Part 27 (2/2)

DON OHLMEYER:.

”Weekend Update” is what gets you to midnight. You tune in and there'll be a couple of weak sketches, and there might be a sketch that works and then a couple that don't work, and that's the nature of the show. But you grew up knowing that ”Weekend Update” was coming. ”I'm going to stay tuned until 'Update.'” That's part of the brilliance of Lorne's construction of the show - that you have this thing at midnight that would hold people there for the first half hour even if some of the sketches in the first half hour weren't that strong.

In 1996 and again to an even greater degree in 2000, Sat.u.r.day Night Live returned to its richest vein of humor, American politics, and in the process the show rejuvenated itself for the umpty-umpth time. The cast was prodigious, the writing team witty and self-confident, the satire biting. Darrell Hammond, one of the most gifted impressionists in the show's mimicky history, mastered Bill Clinton, Jesse Jackson, and the hard-to-impersonate Al Gore (and on nights when announcer Don Pardo was unavailable, Hammond would fill in for him, unbeknownst to viewers, with another spot-on impersonation). Will Ferrell, the cast's most versatile utility player, made his version of George W. Bush easily as iconic as Chevy Chase's Gerald Ford of a quarter-century earlier. Ferrell's impression was accurate, hilarious, and inspired.

The faux Ford and the bogus Bush were blood brothers. Sat.u.r.day Night Live seemed to have come full circle, back to its roots. Those predicting the show's demise skulked back into the shadows - poised, of course, to return at any given moment. Ratings rose, the show surged again in popularity, and the real Al Gore and his aides studied SNL's parody of a presidential debate to help understand where Gore had gone wrong with his own debate performance.

AL GORE, Host: That is true actually. It's not that I set about to use it. It is true though that during the prep for the second debate, somebody brought in the tape - I didn't ask to see it or consciously use it as a tool - but somebody brought it in and said, ”You should watch this.” And I think it was a way of that person, I can't remember who it was, making a point that the first debate gave grist to the mill for lampooning the sighing and so forth, and that sort of critique that came after the first debate. I think it did have an effect, yes. And I thought it was very funny.

RUDOLPH GIULIANI, Host: Some of my political advisers said it was a bad idea for me to host Sat.u.r.day Night Live. Absolutely. Some of them thought either you could step over the line and do something really offensive to people - it's one thing for comedians to do that, but it's another thing for politicians to do it - or you could really make a fool out of yourself, where you could stand out there for an hour and a half and n.o.body would laugh at anything.

But of the experiences I had while I was mayor, that was one of the most enjoyable. It was just a great experience. I had been on the show once before that. I had opened the show with Governor Pataki, in which we got into this argument about is it like New York City or New York State? And so I was familiar with the show to that extent. But the idea of doing the whole thing - at first I didn't think I could do it, and Lorne convinced me I could, and I'm glad I did. The response was wonderful. It was absolutely wonderful.

When I hosted, I found that the excitement level of doing live television really adds a tremendous amount to the show. Oh sure, I was nervous. I'd never done that before. I did a lot of public speaking of all different kinds, and I had performed maybe three or four times with the Inner Circle up until then, but I never had to like carry all those different skits. But it was great, great fun.

It was much less difficult than I thought it would be because of Lorne and how professional they all are. They really take you through it and they sort of teach you how to do it. Lorne organizes the show like a lawyer organizes a great trial. He has a whole pattern and format for it. And it turns out that the show was done in the same office building in which I practiced law for four years. So I spent a week preparing it and I felt like I was back preparing for a big trial.

They wanted me to do a whole Mango thing that I thought really was - you know, we didn't want to do that. I thought, ”Oh my goodness, that would create quite a stir.” Wearing a dress almost accomplished the same thing. Then in the dress-rehearsal version, there were one or two skits that they cut out. They thought other ones were funnier. I remember there was one about the Statue of Liberty, where I played a park ranger giving a description of the Statue of Liberty and like getting out of control, like I was in love with the Statue of Liberty. And there was another one where I did a press conference and there was like a nephew of mine who was jumping all over me. But those were just cut as part of the normal process they go through.

Of the various skits that I did, the one I liked the best was probably the one where I played the taxi driver, and then maybe the one where I played the Italian grandmother was second. In the others I more or less played myself, but in those I got to create a character, and it was just a lot of fun to do that.

