LORNE MICHAELS (Part 1)
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Yes, I have actually stayed at Airbnbs from time to time. And truth be told, I do really like them. I'm being totally honest right now that I've had great experiences with them. Yeah. I mean, you can have your look at you go get your own place, get your own pool, your own living room. You're not going to walk in an elevator. You're not going to see people when you're walking around in your undergarments. Yeah.

Yes. And if you don't understand what we're talking about, you should go online. What we're saying is you have a house with a kitchen and a bathroom and it's just for you, tailored for you. You liked your Airbnb over a hotel. Yes. And I do think I've had relatives stay nearby and sometimes it's very nice for them to do an Airbnb and have a little house and they're not underfoot. The last thing you want is your house guest to say, excuse me, um,

Where would I find a towel? That's a toughie when it's... Because they're naked? Well, it's like the 1800th time you say, on the towel rack. Yeah. Thank you. Oh, I was going to look there. People don't even think hotels sometimes just go, hey, I'll go there, I'll get an Airbnb. So you won't regret it. We have...

the great and powerful Oz on the show, uh, Lorne Michaels. The became the unintentional star of the podcast. Cause he's the touchstone for all the Saturday night live people is Lorne Michaels. The common denominator. The yeah. The touchstone, the common denominator, the touch denator, the thing that everyone talks about a lot. That's more unwieldy than the touchstone, but we were thrilled to get him. And, um,

He's our most commonly asked guest. When will you have Lorne? When will you have Lorne? And he was very cool to do this because he doesn't do a lot of stuff and he doesn't like to be bothered. And I wouldn't either. He's got a lot going on. Yeah, I took a chance. I called him up at home and I said, Lorne, hi, this is Dana. And we'd love you to come on the talk on our podcast. And he goes, okay.

I don't know who this is, but I don't know. So I can't even do it now. No, he was great. So he comes in and he came to the house and did it. And, you know, it really reminded me of being back at SNL because me, you, him, it's like sitting at read-through or sitting in a meeting and you have that reverence for him and you want to make him laugh. He's like a father figure in a weird way, you know, a lot of,

Pretty much everything I've had is based on SNL and him keep me on there. He's a very interesting guy to talk to. He's as smart as they come. And I don't know, I probably should have brought up my Lorne impression, but I've talked to him about it off mic before at a restaurant, how I –

Then I got him at, you know, in 86 when he was in during the trying to pick the show. I still have no fucking first act. And that was the first time I got his rhythm. And then we talk about Lorne isms on the show. You know, you never leave a hit. And he's a brilliant guy. I mean, he really is fun to listen to. You know, it's a funny one. I can't say who it was, but someone we know did a movie and he was a pretty big star and it opened very poorly.

And I was in a limo with Lorne and I go, do you think he'll get another movie? And he goes, well, not every studio wants to lose $30 million and work with an asshole. Some do.

Not all of them. Well, that's kind of his humor. Yeah, that's exactly a good Lorne humor. This is what Lorne would say, his sense of humor. So we're at the meeting and it's the last show. And you go, this is our last show. We have a two-week break. So it'd be like really, really nice if the show was really good.

Instead of a bad show. You know, he would do that. I want to take a dive tonight. We're being reviewed. So, you know, he's just a fascinating character. We got to sit with him for a long time. And he proved to be very fascinating. Everything he said, we hung on. Hey, we didn't talk over. Keep talking. Hey, wait, wait. We didn't even talk over. Dana.

We didn't even... So we didn't... We apologize for not talking over the guests. Because he's a great storyteller and we get into a lot of things. We get into the current cast and his emotional relationship with cast members and how long he has been there. 50th anniversary coming up. Never happened before in the history of television. A guy producing a show for a half century. So it's an amazing... You were incredible in this interview, David, I have to say. Dana, you really sparkled.

All right, here he is, our main man. Main man, Lorne Michaels.

Conan's got some money coming in. First of all, I want to thank you for coming in. You're responsible for pretty much everything in my life. Yes. In the comedy world. First, we have to embarrass you and thank you. We had no plan for this podcast, no meeting. This won't be in any way used. No, we'll cut this part. It's not used or aired. But to our surprise and delight, everyone who was on the podcast started talking and saying nice things about you, how much they love you. So we just thought, well, can we get him to come on?

So here we are. Well, I haven't done anything else. That's the amazing part. Yeah. But as I said, I have a background in radio. Ratty chips. Healthy little...

Lauren's getting snacks. One will make the least noise. Can we open the chips? Make a lot of noise and then not as much noise. Do you like Flamin' Hot? I don't know if that's for you. I'm just reaching for whatever's closest. Don't worry about the noise. Don't worry about the noise. I'm sorry. And there's protein bars if you're stuck. If you're really stuck, just grab those. Those are not too bad. I'll just talk to Dana for a while. Are you staying at the Beverly Hills Hotel? I am. Oh, okay.

In the Margarita room. And Pete Davidson's there because they're doing this show, Bupkis. Oh, okay. You have touchstones. One is the Beverly Hills Hotel, which you're a huge fan of. In Aspen, you stay at the what? Aspen was more houses, I think. St. Bart's is another touchstone. Yeah. And, of course, Amagansett. Yeah. I remember when. And now Maine. Oh, you did finally pull the trigger. Maine? Maine. Maine.

