right, right. 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 Haters is funny too.

Bill Hader. Bill has a great Lauren. He does a very much very quiet Lauren. 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 Lauren is that

Even though people would, early in the show, as the show started getting successful and Lorne started getting richer with fancier friends, people would bitch and moan about that. Belushi referred to Lorne's fancy friends as the dead, all those socialites and everything. But I think that it was kind of interesting the way Lorne managed to parlay that into kind of a comic character on the show. Mm-hmm.

Like the Lorne that you see in the Smigel's TV Fun Houses. I've had TV fun. Getting me back by show. Show. Going back with my show. 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 like Church Lady did. Yes, the aloof producer that just stands over the beer or something or a glass of wine. Yeah, yeah.

And I remember, you know, actually, I mean, I hope we hear more of your Lauren 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. All right. Telling. Telling. Right. Um,

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 so you went on this journey and it's not so much just like what makes Lorne tick, but it's sort of like, where's the, where's the marshmallow inside this, this veneer, you know? Cause 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 in just that way to, which we probably talked about, just keeping the show consistent. Now, 50 years, we have data now, a fucking half century. Where did this guy come from? Who is he? Will that be answered when I buy the book? Yeah.

I think you're going to get your $38 worth. But no, everyone I talk to about Lorne, it's the same. They're all kind of trying to unriddle him. Conan says everybody thinks that Lorne has the secret. Part of that is that he isn't

Unlike a lot of guys who got rich and famous in the 80s, you know, 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...

He does seem to know how to live. He kind of invented work-life balance. But in terms of, you say, the marshmallow inside, I don't want to be too psychobabbly or 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. They had a big fight. Father collapses, disappears into the hospital. Lorne never sees him again. This gives you some indication of why you never see Lorne having a yelling match with anybody. He keeps it very low. He

I think at one point I say in the book that he speaks in the register of a man announcing a golf tournament, you know? 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 popular in the juvia. And he had to kind of

He had to put it all together. I think it gave him a kind of resilience that helped him throughout his whole career. 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, like 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, you know, when you're that guy, you've got the clipboard, you've got the 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, writing your own stuff. 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. Yeah.

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, a director, a producer. 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? Yeah. 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. The,

Those guys never got on stage. Robert Smigel. 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 is 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 enhance.

inhabit Lauren. And I do think because the show is magnificent chaos, that's also part of his methodology. 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, 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, he was kind of, you know, he had spent his whole career at NBC and, and,

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.

Yeah, I do. Yeah, Lorne, he wants to be in the loop. He did not produce the Conan Tonight Show, right? For some reason.

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 won't mention with different people, 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, 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 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 favor. Sounds hard. Yeah, I want a favor from you. Also, this thing about networks is tough because 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 you that thinks mistakenly,

But this network, we were friends. Like, how could they do that? 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, 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 we're all buds we should keep this on forever

Yeah, I think that for Lorne, 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. I'm the bringer of fire to these young people, the people he hires and whose life he changes."

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 he was paying Bernie Brillstein 15%, 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%, he's probably still paying him 15%. Whatever. Yeah, yeah. By the way, Prometheus, for all the kids listening, is a rapper. Ooh.

Lil Prometheus. Yeah, Lil Prometheus. Life's biggest questions. There's a few of them, Dana, in your life. Yeah. What house do I buy? What college should I go to?

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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 Louis, 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. A. Whitney Brown was not writing for it. I remember a sketch with Louis Anderson and Whitney Brown, but what could have that been on? Oh, 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. It's like a just quick cutaway like on laughing. They walk out in Roman togas. One's ripped and one isn't. And Whitney goes, no, yeah, Whitney goes to Louis that's ripped and says, Euripides? And he goes, Eumenides? Eumenides?

And that was it. That's right out of Ed Sullivan. Isn't that a weird... That's Topo Gigio right there. I mean, but those two... 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 Lorne directed his show in college, UC Follies, which was very much like a proto-SNL thing, there was a Shakespeare parody in it that Lorne wrote. This is actually one of the first funny jokes that Lorne Michaels wrote to my mind. There was a character in it named Handenbraugh.