DARRELL HAMMOND, Cast Member: The first time I met Lorne I had just had a root ca.n.a.l. I was like dripping, I can remember I felt like blood was going to come pouring out of my mouth. I met him in that studio, no one else in there but a couple of camera people, he shook my hand and asked me to sit down and said to perform. He goes, ”You okay?” I said, ”Yeah.” He goes, ”All right, go ahead, whenever you're ready.” That's the first time I met him. I auditioned for him three more times and then I had a long dinner with him after that, and I guess it was shortly after that he hired me.

MARCI KLEIN, Coproducer: Darrell's a huge talent. When his audition tape got put in the machine, I wasn't really paying attention, and all of a sudden he was doing Phil Donahue and I was like, ”Holy s.h.i.+t!” I could not believe he sounded so much like the real thing. It almost scared me, because I thought, ”He's too good.”

WILL FERRELL, Cast Member: I was hired for the first nine shows and they were going to pick me up, and that was changed to the next six shows, and after that it was whether you were going to be picked up for the next year. And then after that it was year by year, and so you always feel like you're a little bit on shaky ground. When I got hired, I found an apartment and I was like, ”Well, I better take the subway a lot before the first show starts, because once that first show starts I won't be able to take the subway.” And I still ride the subway, so I don't know.

I think it's different; it's definitely a gradual thing in terms of auditioning and meeting Lorne for the first time. We were seen at the Groundlings, and then there was like the first round of auditions, and then there was a call-back round in which you met with Lorne the day before and then you auditioned again. And then in our case they flew back out and they saw us again at the Groundlings, and it was six weeks before we got hired.

After I made like the first cut, I knew that I was going to have to meet Lorne. I had read somewhere that Adam Sandler did a bit where he humped a chair like a dog when he met Lorne and was signed on the spot. Like, that was it for Adam Sandler. I thought, ”When I meet Lorne Michaels, I'm not going to be trite, I'm going to do something funny, I'm going to be really funny.”

So my idea was that I filled up a briefcase full of money that I bought at a toy store, and while he was talking to me, I would open the briefcase and start piling fake money on his desk and just say, ”You know what, Lorne, you can talk all you want, but I'm going to walk out of this room, I'm not going to know what happened to this money, you either take it or leave it.” That was going to be my big thing - and just walk out.

Well, as soon as I walked in with my briefcase I could tell that the atmosphere was not right for it. Lorne's first thing he said to me was, ”Okay, so you're funny, you were funny during the first audition. I hope you're funny tomorrow. Because consistency is what we're looking for.” I was just like, oh G.o.d. And here's Steve Higgins, who'd been hired the day before, just looking at me. I mean, what comedian walks in with a leather briefcase sitting in their lap? I'm just uncomfortable, knowing I have a briefcase full of fake money. Then it was all superseded by asking me what I was going to plan to audition with the following day.

The second audition was to be like five minutes of what you want to do on the first show. Okay, does that mean stuff that I had done on the first audition that seemed to work, or do you want new stuff? He essentially wanted to see all brand-new stuff, so meanwhile I'm thinking, ”Oh my G.o.d.” So I walked out and they kind of took me through the paces - no, I wouldn't do that, they conveyed to me that they'd seen me do this one thing in the audition and wanted to see if I could cover this other area, and Steve is just looking at me and it's like, ”Steve, do you have anything you want to ask Will?” And Steve's like, ”Nice briefcase.”

So then I walked out, never having opened it, and did the second audition. Then a couple of weeks later Lorne came out to see the Groundlings, and in the following week I had to meet him at the Paramount lot, not knowing that this was ”the” meeting. Marci called and said, ”Lorne wants to meet with you again, don't worry, it's nothing bad.” But I didn't put it together that he was going to be hiring me. I just thought, ”Oh, he wants to get to know me.”

So here I am at the Paramount lot. I was like, ”d.a.m.n, I got a second chance, I'm going to bring my briefcase, I'm going to do the money bit here if I'm ever going to do it.” And then, ”Lorne's ready to see you - oh, you can just set your briefcase down, don't worry about it.” We talked for twenty minutes and he told me I was hired. And then I walked out and I just quickly explained to the people outside, ”Can you guys just give him some of this fake money? It was this idea I had a long time ago and I never got to do it. That's why I always had this briefcase with me.” And then I guess he laughed really hard when he heard the whole thing. I still have the briefcase, yeah.