I wasn't CC'd on that. So Maine. I'll show you pictures. That's pretty far out there. You can't show them. We talked about that last time. As you get a little older, you're pretty young. You want to get into the country and you want to get in wide open spaces. And you want to get to the landscape of your childhood. Yes. And this is as close to Canada as you can get without going to Canada. Oh, is that what it is? Nice. Okay. Yeah, you're Canadian. And what part of Canada? Just real quick.

What part is this near or what part? But you were sort of Toronto, am I right? Toronto, yeah. I told you, Dana. But I left in 1972.

It's changed since then. Yes. And was the reason we did Tommy Boy in Toronto because of that or was it a tax thing? No, I think that was, Paramount was just, they would have done it in Budapest if it was cheaper. Yeah. That's usually where movies, what was the cost of Tommy Boy versus Wayne's World 1? I just want to know about. We were 13.5 or something. Yeah.

Yeah, on Wayne's World. 35 days of filming. And which film is your personal favorite between those two? We weren't 35. I think we were more like 25. Oh, could have been. It seemed like that. 25 million? No, no, no. 25 days of shooting. Oh, yeah. Very quick. One take. Penelope Spheeris. Towards the end, when Howard Koch was... Junior? Hawk Koch. Hawk Koch. They were doing The Board and...

Paramount person that I was, who was giving us directions, said, you know, if you can make this movie for 12.5, I'll leave you alone. And that was sort of the whole idea of it. And then we had an extra day or two. And at one point, the Rob Lowe character was going to have Dennis Hopper as a father. And so there was a dynamic between the two of them, which would play off in the sense of the counterpoint. And then they said, you have to...

don't have the extra two days. So that went away. Use Mike Myers phrase. We smushed it into one character. And that was Rob. Oh, okay. And he was great. Kurt Fuller. That was ended up, ended up being lightning in a bottle. I only saw the previews. And I remember been told before where the Paramount guy came back. They, we did the previews. Mike and I are possessed while they're watching ourselves. We're kind of depressed. Probably. He says, it's got ghostbusters numbers. Let's eat. Yeah.

Right? That's what he's... Is that right? No. We were in a restaurant. Okay. How did you remember it? Because I was older. I was dressed as Garth. We did, for sentimental reasons, a preview in Wayne, New Jersey because it had a multiplex. I think that's where it was. Yeah. And then we went to a restaurant that was happening in Soho, which had a tin roof. And...

Everybody was ordering. Mike was in complete depression because it wasn't the movie he thought he wanted. You know, it was all that. And he said, it got an 86. Let's eat. 86. Okay. I missed it by nine points. 86, for those of you at home, is higher than 80. There's two boxes. So it means most people are in the top two boxes. And also that it added up to that. It could be 88. It could be 91. But it was something where he thought, why would you want to keep talking? Yeah.

Oh, we got it. Like, we won. Yeah, we won. Take the win. And that was sort of – it took Mike a while to get used to it. And then he went into the editing room and – but it was all there. It was all there in that first cut. And part of it was just how fast it moved and the exuberance of it. And as I say, most people in America, when they're choosing –

any kind of entertainment, the phrase looks like fun is the most, is the talk. And I figured out for myself later why so popular. I thought the two so-called losers in town, they drop AMC Pacer, live with their parents, are having way more fun than anyone in the town. Yeah.

So that's like, who wouldn't want to live in that world? And Tommy Boy, I remember you took me to Chili's after. Is that where we were going? It wasn't quite as nice. Tommy Boy's was made for $35 million. No, Tommy Boy's probably around the same. Same thing. Because it was always, from the studio, it was always, you know,

These movies have to be made for a price. You know, 15, $20 million is a lot of money. Yeah, yeah. And then you go, well, we can do this for 20. No, no, I said 15 to 20. We're going to aim for 15, but we may end up at 20. But once that happened, you were left alone. I think because nobody considered it important, which is a big plus. Yeah. And I could watch Tommy Boy and be really comfortable because I'm not worrying or seeing myself. Yeah. And just thought it was...

the start of David's film career. But for Chris, it feels to me like it captured Chris completely. Yeah. Like his physical comedy, his likability. And it got the sentimental side, which was kind of him fighting for the walk through the factory and the scene in the boat. And the bagpipes. Yes. That was great. It's like Three Amigos. It just gets shinier and brighter, as Paul would say. And also, they're meant to be fun. Yeah. Do you know what I mean? And everyone, I think when somebody asked me,

in an interview about Waynesboro, what were you aiming for? And I said, you know, uh, really a confection, you know, cause I said, uh,

In a Marx Brothers movie, no one cares whether Fredonia won the war. It's going to go 80, 90 minutes. It's going to be as funny as it can be. Then it's going to go good night. And everybody's happy. And so the idea that you're going to be tied to a plot and have to stick with scenes that didn't work because they're going to tell the story as opposed to –

you know, Waynesville's boy has showboy, loses showboy, sees girlboy. I mean, listen, Tommy boy, we always say, like, if you went and pitched a movie of two guys selling brake pads in Ohio, yeah, we got to do this. Of course. It just really, I think it was Lauren saying, these two are kind of funny around the office. And I think you told the Turners, Bonnie and Terry Turner, can you write something about that? And it was,

You would get how we were goofy around the office and then said, if you can, and they did a good job of doing that. And then you kind of steered it. And there'd be a moment or two in Coneheads too. Yeah. Yeah. Which had already established. Yeah. And Mike, despite the best efforts of, you know, Mike and Dana was in Wayne's world. And, uh, we had a bit, we had a bit of a competition. That's what Paul would say about him and John. You heard cheers of the audience and then they were, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

But we've lived long enough to be very good friends and love each other. As a Ford owner, there are lots of choices of where you get your vehicle serviced. You can choose to go to their place, the local dealership, your place, home, apartment, condo, your workplace, even your happy place, like your cottage on the lake. Go to your Ford dealer and choose Ford pickup and delivery to have your vehicle picked up, serviced, and brought right back.