Okay. Got it. Instead of Fortinbra. Yeah. Hand in bra. You got it? I like it. I got it. It's pretty good. I like it. That's it. A good pun. That's it. That's the beginning, middle, end. Hand in bra. Hand in bra. It's very economical. It was the 50s, people. I love it. It was the 50s. Listen, I laughed harder at hee-haw. I don't know what, you know, I can't remember any reference. I laughed at Donnie and Marie. Oh, that's what Bernie Brillstein told me. They take your hee-haw money in London. Okay.

You know, because he was producing Yeehaw. He didn't like it. I don't like fake art. He 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 on the cover of Time Magazine.

Did Belushi get on the cover, Tom? I heard Chevy did. Belushi was on Newsweek 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, you know, 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 know, you were talking about the, asking about the new show. I just remembered one funny little conflict that happened there. I remember Gamelin Pross wrote a sketch called Tornado.

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 Lincoln from getting shot. But Lorne thought that it would be much funnier to have his close personal friend Paul Simon play Lincoln. Oh.

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. 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. Yeah.

You go to buttermilk and you ski, you know, 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 especially this Saturday, that 30 minutes is where everything's made. And the whole show is based on ADD and procrastination. So at Lorne's core, does he have both those elements? Because I do. Yeah, well, you know, Jim Downey had a really smart way of describing this. He said, Lorne 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, that's, you know, I think someone said the deadline is Lauren's cocaine. You know, it's, it's the thing that gets him galvanized. And can you imagine if that show was taped, you would never have that moment, you know, at 10 30, where he's saying, but yeah, I think that he, yeah,

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 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 a grilled cheese and onion rings and French fries and whatever.

Couldn't eat at 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 more.

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 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. I need to learn things. That's a good one. Buy me a hot dog.

Yeah, we both have dad stuff. I mean, do all comedians have mom or dad stuff? Right. I don't know. Well, I thought it was, you know, a lot of people talk about these different rules that Lorne has about comedy, these Lorne-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, like, how to live your life. You know, so many people talked about how Lorne would say, buy yourself an apartment that you think you can't afford.

Because, you know, 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. He told me that. He said, 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 was sort of took me by surprise, you know, about this generation or whatever, snowflakes or anxiety or whatever, you know, we were raised in the wilderness and got like civilized.

They're raised civilized and then we want them to go out into the wilderness, which is sort of brilliant. I said that to Howard Stern and he'd go, whoa, what does that mean? I go, Howard. No, he said that to me too and I totally get it. I like it. Yeah. But 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 sensibilities. But one day he said something that really cracked me up. This is in the book. Yeah.

We were walking in the theater district and we walked past the Mean Girls marquee. 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 because she had to take her dog to the vet. The dog had eaten glue or something. And he just said...

If it was Patti LuPone, the dog would be dead. I couldn't believe that this person's pet was ruining the four of us. I think in the new days, there's just options you didn't have. 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. Now it's like, if you feel like it, unless you want to call in a

day you're not mentally feeling like it. It's like, or you have 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, um,

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 will, you know, I don't know if this is a hackney 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, I had,

I was at parties with the suits and Lauren. He doesn't talk a lot, but when he does, it's usually 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 in that meeting between Dress and Air, he really is like a general. 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. 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 is 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, but 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...

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 way to put it. 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. So that's why his blink is really good. He kind of knows, he can't even fully 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. 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 a football player. Yeah. Yeah. And he was he was really kind of right. It was just, 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 snorts. And Lauren was like,

You know, does it really? It was like, you know, and he didn't want Churchley for a while. 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,

The Joe Montana one, 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 anyway, you know, that's superior dance thing.

I mean, I didn't know he didn't like that because, boy, I think that's so funny. Well, I think he wasn't a fan of it, but he probably accepted it as the character grew, got bigger. Yes, she became a signature. Because I know Conan told me that, or maybe Lauren told me, maybe they both told me, rare instance of everybody agreeing, that Lauren was always telling people,

Conan to get rid of that string dance thing that he did, you know, where he would touch his nipples and go, oh,

Yeah. Warren hated that, but Conan stuck with it and it worked. You know, there are people, you know, 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 series, uh,

The one thing that Lauren just didn't like, didn't understand was the, I'm crushing your head guy. Ah.

