Part 27 (1/2)
Sometimes I would have to be in something. For a while I had to do Bob Dole, so I'd f.u.c.king have to put on some f.u.c.king mask and go do it, so that would get in the way. All I really cared about was ”Update.” But that f.u.c.king Bob Dole, man, I wrote a couple of sketches that I thought were funny for Bob Dole to do, and then all of a sudden he's the candidate and then I have to appear in people's f.u.c.king sketches every week on some lame premise.
One thing I started hearing toward the end was, ”You've got to fire Jim.” You know, it was almost as if, ”You fire Jim and everything will be cool and you can keep going with 'Update.'” I had no interest in anything but ”Update.”
ANDY BRECKMAN, Writer: I was in the studio the week after O.J. was acquitted and there was this tension in the country because the country was divided and it was this weird sort of thing. It was almost something that was hard to think about, especially in mixed company. You didn't know where people were coming from. And the cold opening that week on SNL - you might remember the sketch, I don't know who wrote it and it wasn't even, on paper, that funny of a sketch, and in read-through it didn't kill - but the sketch was this: Tim Meadows as O.J. is back at his old job calling the games at ABC's Monday Night Football. And the first joke of the sketch was O.J. on the field doing commentary about a play, and he's doing the thing that Madden does where he writes on the screen and he's joining the marks together - and eventually they spell out ”I Did It.”
And that was the first joke of the sketch. When he wrote that out, I was in 8H, and the place exploded like - I've never heard a reaction in my life like that, ever. It exploded, but it wasn't just laughter, it was almost a release - like, of course he did it, you know? And thank G.o.d somebody said it out loud. And there was applause and laughter. There is no place else that could have done that. Letterman and Leno danced around it, and they were very coy about it, but there was nothing, nothing that came close. And Downey, bless his heart, he was relentless, even after the acquittal, about O.J.
DON OHLMEYER:.
My only concern was what I thought was best for the show. I might be wrong or full of s.h.i.+t, but it wasn't like I had some political agenda. The O. J. Simpson thing was over by this time. I put everybody at NBC in a very awkward situation, you know. I was brought up that you don't desert somebody who's been a friend for twenty-seven years because he's at the worst point in his life. My decision to be supportive of O.J. as a person caused a tremendous amount of grief to people at NBC, to my family, to my kids. I did it because I wasn't going to desert somebody who had been my friend for twenty-seven years. But when the whole situation with O.J. started, I called Lorne, I called Jay Leno, and I called Conan. And I said, ”Look, this is awkward, but I'm telling you if you in any way lay off this situation out of some concern for what I might think - forget about my feelings, just what I might think - you're crazy. You have a job to do. It's the biggest story in the country right now. And you have to deal with it the way you think is best.” That was the difficult part of the Norm situation, because it resurrected all the O.J. stuff again. You know, life isn't fair, but that to me was like, what does this have to do with that?
ROBERT WRIGHT:.
Anything about O.J. had an incendiary effect on Don, but Don is a very easy guy to misread. He's so blunt, but you can't necessarily read into the bluntness that he's unfair. I know it sounds contradictory. He can say something that appears to be completely arbitrary, but his actions generally were almost never completely arbitrary.
It would be very easy and consistent to conclude that because Norm said some things about O.J. which were inflammatory to Don that that would be a great reason to get him off the show. But I never found a lot of evidence of that in anything else. He could get very angry about people who were anti-O.J., but doing anything about it from a business standpoint was never part of the agenda. We'll never know the answer to that one. He didn't think Norm was funny. And he probably didn't think the O.J. stuff was. It was like the world against G.o.d on O.J. The enemies list was a long list.
WARREN LITTLEFIELD:.
Don knew if he ever so much as looked cross-eyed at a television set with anybody from NBC around when Jay was doing an O.J. joke, there would be a problem. Don would stay far away from any comment ever about O.J. He never took it out on Jay, and n.o.body got more out of O. J. Simpson than Jay Leno did. Don separated himself from saying anything to Jay but, ”You're wonderful, you're great.”
NORM MACDONALD:.
I was in L.A. over Christmas. It was the Christmas that Chris Farley died. I think it was right after Christmas. And they told me that Chris had died and then like three hours later, they told me about ”Update,” but by that point who cared about ”Update”? Because Chris had just died.