Or choose mobile service where a technician will come to you and do routine maintenance right on the spot. Both are complimentary and depend on your location. That's ownership built around you. Contact your participating dealer or visit FordService.com for important details and limitations. The one thing I thought of my notes to ask you, why did you cast me?

Originally at the show? Yeah, on SNL. Well, because there was no Garth. There was only Wayne at the start. But I mean, why did you cast me on SNL? Oh, on SNL. I can answer this. Because that was a huge spot, you know? And then you took me and you didn't take a lot of brilliant people. Was it Jim Carrey? I'm very grateful for it, but- No, I didn't see Jim Carrey. Frankie Davis. Oh, they did. Someone else. And somebody else. They said, it's too big for you.

Yeah, I mean, looking back... You should have let me make the decision. Well, I think you did cast it, I don't know if like a situation comedy, but like it was different. Lovitz was a flavor, Phil was a role, and somehow I fit in there and you rolled the dice, and I'm ever grateful for it, but it seems at the time...

I did not have a lot of confidence. I didn't know what was gonna happen. - Well, I think Lovitz was there from the year before. - Yeah, he was the kingpin at the time. - That Twilight Zone cruel thing. - You burnt the cast out. - Yes, exactly. - Everyone got burned up in a fire. - I think that was Franken. - I sort of just skimmed that sketch. I didn't really. - Yeah. - Yeah. - But I sort of knew you'd fit from- - Thank God.

What was the name of the club? You saw. For people who don't know, but now I'm here with Lauren. Yeah. I had auditioned other times. They said you were coming around. I didn't want to do it at the comedy store. And then Rosie O'Donnell was there. I got 40 minutes. Yeah. I'm waiting to go on. First of all, I'm terrified. Right. Because it's a dream like everyone else. You come through the door. There he is. Then Brandon Tartikoff, the head of the network. Tartar sauce. And then I'm like, oh, fuck. I'm so nervous. And then Cher.

And they sat down in the club. Now welcome, Dan O'Flaherty. I'm at Igby's. That was probably my only night with the two of them. But we were somewhere and I think Cher said, where are you going? And I said, well, I'm going to go see somebody I think is good in the club. Oh, I'll come.

And then Brandon went, well, I want to go too. Or he was first. I don't remember the order. And they all laughed. But that wasn't the deciding factor. It was just that you had clear –

I mean, you were funny. And you can never much... Anytime you talk about funny for longer than a minute, you're not funny. It's not good. It's still whimsical that I found myself to that place at that time. No, and also, I'd never been there before, probably since. And as I said, I haven't been with those people either. But I do know Cher, I guess. And when I run into her, she says, I was there when you were just going. Yeah, no, no. Her laugh was so open. Yes. And nice. And she just wanted...

Everyone to win. Also, if Dane is doing... I don't mean to jump in, but if he's doing Church Lady, chopping broccoli, things that literally, in your head, you could probably just pluck and put right on the show. First show. Nothing to do different. The whimsy of the Church Lady, because it was part of the set, is probably five minutes of the character. And then I remember...

Okay, we'll try it. Who knew? And I worked with your ex-wife, Rosie Schuster, for a month. You assigned me to a writer. She was the one who said church chat because we thought of a talk show. And I remember bringing the two dresses into you. One was a little more feminine and you just pointed at the one we used. And then as it turns out, it was such a great thing for the show because I had Phil and Jan coming in and being brilliant and or Sigourney Weaver, the first show and Victoria Jackson.

And also Sean Penn. And then Sean Penn, and then all these religious scandals. So again, that was a freaky, lucky thing for all of us. I think it was like, very often with the character, you have to find, or at least my end of it is, you have to find the context. You know, with Mike and you in Wayne's world, it was like...

He had a very specific look in mind, which was the basement, stairs coming down. Nora played the mother. Yes. Hair metal thing. The Garth thing was, I think you should do it with Dana, and somehow that evolved. That was your suggestion. Yeah, for sure. And then the moment it worked, it was like on a 10 to 1, and it played pretty well. Yeah.

Because it was fresh and had energy and it looked like fun. And it was. And then after that, Mike had been at the show three months, four months? Yeah, something like that. But after that, it was like, why are we in that corner? Right. And you're in that corner because you designed a set that had the stairs and whatever. And entrance and an exit. You're as far from the audience as possible. So from that point on, I think it moved to home base. Yeah.

And that was like, yeah, we don't need the background. Which is incredibly powerful to be at home base. You can really time the laughs. Where the monologue is. Where the monologue is, I'm just telling people at home. Yeah. Yes. Where it's like right at the audience, right down the camera. As the warmup, which was designed a certain way and is still the same, uh,

You're moving down, you know, like somebody does now, it's Che. Right. And then Keenan comes out and sings with the girls. And then...

the lights start to go down and you know you're looking at that spot. Or you're looking where the cold opening is gonna be. - You're trained. - And so you get a sense of where the focus is. - It's just amazing, Loren, that you're still there. And I've come back a few times and did update or whatever. You can't get past it. I mean, you'll never forget it. And I think that for all of us who are unknown, go on the show and for the audience to see Will Ferrell do what he did, see how David evolved.