STEVE HIGGINS:.

Around here you brave the storm. That's the only way I can think of it. You just brave it. When it's a sunny day you can frolic on deck, and when it's stormy you cling to the mast. An interesting election year is good for us. This last one with Downey and the cold openings on the debates, that's what really swung everything. People loved the show again. When it's the political stuff, the best is when somebody who's a Democrat goes, ”Oh, you really gave it to Bush,” and somebody who's a Republican will go, ”Oh, you really laid into Gore.” That's the reaction we should be getting.

RALPH NADER:.

The whole thing in 2000 was bizarre. Here you have this serious presidential campaign, and all of us had to go on these comedy shows like Sat.u.r.day Night Live, because that was the only way we could have more than a sound bite and reach a large audience. This is the land of the free, the home of the brave, 285 million people with endless numbers of channels, and they're all closed off.

JAMES DOWNEY:.

Someone did a survey of college students on where they got their political views and information, and television comedy was number one, ahead of newspapers or discussions on campus or even TV news. I don't think it's a crazy thing to say that SNL was one of the things that influenced voters in the 2000 election. Certainly after the first debate followed up by the first debate sketch, there was an awful lot of talk. I know that because I was taping the talk-show commentaries. I happened to be watching the Brit Hume show on Fox after the first debate sketch, and something made me think, ”Hey, they're going to show a clip from the debate sketch,” and that was I think the very first use of it. I kept hearing reports from people that they did it on CNN or there was something on the Today show, that sort of thing, and then it became a standard thing that I would keep tabs on. Nowadays they practically have a regular slot. There's a fair-use doctrine or something, they don't have to pay any kind of licensing fee to run a short clip if they're a news program, because they can argue this is a form of news. So, especially on Mondays, they will have a clip of something we did on the show on Sat.u.r.day.

I thought our first Bush-Gore debate piece was perfectly evenhanded. I think maybe some people were used to a more traditional approach where we're only rough on Republicans - at least really rough. The old style of the show was that the way you'd hit Democrats would be to say guys like Carter and Dukakis were just too brainy and intellectual and didn't understand that ordinary people weren't following them, or that they were too detail-oriented and needed to slow down. I guess that's a criticism, but it's nothing like portraying the other side as cretins or criminals.

Over the years I think there have been some heavy-handed elements to the political stuff we've done. I think we've done a lot of good stuff too. To me it's most fun when the tone is silly and there's no anger and our stance is wisea.s.s, uninvolved detachment. I think that works better for everybody. We don't like to think we're getting laughs by just saying, ”George W. Bush is an idiot.” There has to be more to it than that.

RUDOLPH GIULIANI:.

I actually think Sat.u.r.day Night Live's political humor is among its best. When you think of the imitations of President Ford, plus they had two different great imitations of President Clinton - yeah, I think their political humor has been absolutely terrific. Do I think it has an actual effect on people politically? Gee, I don't know. It doesn't for me because I take it as humor. So when they've made fun of me or made fun of basically my heroes or the Republicans that I like, I know they've made equal fun of Democrats, so it doesn't offend me. I think some people kind of watch it selectively. I don't think it has a big political effect in that sense.

They made equal fun of Gore and Bush, so I think politically it ends up a wash. They never did anything about me that I objected to. They did a great skit of my first inaugural, where my son disrupted the ceremony. I always saw it as humor.

Since the night I hosted the show, I've probably dropped by it half a dozen times. Four to six times. I enjoy watching it. I enjoy watching it live as well as watching it on television. I've enjoyed it from the very beginning. I remember Chevy Chase playing President Ford. Now, I worked for President Ford, and loved him, and I still thought the humor was great. It was just great.

DARRELL HAMMOND:.

I got to meet Clinton in the White House, and it was like seeing the largest, strongest, smartest dog in a compound. He was so sure of himself and he so loved being the president, and he seduced everybody in that room. I mean, this guy would walk down the rope line and remember the s.h.i.+t about your sister or your brother that's most crucial to you. That instinct for creating a moment is just gigantic. I've studied Bill Clinton for years, and I haven't once ever caught him posturing or being phony. He just can't. And yet when you see a guy who's that gifted, you think, ”Well, he's got to be staging this.”