Somebody told me Ohlmeyer had said, ”I want two things: I want Macdonald fired and I want a 'Best of Chris Farley' ready to go.” So then we went to the funeral in Wisconsin. That was really sad. They said, ”Ohlmeyer wants you out.” I still didn't think it would happen in the middle of the season. And no one would come right out and say it. The first week back from Christmas, no one would come right out and tell me what was going on. Lorne has a hard time telling you bad stuff. I had to do ”Update” that Sat.u.r.day, so I'm like, ”Am I doing it or not?” And they're like, ”Uh, we don't think you are.” So I said, ”Somebody's got to tell me I'm fired,” but n.o.body wanted to do it, so they said, ”You can phone Ohlmeyer.” So I had to phone Ohlmeyer myself. And Ohlmeyer was kind of surprised that I was calling him. He just thought it would be taken care of.
It was kind of weird, you know. I just said, ”Well, ha ha ha.” He was just kind of good cheer, you know. He said, ”Oh, change has got to be made, you understand.” And I go, ”Well, what's the problem?” And he goes, ”It's just not as funny as it should be,” and so then I'm like, ”You don't think I'm funny?” I said, ”People around here are saying it's all you, that they all want me and it's just you that doesn't want me.” And then he was kind of surprised. He goes, ”Is that what they're saying? They want me to be the bad guy.”
DON OHLMEYER:.
Lorne's point at the time was, just let it go for the rest of the season and we'll make a change in the summer. And he probably was right. Sometimes I get too wrapped up in something - something that needs to be fixed and it won't be fixed unless we address it. But the Norm thing had been an issue for me for over a year.
NORM MACDONALD:.
I was never bitter. I always understood that Ohlmeyer could fire me, because he was the guy that owned the cameras, so that didn't bother me. Ohlmeyer seemed honest to me about it, you know, straightforward. I was always happy that SNL gave me a chance. Other comics, when they were young, wanted to be on Johnny Carson. To me it was like that, you get to be on Sat.u.r.day Night Live, it's a dream come true, and then everything after that is not going to be as good. To me, just getting there was the thing.
WARREN LITTLEFIELD:.
Of course myself and others said to Don, ”Why are you doing this? What is the agenda? We finish out the year and make the change.” I think Don felt he had to send a message, and there are times where Don just felt he had to exert executive power because he could. That public firing was probably the greatest perception ever that it wasn't Lorne's call. That was probably the toughest thing Lorne ever had to endure. Really unfortunate.
NORM MACDONALD:.
So then I thought it would be funny to go on Letterman and talk about it, because I knew that Letterman had been fired from NBC and stuff like that. I got fired on a Monday, so I called up the people at Letterman and said, ”Hey, you should have me on, because I got fired. It would be funny if I just said on the show that I got fired, you know?” And so they booked me and I went on. I told Lorne that I'd already been booked on Letterman and could I still do it, and maybe I shouldn't do it, and he said, ”Go ahead, do it.” I didn't tell him that I had done it on purpose.
And I remember Letterman during a break goes, ”This is like some Andy Kaufman thing with fake wrestling, right?” And I go, ”No, no. It's serious.” Like he thought it was just a gag. Then the next day there was like some big reaction at SNL. All of a sudden people didn't want me to get fired, because they saw it as some sort of a big network president against the little guy. So then they pretended like they liked me the whole time. Lorne was trying to figure out what to do, because he didn't want it to look like he'd lost control of the show or the network was making decisions for him.
After that, I just tried to get off the show. Ohlmeyer wouldn't let me off; he just wanted me not to do ”Update” and do like sketches or whatever. I didn't want to do sketches. So everybody's kind of embarra.s.sed about the whole situation; they just want you gone. But Lorne had always told me, ”In the show, you have to have an exit strategy.” Which is a way to leave the show in exactly the right way to move on in show business. So I guess after I got fired, my idea was to have an exit strategy - to get out of there without just slinking away after getting fired. And that worked to some extent, in the sense that it gave me a little bit of publicity, which is sort of currency in show business.
TIM HERLIHY, Writer: I'm very good friends with Norm and very good friends with Colin Quinn, so it was tough making that ”Update” transition. It was like right around the time Chris Farley died, that first week that we were trying to put together ”Weekend Update” with Colin, wondering whether Norm was going to show up or whether it was all going to reverse. We kind of had to plow into it, and put together a whole new set and a whole new everything and try and get Colin ready.
”They're going to fire Norm, they're going to fire Norm” - and, you know, this had been going on for weeks and weeks. And all of a sudden they fired Norm. We just kind of couldn't believe it. There was a real sense of disbelief, and there was a sense that this was just the latest chess move in something that was going to go on for a long, long time.