It's such an amazing visceral experience. There's nothing like it. And the music and the way you kept it the same is extraordinary, that you didn't let any regime –

trick you out and change it. What's interesting is there's four new people coming in. It's amazing. Because of the pandemic, we couldn't let... There was no place for anyone to go. So we kept adding people because you have to add people every year. And suddenly we have like 23 people. Because of the pandemic. And everybody's angry because they're not playing time. And so... And then...

People left. And so it was so much fun seeing these new people because they're exactly where you should start. They've never been on television. They don't know. They don't generally, if they have representation, it's...

And you just sort of see them and there's like that exuberance and excitement and it just shows and that energy shows. And so when you start with people who've never been on television and the audience gets to be part of that process and live with them through it, then...

I used to say, I'm going to say it now again, that the four longest years of your life are high school. Yes. You don't have any money. You don't have a car. Any girls. And so staying up late with friends or staying up late by yourself to like 1 o'clock in the morning is like a really exciting thing. So when people say...

the best cast that ever did it, generally it's when they were in high school. Totally. So if they, you know, and they go, oh, well, no, the best was, you know, you and Hartman and you, you know, when you go and follow. And you go, when were you in high school? You go, oh, exactly. No, I mean. Yeah, no, there's no. It's true. And you have the time. Yeah. And you talk about with your friends, that's the only game in town. Yeah. Especially back then like that. I mean, there's more competition now and it's great that you're still crushing it because you're

With so many things to choose from. That was, I think when you have a transition kind of now where some are leaving that, you know, more familiar faces. Yeah. It doesn't mean anyone's not as good. It's just some people get more opportunities coming up. And the same thing happened. It took me longer to get my footing when we had Dana. Yeah.

Unfortunately, it was just too good. It was- Oh, no. And also, I think Ben Stiller came in at the same time as Mike did. Yes. But he sort of saw, this could be a long wait. Because Sandler, everybody was there and it was killing it. And what was interesting about that time was the only people who liked it were the audience.

Critically, it wasn't. No. It's a golden age now. Yeah, we were not like... Barstool Sports said we were the best cast. And then back then, they were like, this is the worst bunch of assholes. Untalented humps. Even when we had, on a given night back in the late 90s, or early 90s, sorry, late 80s, we would have toonses. I'm talking about just, we'd have a Sprockets. Maybe I'd do Bush or Perot or McLaughlin Group. Mike might do...

talking lady, whatever her name was. But we had so many, we had the Sandler sing a song, David would do a Hollywood Minute. So there was a given moment in time you must have felt like, hey, I got a lot of things to hit here. - And you know, we're doing that documentary on Jim Downey, which-- - I talked to him for four hours. - It's only gonna take 10 years.

They're going to use three minutes of that. But my son Eddie is working on it. Great. He grew up kind of on the show, et cetera, but doesn't really know that period. No, too young. And he keeps showing me things from that period that are like hilarious. And one of them he showed me recently was parole on Larry King.

And it's so funny. It's a perfect Downey piece. You're great at it. Will was great. Will was doing Larry King, which he's not known for. And there was Chris Kattan in there. It was people, their platforms were very exotic and Ross Perot was the same old

same old girl every time we're gonna do this can I finish one time or are you gonna keep talking all the time I mean the rhythm of that was so infectious I never had more fun doing a character and you could do that speed you always had that ability that was something I saw in the audition you could you could move something that fast

If I can catch a wave with it rhythmically in my head and I know that it's like casting a line to the audience, can I finish one time? Yeah. And I know that you're going to laugh right now because you can't not laugh because that's the way I'm talking. Can you figure it that way? With a gesture. It is exactly like a song. Yeah. Extrapolated. But you audition with music.

I did have a little piano thing and stuff. I'm not recommending that because it's really time-intensive. I know, I was about to say, for that reason, I'm out. The other night, just I was at the improv doing a benefit, and I'm kind of bombing. I mean, I'm doing okay. Then I go, fuck it. I go, I did a thing on SNL called Chopped Broccoli. It's packed.

So I do it and give it my all on the piano, standing ovation. So I should never go on and do anything else. It killed. Yeah, I thought that story was heading to a bomb. Why? I only did it once. Who do they think it is? Because people ask me all the time. We gave him a name. To me, it was just random rock star. What was he called? Derek something. Yeah. So it's Brit.

It's a British. But it's not McCartney. No, it's not McCartney. And then I buried it by, we did a sketch where the record company, it was a little too sophisticated, tells him he has to die.