I guess I went about three months before I ever got a handle on him. He was the hardest thing I've ever done, and then my instinct told me: He's doing John Kennedy. He's doing John Kennedy! So I learned Clinton by practicing JFK's inaugural address in a southern accent. At one of those correspondents dinners in Was.h.i.+ngton, I opened with this joke about Clinton's charisma: ”He's the kind of guy that would say to a woman, and get away with it, 'If you would only take your clothes off and let me see you naked, there would be no more white racism, I swear to G.o.d.' And in that split second I looked out the corner of my eye, and it was almost as if I could see that machinery clicking and whirring, and he reached over to the African American woman sitting next to him and gives her a big kiss on the cheek. It was beautiful and the place went nuts and I thought, ”How does he do it?” Clinton said something at another correspondents dinner like, ”Poor Darrell, what is he going to do when I leave office?”

I spent about twenty minutes alone with Clinton once - him and the shooters; I guess there were a couple of gunmen there from the Secret Service. And man, he was nice as h.e.l.l to me. Just so complimentary, knew everything I had ever said. He asked me to do him, sure. And I did. One time I did a correspondents dinner where I played his clone. He faked a leg injury and I had to come up and finish the speech, oh yeah, and he was like, ”And how would you say this line? How would you say that line?”

With Gore, on the other hand, you could see the puppet and the puppeteer. You know, The Wizard of Oz - ”Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain”? That was Gore to me. He had no ability to mask what he was feeling or thinking. We could see him trying really hard, and in a way that's kind of endearing.

On SNL, we're looking for the jugular. If it comes up on the Republican side, we'll hit it. You can't educate an audience and get them to laugh at the same time; you have to find out what it is that they are feeling at that moment and hit it. They basically should be somewhat in agreement with you in their laughter.

ANDY BRECKMAN:.

Lorne defers to Downey to this degree: If Downey says, ”I have an idea for a political piece, I don't know what it is, I haven't written it yet, but I will write it,” Lorne will block out the six minutes and build the set without having seen or heard the premise. If a Downey sketch is coming in, that's our cold opening, build the set. We'll get the pages maybe the night before, if we're lucky.

DON OHLMEYER:.

Downey and Franken are great political satirists. And they always have been. Election years are always very strong years for the show. And they have an ability to get right to the heart of the matter. They don't necessarily stop at the superficial.

I think they've done a fabulous job with - it's a terrible thing to say, but I mean this whole situation with terrorism is such fertile ground for what SNL does. It's kind of like playing to their strength. It gives them characters that are in the forefront of the public mind to spoof.

JAMES DOWNEY:.

Nowadays, since I came back again after being fired as ”Update” guy, I sort of have a mandate to write topical political stuff, although I do other kinds of things too. I'm not always happy - not only with choices made about my own stuff but choices in general. I'd like to see more of the sort of pieces where it's about the premise or the conceit and not about a popular returning character. But at least these days I never have to be in the position of being the guy who's the reason someone else's piece didn't get on, or rewriting someone else, so that's nice. I get to just write.

DARRELL HAMMOND:.

I was glad to hear that Ted Koppel likes my impression of him, because I admire him and I don't want him to think I'm a schmuck, you know? I mean some of those guys you just admire. Plus, we didn't really take shots at Koppel. And you can't. How do you take a shot at an esteemed journalist who, by every indication, is a pretty good guy and trying to contribute, you know? You don't take shots at him, what you do is to take him and put him somewhere he would not normally be. In a bathtub, having a bubble bath. You know what I mean.

I actually performed for Koppel at a tribute for him at the Museum of Broadcasting. It's very strange. Because I went there in full Koppel drag. I had the hair and the nose and I had a bit prepared, and they told me that I was to wait until Sam Donaldson got up to give his appreciation of Ted and then I should walk in and interrupt him. And I thought, okay. And so Donaldson is up there, and I walk in and I'm like, ”Excuse me?” And when I look into Koppel's eyes, right, I got so scared. And I got so scared I could only say to him, this is what was embarra.s.sing, I could only say it in his voice, I said, ”Are you mad at me?” I couldn't help it. And he goes, ”No, I'm not mad at you, give me the microphone.” And then he takes the mike and he like grabs the wig I'm wearing and he goes, ”Roone, you cheap b.a.s.t.a.r.d, if you paid me a living wage I could afford a decent rug like this one.” And the place went nuts.

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