COLIN QUINN, Cast Member: There was no inkling. Maybe some people knew and we just didn't realize it. But there was no inkling. And I think at that point I was well enough known in the show where I probably would have heard if there was some big rumor flying. I mean, sure, a couple of people knew. But there was no inkling. And Norm had been so good about letting me do pieces on ”Update.” Not only were me and Norm tight when shooting pool, I lived in the same building as Norm. So it's like, here he is, ten floors below, and I'm hearing this s.h.i.+t.
What happened was, they called me and told me about Norm just because we knew each other. So it's like, ”Oh my G.o.d!” But here's how I felt: I felt horrible that it wasn't going to be Norm, but - and I even said it to Lorne when I met Lorne after that - if it's not Norm, I'm not going to stand here and say I don't want it. Because I don't want some other guy from outside who I don't think is f.u.c.king funny to take the job just because I was being respectful of Norm. And I think Norm felt the same way.
Norm was such an ally of mine, getting all my ”Update” features on, that in a way, he had a lot to do with the fact that I would be the guy to take over for him. ”Huge wh.o.r.e” - he would say that a lot. And in that Canadian accent of his, it's perfect. Yeah, he's a funny f.u.c.king b.a.s.t.a.r.d. ”Huge wh.o.r.e.” You know, if there's one criticism of him, it is that he should have used that on more people.
In retrospect, I could imagine how people would be like, ”Quinn's not ready for 'Update.'” But part of being a comedian is the delusion that you should be onstage at all times. Comedians could watch like Robin Williams and Chris Rock go on and the whole audience go crazy, and the whole time I know what they're thinking - even the youngest new guys: ”I should come to work this crowd. I'm telling you, I could kill right now.” That's how comedians think. I see the young guys looking at me like, ”Move over. You had a nice run. Beat it!”
LORNE MICHAELS:.
Don's not stupid. Don's not even ”evil.” But Don is like the greatest high school football coach ever. He'll beat you to within an inch of your life, and he'll force you to do things - but he won't abandon you. I don't think Conan O'Brien would have stayed on the air if not for Don Ohlmeyer.
Colin Quinn's reign as ”Update” anchor was relatively short-lived. When the show returned for a new season in the fall of 2000, head writer Tina Fey and cast member Jimmy Fallon took over ”Update” and made it a showpiece again. It's no longer a parody of a newscast; now it's just a s.e.xy pair of smart alecks sitting around and making fun of the world. One critic, leveling presumably the ultimate compliment, said that when at their most ”ruthless,” Fey and Fallon ”summon up the finest spirit of Belus.h.i.+ - the anarchic, savage Belus.h.i.+, the one we all want to remember most fondly in our dreams.” Of course, Belus.h.i.+ was never an ”Update” anchor, though he did appear occasionally with one of his commentaries, pieces that started out on a calm and reasoned note and rapidly degenerated into hilarious tirades - ending with Belus.h.i.+ twirling himself off his chair and vanis.h.i.+ng behind the ”Update” desk.
RALPH NADER, Host: In general, on the weekly news ”Update” they bat about .275. More than one of four is really good. But there is some redeeming value to it. When the realistic freedom of dialogue and public discourse is restricted in any society, the quality of satire increases. That's why the best satire in the world in the latter half of the twentieth century was in the Soviet Union, like Krokodil magazine. Our satire couldn't come close to the satire in the Soviet bloc countries, because it was the only way they could get anything across.
We're moving into that arena now, only it isn't the government that's doing it. It's the censors.h.i.+p of the monetized moguls who run the communications industry and the television-radio industry. I think over time, there've been a lot of stupid and gross things on Sat.u.r.day Night Live, but it does get across some current events with its skits and its ”Weekend Update.” That is just a reflection of the decay of our culture. When the culture decays and the communications media decay, then something as weak as a .275 hitter on Sat.u.r.day Night Live s.h.i.+nes.
TINA FEY, Writer, Cast Member: I came here as a writer. I didn't expect to be on-camera, but I had been performing at Second City doing eight shows a week and I was auditioning for other stuff outside as an actor. I never booked commercials and I never got two lines on Early Edition - nothing. So I was kind of at a crossroads and thought, ”Well, maybe I should just be a writer.” I applied for this job as a writer and kind of left it open that if I got the job, that would sort of decide for me what I was going to do for the next stretch of time. After a year or two, I did start to miss performing, so I did a two-woman show with Rachel Dratch in Chicago one summer, and then we did it in New York all of last summer, and also I improvised all the time with the Upright Citizens Brigade down on Twenty-second Street. So we did our show, and I think Lorne came and saw the show last summer. Colin had said he was leaving early in the summer, and then Lorne came and saw the show, and it was Lorne's idea for me and Jimmy to test together to do ”Update.”