Because his record sales will go up and look what happened to Jim Morrison and Hendrix, but I don't want to die. You know, it's one of those and it laid there, but Chuck Broccoli lives on. You know, Lauren, when you, when you watch these auditions, it's interesting because I was newer to comedy. All I want to do is kill. And cause I, my audition was different. We've, we've interviewed a lot of these people and I'm hearing a lot of more at eight H, which would be just horrifying, but,

and it's dead silent, you know, and everyone's out there and Shoemaker's eating peanuts. You know, no one, it's like, hey, come down for the audition. It's tough to audition. But when I did- But also, weren't you brought in a little bit as a writer? Well, the thing was, I came in and Dennis, right before I walked on, people were at Catch Rising Star. You might've been there. I don't actually, I don't even know if you were there. It was, you know, some writers came down and a handful was me, Rob Schneider and Tom Kenny and we were just doing standup. So we do it and Dennis Miller comes up before and he goes, hey, Spudling. He goes-

you're going to bring the A game? And I go, I mean, it's all the A I got. I mean, I don't know. It might be a B, but my best is might be B. And he goes, yeah, I'm saving it for another audition for American Idol. So I go, listen, um,

yeah and he goes you don't want to kill too hard throws a red flag with these guys they don't want to get some road hack and i go so don't do good and they're like david spade i go dennis don't do good but i realize now when i watch comics and stuff i look at writing so i can tell someone has game in two lines you know i mean it's like name that tune i go first line might be a fluke and then they do the next joke and i go there's something going on here yeah and it's like um

you get an eye for it. So I think you guys all had that and it, and I can watch someone and not see if they kill or not. I didn't almost hear it. I just go, Oh, that's a good one. Oh, that's a good one. So Dennis said later, or maybe Downey said, no, we liked your writing. So I don't even know. I don't think we did that well, but that didn't matter. It was more like, Oh, I liked the way you put that together or that thought or that. And that I appreciate. How would you describe that? That sensibility that you look for? Well, what I think was happening then was we had a kind of murderer's row.

of people that were going to be dominating for a long time. So you were going to get to be Ross Perot, but in the other debate. On the bench. On the wide shot. Well, that was on my tombstone. He was going to come back. I didn't feel bad. He was going to come back and do both parts. I saw David sitting in the corner dressed as Perot, and he looked so sad, but it was just for the wide shot. It was a fluky thing, but yeah, that was...

You did well. But what I'm getting at is that there's- You were Perot. There's a thing which I've done a bunch over the years, which is I'll bring someone in as a writer. You know they're going to be cast eventually. You buy some time, yeah. But they won't go through that self-doubt a bit-

why am I not getting on? And people say, I'm on, but I don't see enough, whatever. I added that though to my stress. People, I'll talk to comedians who've auditioned and they tell me what they've auditioned with in the last five or eight years. And I won't tell them, but I'm thinking to myself, not going to get it. And whether it was like, you're not afraid of any kind of humor, but it was something that's catalogical, but it wasn't funny. And I could just tell it didn't fit the,

kind of the frequency of you, Lorne Michaels, and your lieutenants. There's a certain thing, and it's hard to describe it because it's got a wide bandwidth of

But there is something – You can see it at read-through when someone new puts in something and everyone goes, oh, Jesus. And it's a little off-putting. Yeah. And read-through is an honest room. Yeah. There's no – Yeah. Bernie's not there, you know, like so there's not – and the network's not there. There's no booming laugh, you know, from – so it's got – Yeah. Yeah, it didn't play. And same with the show. When something doesn't work –

There are no laughs on the air. Yeah, who do you blame? That's the high wire. It's the fairest thing in the world, really. And also you feel you've earned it. Yeah. But there are people like Bowen, I brought in as a writer. He's great. You want people to see how the process works because it's figuring it out those first few weeks that, you know, that's it and that's cut, you know, like that. And how fast it goes and costume changes and –

while he's pointing at a line that changed or the writer forgot to tell you. I think Chris Rock ran into that problem of, you know, we were stressed that we, and frustrated we weren't getting on fast enough, but Chris Rock comes in and they're like, you're Eddie Murphy now and you're on in seven sketches and Franken's screaming at him about a confederate. He's playing a general and he's going, no! And I'm like, poor Rock, he's in too much. Like it's too much right away. And here's the cards and here's this. And I think it got him off,

It was a tougher situation for the guy who's one of the funniest in the world. Yeah, but you knew...

At least I knew he was really good. Yeah, of course. But normally you get to develop in the background. Right, you watch a little bit. Phil and Jan and I were in the cold opening. And I'd never done sketch comedy, just stand-up. So my first show, and I wasn't, I didn't realize later, I guess I knew I was before the monologue, but I didn't know I was in the cold opening. That's how green I was. We were just in the first one. It was Game Show Psychic. I don't know if it was Jack Handy. Is that what it was? Jack Handy.

Jack Handy. Sounds funny. I would answer the questions and Phil was a perfect in Jan. And so we had no time to really acclimate, but it was kind of nice. Everyone was really involved. But this is something Higgins said, and I don't know if you made it, but that you basically wrote the constitution. Yeah.

of Saturday Night Live and then you see all these incarnations so I'm a baby boomer I'm doing late 80s stuff and then you you're the constant and then you're seeing what kind of Will Ferrell stuff or Bill Hader humor and then Kate McGinnon and so you're

adaptive in a sense you're observing so these new four people are you seeing something just a little 2022 different one of them by the way is from Arizona shut the fuck up and I said yeah and he said yeah that's where David Spade's from famous they told you it was like a credit Scott Steele Jr. we got only one but and also the changing culture of comedy but you're still there and you're adapting right I mean yeah and I think the room is great

It's the best. And NADH, you know? Oh, yeah. Not some hallowed grounds. And it's a safe space. So you kind of, people relax into it. I mean, it's scary for the auditions, of course. Yeah. But it's also, at some point, you have to bat at Yankee Stadium if you're going to be in the major leagues. So pretending that that won't exist and you go right from a club to on the air wouldn't work. No. Passing through that threshold, because it's scary. Yeah.