And that when Mark, and you know that sketch. Yeah, yeah. The camera's set up so it looks like you're, yeah. That would have gone viral. As a little kid in some way. When Mark first read it, Lauren said like, oh, so it's a funny voice thing, you know, but he didn't. It wasn't. Dana, you can say that better than me. 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, okay, we'll cut that sketch. Right, sure. Right. And Lorne is, he's open to, if it works, it works. I mean, he just loves a laugh. So if, you know, that makes him so high. Yeah. You know, and you see 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 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 over praises. 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, and,

Then in the Monday meeting, he wouldn't talk about that, but he would say, Nora, you were breathtaking as the fourth waitress. That kind of thing. I thought Jan's accent was breathtaking. Exit.

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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 don't, you know, were you in that one? The cowbell one is great. We've got to watch that. It's a whole documentary. 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 Lauren. You're great in it, Dana. I don't even remember what I said, but it's such an extravaganza.

And then your book's coming out. 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. Only 10 years. This wasn't part of the plan. I love that it fell into right now. It was good. 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. And, but my hope is that, you know, people really don't know that much about Lauren, you know, the, 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, um,

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 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? Yeah, 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 a

ease the, you know, create a buffer. And then there was like 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

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 and

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,

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 in the dugout. They're on the bench. They're not playing. And do you quit or do you stay and you go, I quit SNL. I didn't get anything out of it. Like it's so hard to sit there and rot going, am I going to ever score? It really takes one good sketch and you're on the map.

What was yours, David? What was the thing that made you feel like... God, it took a long time. I think it was one where I played a receptionist was the first time I got any sort of... And you had a catchphrase. It was in dress, the last sketch, and the air was the first sketch. And so... Oh, that's a good... That was Roseanne. And you are... Jesus Christ. And you are so good, yeah. Just a dry bit based on kind of Lauren going to see... And the assistants, yeah. Yeah, and all that. You know, the thing about the huge cast...

It'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. Yeah.

And that also squeezes Matt Damon and so forth. All great people doing great parts. And if you were in the cast, you might be pissed. Of course. Well, I did ask and I was 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, and threading that needle. So I was totally aware of that. And, um,

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. And then it was all us playing it. So I don't know. I mean, Lorne has his thing. I don't think he likes when people leave. I think when Belushi and Aykroyd left, it kind of left him flat footed.

And so he, he lights up, I get it. 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 Lorne brain, will he go? Well, I firmly believe, I don't think he's going to just say, well,

over and out. You know, he's never missed a show. He's never missed a show. I think, I think, I think they'd have to carry him out of there in a stretcher, but I don't think that any, any of, I don't, 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. Um,

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. And then...

So I think he has this great team of people who could do the other stuff. And if he came in, was wheeled in on Wednesday afternoon and on Friday and on Saturday evening. A stretcher. Yeah.

Well, there's an element. There's like a soft element of that now, you know, because I would want an answer. And they said, well, we'll let you know when Lorne gets here. It's four o'clock. Lorne knows how to pace himself and when to lock in. So he's doing a soft version of that, you know.

Yeah, I think that's right. And all those people, Doyle and Kenward and Higgins, they really know him. So they can give a pretty good approximation. Yeah, when he'll come in and what he might say. But 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, I was there for 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's she from? A place with roads? 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. But he notices things you're not even aware. But I think he's going to go...

A while. He seems very... He's very with it and alert. I've never seen him sick. He's taking good care of himself. I don't hear that. I never... It doesn't look like... Even when I was there briefly, it doesn't seem like he's barely getting to this 50th. It's like 50th, then they got the rest of the season after the big show, and then they start working on next season. I don't see him. I don't know when this podcast airs, but I bet you, Lorne, 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 still got 10 more fucking shows to do. Well, one thing he did tell me when the Reitman movie came out, 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 he did? I said I saw it for you and you come off great. So I said you don't have to see it. But he said, he said, I just feel like I've lost control of my life. You know, it's like he it 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. The Reitman movie put him center stage. This book puts him center stage. It's a shift for him. Right. And at the end of the day, he is the linchpin. He's bigger than any cast member as far as the history of SNL. He is, sure. Well, he is, as I think I quote some agent in the book saying that when she is

client's 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. 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. Thank you. I'm sure it's going to do really well.

And what was your advance? How much did you have got so far? February 18th. Thank you so much. 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, Susan. Have a good day. Bye, guys. You too. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.

This has been a presentation of Odyssey. Please follow, subscribe, leave a like, a review, all this stuff, smash that button, whatever it is, wherever you get your podcasts. 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.