"Saturday Night," Still Alive
Live
From New York: An Uncensored History of "Saturday
Night Live"
It's amazing that Saturday Night Live is still around. The original incarnation was not just a hit, but took on the air of myth: Belushi, Radner, Aykroyd, Murray, etc., working with some of the edgiest writers in the business, created "the television generation's own television show — its first," as Tom Shales and James Andrew Miller put it in their book, Live From New York. But what's really amazing about the show's persistence is not the past it tries to live up to but the past it has managed to live down. Remember Charles Rocket? If not, lucky you.
Telling the show's story is complicated by the array of talent that's passed through, stars such as Eddie Murphy, Adam Sandler, Mike Myers, Julia Louis-Dreyfus; writers such as Conan O'Brien, Mike O'Donoghue and Larry David; multitalents such as Harry Shearer, Albert Brooks and Al Franken, and dozens of others. Shales, who is the television critic for The Washington Post, and Miller, a writer who has worked in both television and print, have done an extraordinary job rounding up interview subjects from pretty much every phase of SNL's life. (Eddie Murphy is among the few who wouldn't talk, and, sadly, there's no sign of Rocket here, either.) These are smart and funny and often wildly egotistical people, with views about the show as varied as their experiences with it. So Shales and Miller made the wise decision to make their work an oral history.
Executive producer Lorne Michaels, whose name is now practically synonymous with the show but who is apparently not big on granting time to reporters, cooperated. A passel of guest hosts also talked, and so did various NBC executives. The interview excerpts have been arranged to form a rough chronology, with occasional expository interruptions from the authors.
The show made its debut in 1975, in a different America and a very different television environment. To the extent that it was counterculture, it was running counter to the culture of television itself, using an almost anachronistic format (the live variety show) as a forum for a brand of humor that was partly funny simply because the players seemed to be getting away with something. The first show was hosted by George Carlin and included a short Albert Brooks film and Andy Kaufman's now-famous bit in which he lip-synced to part of the Mighty Mouse theme song. Steve Martin remembers seeing it when he was living in Aspen and "didn't know anyone," let alone Michaels. "I thought, 'They've done it!' They did the zeitgeist, they did what was out there, what we all had in our heads, this new kind of comedy."
The story from there is, inevitably, one of alternating triumph and heartbreak. This is one reason the oral-history format works -- one writer's triumph might be another cast member's heartbreak, and we get to hear both. Besides, most of these people are articulately funny by trade, from Buck Henry recounting the time John Belushi opened a wound on his forehead, live, during a samurai bit, to Will Ferrell remembering his ill-fated plan to bring a briefcase full of fake money to his audition.
There are plenty of grievances, gossip and strange subplots. One producer unleashes a startling jeremiad against Ben Stiller for pulling out of a post-Sept. 11 show. And Chevy Chase emerges as maybe the most intriguing character: The first SNL-made star is named by several cast members as the most difficult host. On one return gig, he and Bill Murray nearly came to blows, with the latter leveling the ultimate showbiz taunt: "Medium talent!"
That encounter, actually, gets at what the book is really about, which is just how seriously these people take their comedy. Even when the show has seemed from the outside like a dud, inside it was a frenzy of ideas, rewrites and arguments. It put many talents on the map, and squandered others (including Larry David, who hardly ever got a sketch on but later helped create Seinfeld). Most interviewees agree it was incredibly hard and often combustible, yet it's striking how many say they have never again been in a room with so many (seriously) funny people.
Occasionally, material gets unwieldy or confusing, and there are times when a little more context from the authors might have helped. (Ratings are referred to constantly, but we don't get a sense of the actual numbers until near the end, for instance.) But these are minor stumbling blocks in a book that moves briskly and consistently entertains; it's tremendous fun for anyone who's been a fan of any of SNL's guises.
The very triumph of this unlikely thing getting on the air largely guaranteed the heartbreak of its inevitable evolution. Even during the legendary first five years, Saturday Night Live drifted toward a formula, and when the original players left (along with Michaels) it seemed likely to fail. Dick Ebersol took over as executive producer after the grim 1980-81 season and gradually revived it before Michaels returned in mid '85. According to one veteran of the show, Ebersol more or less created the template that's used now, with its heavier emphasis on milking recurring characters and favoring hosts with hot movies to promote.
In the last couple of years, the show's profile has soared again: News broadcasts have started borrowing clips from topical skits, and Al Gore famously studied the show's critique of the 2000 presidential debates. This would have been unthinkable in 1975, of course, so you could argue that the show is thus more relevant than it's ever been — but to whom and compared to what? These days, there's nothing particularly radical about the show in relation to what else is available on the endless sea of cable channels. And the current cast is more cute than edgy.
But maybe it's fruitless to complain that the Saturday Night Live we know today has so little in common with the original that they are, in effect, different shows. This may say less about the show than its current context. Even as other boomer-identified cultural brands (from Rolling Stone magazine to Levi's) have struggled, SNL has managed to replenish its audience and find new ways to connect. As Martin suggested, Saturday Night Live started out by articulating the spirit of a certain time — and times have changed.
This review appeared in the October 20, 2002, issue of Newsday.