I'm a nibbler, Dana, and I think you are too, but you always know me that I just have to keep the energy going. And I think because I learned from my dad, pistachios are a good source of just, you know, nibble, wake you up. They're always delicious. I actually named a character in a movie I did called Master of Disguise. The lead character's name is pistachio. That's how much I love pistachios. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, wonderful pistachios have literally come out of their shells. It's the same taste. It's delicious, but it's a lot less work. As you know, cracking them open can be a little bit of a job. Less cracking, more snacking is what I say. That's what I say. That's what you say, and I'm going to use that.

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And for you personally, because I always saw you kind of as a coach in a way. That's literally what Jason Sudeikis calls me. You're always doing sports metaphors. I mean, you complimented me once, third person, said...

Lauren said you reminded him of Don Mattingly. So I was like, that? I looked it up. Take it. But you see all these personalities come and go. And have you gotten more astuted that he surprised you? You kind of go, well, this cast member will be like this. I think this one's going to do well later. I mean, you must have some intuitive sense of...

Or is it all just sort of surprising sometimes? I mean, like of these four you've just hired. Right. Do you have a sense of – Maybe 10 years ago, somebody who was new to the network but, you know, like was a senior person. We were having dinner and he said, can I ask you an SNL question? And I went – Well, that's nice. Sure. No, it was great. And he said, you know the update with Jost and Che? Mm-hmm. Do you think that's working? And I said, no.

They said, oh, you know. And I went, yeah, no, no, it's a thing of like –

The way I say it, which is unpleasant, is that all babies are ugly unless they're your baby. And after three months, people say, what a beautiful baby. And you have to live through that period of people not being good. Somebody blows a line. Somebody comes in on the wrong foot. Somebody gets a cue late. Wally doesn't, the card doesn't come up. It's all that. And people go, I don't think that guy's that funny. And you go, no, he is.

And I think when you see chemistry and you sort of know they're going to work well together, well, you and Chris, you know, it was just there from the beginning. It was there offstage, but it was also very clear on camera. Well, it seems like the audience starts to discover you and like you because you get enough bass hits. And then you as a performer and David, we just get more confident and that feeds on itself. Also, you go from however...

you thought you were to famous. And that transition is just different. Suddenly, in the first season, we had a limo for the host. That was the extent of our budget. And at the party, John Belushi would quite often go and sit with the host towards the end. And then as they're getting into the limo, he'd say, you know, so John would say, I'll drop you off.

And he dropped the host at the hotel. And then he would just drive around all night with his face. Like people, limos were rare then. So who is that? And then he'd just be, you know, hand on the roof. Yeah, fame is... I like when we, first of all, we didn't have cars back then. It wasn't that far long ago, but...

to the set, which probably was better to have because it's snowing and they're like, Marcy's like, Spade, are you here? I'm down at Manny Hanny. And I'm like, well, I'm trying to get there. I live on Upper West Side. But in snowstorm, and then I get there and then afterwards we got to share. Like, you know, made sense. Cass gets a car.

I'd share one with any feature player or whatever. And then, and Norm would take one to Atlantic City. Anyway. Where he did very well. Where he did very well. Marcy's like, I'm telling Lauren immediately.

But I was going to ask you about, you just said something about Farley. Do you remember the stupid story where Farley was dating Aaron at work? Yeah, I remember that. This is just someone that worked at the office, a very nice, very cute girl. And then on the break, they broke up and they came back and she started dating Steve Martin. And so Farley comes back from Wisconsin and Sandler and I are in the office and he goes...

so uh smoking i hear uh aaron's got a new fella and i go yeah but he doesn't know and he goes well he might be richer but he's not funnier and he's not better looking and he's not more famous and we're like whoops all three and he's like shut the fuck up we're like oh you

You can't get better than C. Mark. That's a tough one. Yeah. So, so Lorne. Yeah. So Lorne. I have a lot of questions. Yeah, you're going. Look at this. It seems to me like you love it when the cast and the writers are melding. You don't want either side to really dominate completely. I think,

I made the choice because when I worked on the show Laugh-In, which was a number one show. Laugh-In, applause. Huge. To which I contributed almost nothing. But I was a junior writer. Yeah. But we were never at any read through. Mm-hmm.

We didn't go to the studio. We were in the writing offices. Just write and pass it and then that's it. And other people would rewrite it and whatever. So it wasn't what I thought working at a comedy show would be. And so the idea of elevating the writers because every person from the network and particularly everyone in the control room goes, oh, the writers can do no wrong. But the point with it is it's –

That collaboration between a performer and a writer is, and then the performers all learn how to write or at least how to recognize because the performers know rhythm and timing.

You know, that's too many words. Cut that back. Do you know what I mean? And the writer's theoretically thinking about content of some sort. They don't like to trim. Yeah. I would tell Al and Jim, I go, with a bush cold opening, I go, you got to cut some words out because I feel like I'm doing homework. I feel like I have to get through it. And they did it. But yeah, I was. And they do it immediately because they never talk back. They never ever argue with you.