JIMMY FALLON, Cast Member: Originally I didn't even want to do ”Update.” Honestly, when they asked me if I wanted to do it, I had no idea about the news or anything. I don't read. I read USA Today; that's the only thing I read, because it's got colored pictures and stuff. Now I find out the news through setups we do for jokes.
I said ”Update” wasn't my bag and didn't want to do it at all. And then Lorne kind of talked me into it. And I said, ”The only way I'm going to do it is to do it with two people, because I don't want it to be The Jimmy Fallon Thing.” So we look at the auditions - because a lot of the cast auditioned to be ”Update” host - and Tina Fey's was awesome. It was great. They were going to hire some other dude, but she was just so cute and so awesome, it was unbelievable. And she had a point of view that I hadn't seen on ”Update.” So I thought it would be really cool if we both did it, and like immediately Lorne loved it. He knew it right there. He said, yes, definitely: ”Tina's going to be the smart, brainy girl, and you're going to be the kind of goofy guy that doesn't do his homework and asks her for answers and stuff.” You know, Lorne is brilliant with that stuff. So it was like, ”Okay, I like that.”
We did a test with just me, Tina, the cameramen, a director, and Lorne. And after one take, he would come out with, ”Okay, relax a little bit more.” And, ”I like Tina on this side and Jim on this side.” Lorne said, ”What we'll do is, we'll do it until Christmas, because it takes a long time to get into it, and if you hate it or it's not working, we can find something else.”
TINA FEY:.
All we had from Lorne was that he wanted it to seem that we liked each other, which we do, and that the whole thing was a good time. And underneath that, I know for me, I wanted to make sure I felt that the point of view of the jokes was in keeping with - you know, if I'm reading it - my own point of view of the story. And Lorne said to not worry about it as a parody of the news so much anymore. We use that when it helps us and not worry about it when it doesn't. Because there've been so many parodies and satires of TV newscasts over the years.
Jimmy and I looked at a few tapes when we were preparing our test. We did watch Chevy specifically, because Lorne talked about it. It was an interesting point. He said you have to go out there with a little detachment - ”These are the jokes they gave me” - which for me was particularly different, because a lot of times I was writing them. But it is true that to get away with it, you want that sort of playful detachment. Like, we're just out here trying to deal with this. We're not that invested in it.
JIMMY FALLON:.
After the first ”Update,” I was so stressed. When it was over with, I thanked Lorne. I was like, ”This is the coolest thing ever.” It's such a rush, man. Because I'm wearing a suit, for G.o.d's sake. I don't have any suits! I don't! I've got to wear suits now. So I wear suits and talk about the White House and all that stuff. It's cool. Then De Niro came on. It's just fun. It's absolutely fun. I'm peaking soon. It's got to peak, because otherwise I'll go insane, and then where are you?
The way I look at it is, it's mine and Tina's little six-minute thing. It's a theater show. If I want to talk to the audience, I'm going to. One time, the applause sign didn't go on. And it was just dead air. And I was like, ”Did they not press the applause b.u.t.ton? What's the deal?” Meanwhile, on the cue card it says, ”Thank you, everybody.” So I am not going to read the card and say, ”Thank you, everybody,” if no one clapped. Thanks for what? So instead I just said, ”Thanks, Tina - and no one else, apparently.”
TINA FEY:.
We knew that Jimmy was more than charming enough for the two of us. So we'd have that.
ALEC BALDWIN:.
I would say the show's less politically wicked than it used to be. Now they make fun of people, but they don't make fun of people and make a political statement at the same time. It doesn't seem that it's as biting satirically as it was before. They should be having a field day with those two huge oil wh.o.r.es that we have in there now, Cheney and Bush. G.o.d, you could be just cooking them and eating them every week.
I still think Tina Fey is hysterically funny, though; I think she has the perfect kind of meter and cadence for the news thing. And that's something where you do still have some of the edginess of the show. I used to not even watch the ”Weekend Update” segment before, because I thought it was just a lot of tired LaToya Jackson jokes. Now it has some real bite to it, and I think it's because of Tina and Jimmy. They're really funny.