I didn't realize how much they all wanted to be on camera. Yeah. And then you saw Change Bank with Jim. Change Bank was great. Silver tones, man. Commercial parodies were another secret weapon. I think there's just a thing of watching people on a stage really enjoying themselves, feeling comfortable when that level of confidence is there and you know that you got it.

it's just a different thing and it comes through at home. You just can tell. It's exhilarating on the 40th because Mike and I were closing the show, which I want to talk about the 40th because I think it was sort of magic. But I said, we should either be very offended or very flattered because it's a four hour show. And there we come as Wayne and Garth. And we so happened to land it so beautifully. And Kanye West was there and we kept going to him and I felt so in the pocket, but,

God, you had to fight the nerves because everyone was a famous person. That was a tough room. And worse because the seating was screwed. Well, I don't want to...

Well, the 40th was just a fly by the seat of your pants. I mean, it wasn't a normal. People were still coming in and, you know, and I had to send Jimmy and Justin out. So they really took a bullet, you know, because people were moving in, still seating and they're performing. Because the audience was only celebrities, right? Yeah. And it was live at eight o'clock. Yeah. Former hosts, former cast. Yeah.

And then you had a spillover room and people were mad they were in the spillover room. That room was pretty famous too. I don't know. I don't know. And by the way, I don't think there's any plus ones. Yeah. It was just... And the 50th will have no plus ones. It's fucking zero. Well, what do you think of the 50th? I mean, isn't it surreal? Yeah. I mean, and then I was going to...

I had to give an Emmy speech and I hadn't planned on it. Oh, that's right. Congratulations. You win again. Yeah. It was like seven years in a row or something. Six. Six. Still. I'm thinking about next year. You have to write this stuff down later. I think I was going to say, you know, like I don't want to say, well, I'm getting ready for season 48 because it's,

Insane. It's just... Do you know what I mean? Yeah. And yes, there was five years I wasn't there, you know, after the first five. But it's... You just sort of go... And the other thing that's familiar to people who are joining the show is the school year. You know, that...

We come in in the fall, take Thanksgiving off, we take Christmas off, you know, Easter, whatever, and spring break, and then it's summer, and you go away. And the original plan was not. The network just wanted us to do three shows a month all year round, and I went, the seasons are going to run into each other, and also it's so –

Such a pressurized environment. It's beating. You have to get away from everybody. I mean, for me, because I want to kill everybody by the end. Oh, yeah. Just brutal. I want to get out. Yeah. And so you go away and around the end of July, you go, yeah, I could go back. Start to miss it, yeah. Now, when the network or whoever, the people you talk to about the show, try to convince you to do something, how do you navigate that? I mean, have you ever lost an argument? Because it seems like you've...

Have a winning percentage of keeping the show quality or its brand. If it was anything to do with religion, particularly in the 70s, there was – Jim used to write this thing called What If? And it would always be –

Written in by a 10-year-old paper boy from Altoona, Illinois. And what if Spartacus had a Piper Cub? You know, it's like those kind of – Right, yeah. Then we do a reenactment of it. Oh, okay. And at the time, a state senator in New York, in arguing for capital punishment, said that if the Romans hadn't believed in capital punishment, there would be no Jesus. Right.

And there'd be no Christianity, which seemed insane to me, but I understood how you could get there logically. And the movie Straight Time, which was Dustin Hoffman coming out of, you know, on parole and his criminal friends trying to get him back into crime. So we did it as Jesus, you know, gets off with three to five and then he...

Some of the apostles are going, come on, one more miracle, no one gets hurt. Now, to me, it was just comedy. But it really got – because you'd have to know the relationship between me and Howard because in the first five years, it'd be like, well, we can't just do pop.

And I go, well, you know, we want to do this. And so that week we had Keith Jarrett. And it was like jazz piano. And it was brilliant. But it was like now this sketch, which was nine minutes, we're arguing up until air, really at 11 o'clock, at which point it's like I'm going, really? Really?

Yeah, you're denying the divinity of Christ, which I go, we're not really. It's, you know. It's also a comedy show. Yeah. And maybe that's the Canadian part. But all I'm getting at is it was like an absolute no. Wow. Not even that. Yeah.

And I said to one of the network people who was in the room, who all spare, I said, does this offend you? And he said, listen, Lord, I'd let you put cock sucking on the air if we get a 40 share. So I'm the wrong guy to ask. And I went, oh, this is really helpful. Thank you. You know, Dana, I think we have a connection. We've been friends for a long time. And for this episode of Fly on the Wall, we've partnered with eHarmony,

which isn't us. eHarmony is a dating app to find someone you can be yourself with. We are not dating. I want to clarify that. But the connection is what you want in a dating partner. Just someone like, if you found someone that listened to this podcast, that's somewhat of a connection. And then you sort of build on that. You want someone with some common ground. Yeah. It's not, look, if you want to connect romantically over, you know, super fly or fly on the wall, yeah.

It just makes us happy. You don't want to be watching The Godfather and the person next to you goes, this movie sucks. So dumb. Yeah. You want to connect on all issues and harmonize in life. Similar sensibility, similar sense of humor, and similar sense of sense. I don't like when they watch The Godfather and they're like, everyone in this movie is so old. I'm like, they're 40.

Watch 2001 Space Odyssey. Too much of this movie is in outer space. I don't like it. When do they land? When do they land? Why is that stupid red light acting so silly? Who's friends with a robot? We know dating isn't easy. That's why we partnered with eHarmony because dating is different on eHarmony. They want you to find someone who gets you, someone you can be comfortable with.

Yeah. I mean, the whole idea is you're going to take a compatibility quiz, helps your personality come out in your profile, which makes all the profiles on eHarmony way more interesting and fun to read. So I think this is the goal of dating sites, and I think eHarmony does it great. It's just finding somebody you're compatible with.

So get started today with a compatibility quiz so you can find some and you can be yourself with.

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We had Mr. Clockworthy, I think, in the 80s. And in church chat, I initially had penis in there a lot, and he wanted some of those cut out. And so I substitute for penis. I put in more your throbbing, baldness area. It was way more pornographic, but that's good. No penis. Yeah, and I think that for us, you know—

Because it's live and because we were on the honor system at the beginning, we're still on it. You know, I was at the Emmys the other night. A bunch of people, you know, said fuck and you go, yeah, you're going to get a laugh, you know, but it's not going to age well.

But it is that move, the temptation to do it. And for us, we would lose affiliates. I don't think you lose anything anymore. But there's something about – and when we were doing Wayne's World, I'd been – in 1990, I was in –

Anyway, I was on something that – a trip. A yacht. Yeah. And I was with people that I wasn't normally with. And they talked about watching the show with their kids. Now, you know, in the 70s, it was not supposed to trust anyone over 30. Right. And it was like we were doing it for the people we knew and we didn't think the rest of the country cared. And they really didn't until Mr. Bill showed up. But –

And they were talking about sitting there with their teenage daughter and how –

it was to both be laughing at the same things as a family. Anyway, I didn't have kids, so it was kind of, I thought, oh, that's good. And that was Schwing and Finkers says what? No, we were doing that. Oh, the Madonna. The Madonna thing. Oh, yeah. With the Evian bottle. Right. What was the movie, Truth or Dare? Yeah, yeah, Truth or Dare. I was in a unitard. She goes, look at the thing on that guy or whatever. Yeah, I was...

And they were doing the Evian bottle like that. And she wanted to do it. And I'm going, ooh, if I had a 16-year-old daughter, that'd be like really cringe tough. Tough, yeah. And we do lots of things that are shocking, but I think you can't just be shocking.

I think it's great to have guardrails. And so you can be a little naughty, but you can't just full-blown. I mean, the penis sketch where we were all in a nudist colony. Fantastic piece. Fantastic piece really holds up. Didn't it take a year or two to get it on? We lost Toyota. We lost two, three big sponsors because people would boycott a dealership. Because of that sketch. Yeah. And because people would say, you know,

Whoever has the dealership in Mississippi is calling central headquarters going, there's people outside here protesting. And why are you sponsoring that show? Guys at Anuta's Colony. We had a slat so you'd see our legs. I think Hanks was on it. I think it was Smigel, right? Yes. And it was just, nice penis. How you doing? How's your penis? And we said penis like intentionally like 300 times or something.

You missed that one. No, I remember. Yeah, and the repetition of it was where the laughs were. I don't think it got great laughs.

Right. No. No. I don't think so. But there are certain writers who never don't hear laughs. So – You never don't hear laughs. Yeah, I know. They go, kill. Actually, but like old ones like Cheeseburger, Cheeseburger, Pepsi, Pepsi. Those I don't think kill the first time around. I don't think Conehead's kills the first time around. And you train the audience. This is good. And then later they go, oh, those are the best. And you go, it didn't even work. Very often the first one's not a hit. Yeah. But – Yeah. Yeah.

We did the very first show. We're still trying to find out what areas of the studio had sound and we were on there. There was a piece that Rosie wrote called Bee Hospital. And...

It was a maternity hospital for bees. And the bee, the Friday lead did the costumes and they were great, the bee costumes. And every now and then, they're just men pacing. And then every now and then, the nurse would come out and say, it's a worker. Oh, it's a worker. You know what I'm saying?

And it was just that. It's a worker. Oh, yeah, it's a worker. And then it was, it's a drone. Oh, it's a drone. Anyway, it played to silence because you couldn't hear it. It was in the far corner. It was terrible. So the only note we got from the network was the bees thing didn't work, so don't do that anymore. So the second show, the bees came on and tried. And then Paul Simon was hosting. He said, no, no, the bees is cut because it didn't work.

The third show they snuck on in a sketch with Rob Reiner and Penny Marshall. And then there was a long, more and more they're taking, people in the back are bees. Yeah, yeah. That was like a big thing. And then Rob went into a long speech about how the bees didn't work, how funny. And then Belushi did that, a variation on that speech from Billy Jack.

of like, you know, you have Hollywood writers, you have this, you come here. Great. You know, and they kind of walked off to One Tin Soldier, you know, like. One Tin Soldier. And so that was then the bees were there. That's what we loved about that show. Yeah. It was anarchy and it was so different. Yeah. And also, don't tell us what's funny. All right, guys, that was part one with Lorne and we're going to do the whole part two next week.

This has been a podcast presentation of Cadence 13. Please listen, then rate, review, and follow all episodes. Available now for free wherever you get your podcasts. No joke, folks. Fly on the Wall has been a presentation of Cadence 13, executive produced by Dana Carvey and David Spade, Chris Corcoran of Cadence 13, and Charlie Finan of Brillstein Entertainment. The show's lead producer is Greg Holtzman with production and engineering support from Serena Regan and Chris Basil of Cadence 13.