Saturday Night Live 25th anniversary : Lorne Michaels, Molly Shannon interviews

7/28/2019 Saturday Night Live 25th anniversary : Lorne Michaels, Molly Shannon interviews

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Words ToLive By,1,,in URING ITS quarter-century,;;1:1r.,ii "Saturday Night Live" has,r::i iri: spawned many catchphrases that,,:i "l have become part of the language.Here are 13 of them:But nooooooo! "Weekend Update"guest commentator John Belushi,apoplectically bemoaning unreasonable-ness in life's little things.

Gould it beeeee SATAII???lsn't that special? The Church Lady(Dana Carvey) with, respectively, there-ason for all the world's problems, andher all-purposesarcastic response.I'm Gumby, dam-nit! Eddie Murphyas the enraged andbitter ex-star.It just goes toshow, it's alll-wayssomethin'. Guestcommentator Rose-anne Roseannadan-na's (Gilda Radner)regular summua-tion of whateverconvoluted topicshe's been talkingabout.Jane, you ignorantslut. James Kil-patrick-like politi-cal analyst Dan Aval analyst Dan Aykroyd to ShanaAlexander-like Jane Curtin in a"Point / Counterpoint" parody.l{ever mind. Little old lady guestcommentator Emily Litella (Radner),smiling sweetly, after having been toldoncc again shc's becn r:rnting over arnishcard phrasc a la "presidential

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It's no longer the boomers' baby,but after a quarter-century, this Saturday nightstalwart is still making people laugh


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Greek counterman John Belushi in theOlympia Dinersketches.llot! Wayneand Garth (MikeMyers, Carvey),reversing a com-pliment.We want topump - you up!German physicalfrtness buffs

Hans and Franz(Carvey, KevinNealon) urgingtheir "girly man"viewers to getmuscular.We're two wildand car-aaazyguys! Aykroydand Steve Mar-tin as cluelessEastern Europe-an brothers onthe make for"big-breastedAmurrr-icanchicks."Yeah! That's theticket! Compul-sive liar TommyFlanagan (JonLovitz), comingup with another sleazy solution.

You look maaaahvelous. Unctuoustalk-show host Fernando (Billy Crys-tal) to his guests.- Lovece

,r:;.:r' T'S THE SILVER-ANNIVERSARY season'". of "saturday Night Live," a show that's out-r;,1,,t- lived five cast members, one founding fatHeri.il-,lri-i and its own original skin. The "25th Anni-l$$ versarJr' Primetime Special," which airs livei.+ii1--,.5 Sunday, Sept. 26 (WNBC, 9 to 11:30 p.m.),,:.ii:\-':r:.. is less about celebrating a series than an, ,:':,..: idea.,,.',ii']'' ,, Sure, the guest-host monologrre, the com-o..i, mercial parody, Weekend Update, the de-i-.-rr- pendable "Live! From New York! It's'' '''". 'Saturday Night'!" - all those things havebeen in place since the show debuted Oct. 11, 1975.But that's just form, not content. The style and con-cerns of its humor, the tlpes of topics broached, theattitude - those are what really make up a show.And all those things have changed so much that in avery real way there's no single series called"Saturday Night Live," but rather, a string of differ-ent, similar series of the same name.That's probably how "Saturday Night Live" hassurvived these 25 years.Is the show still relevant? You hear such direthings. Yet in recent seasons, cast members andformer unknowns Adam Sandler and Chris Rockhave rocketed to join such alumni as Dan Aykroyd,Chevy Chase, Bill Murray, Gilda Radner, Eddie Mur-phy, Mike Myers, Dana Carvey, Dennis Miller,David Spade, Jon Lovitz, John Belushi, Chris Farleyand Phil Hartman as stars. The show still attractstop-name hosts and musical acts, and it regularlywins its time slot. It's still appointment TV for manytwentysomethings. And it still inspires people towant to get into comedy."I had grown up babysitting a lot in Cleveland," re-rnembers Molly Shannon, who brings her Catholicschoolgirl character Mary Katherine Gallagher tomovies in October with "Superstar," "and I alwayswatched'Saturday Night Live' after I put kids to'

bed. To me, this was the only job I ever wanted. Iread all the books aboutit, and tr couldn't belieue it

when I got this job!" 'And yet isn't the show supposed to stink now?Even the cast itself, most vocally Al Franken, said ithit bottom in the 1994-95 season. Many critics nolonger consider it groundbreaking.But it doesn't have to be. Once you've brokenground, it's not a bad thing to put up a buildingthere. And "SNL" has constructed something solidthese last couple ofseasons. The current incarnationstarring Shannon, Will Ferrell, Ana Gasteyer, TracyMorgan, Cheri Oteri, talented Weekend Update an-chor Colin Quinn and others "might not appeal tothe baby boomers who embraced the show so fervent-ly when it.began," concedes Jeff Weingrad, himself aboomer who with Doug Hill wrote the backstage his-tory "Saturday Night" (Birch Tree Books / WilliamMorrow, 1986). "But for a younger generation espe-cially, it offers up a lot of good comedy."Sure, those of us weaned on what you could callSNL Classic - the original five-year run variouslystarring Aykroyd, Chase, Jane Curtin, Garrett Mor-ris, Laraine Newman, Murray and the late Belushiand Radner - might not frnd the late '90s NormMacdonald / Adam Sandler / Roxbury Guys era gold,but that's more a matter of taste than talent. Lookaround: Youth comedy has changed for the "Beavis& Butt-head." It's gone "South Park." Or to put it an-other way, there's something about the FarrellyBrothers."I think if we were still doing the same show wedid in 1975-80, it would be stale," suggests LorneMichaels, the show's creator and the executive pro-ducer for 20 of its 25 years, including now. "Differentgenerations have come into the show and reinterpret-ed it and made it their own, dealing with thingsfunny to them. That's what's kept it alive." The audi-ence, he avows, "has stayed the sarqe, [primarily peo-plel under 30 or 35." If the current "SNL" crew'shumor is more lowbrow and less intellectual than inthe old days, that's the point.'ilt's a generational shift," says Michaels. "Thby're


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STItt INTE FROM NEWYORK"a semi-supreme being" because"everything he ever made died" wasafat cry from Bill Cosby and his hi-larious but safe "God and Noah" rou-tine. Without the early "SNL" yearsas a cultural beachhead, therecould have been no Dana CarveyChurch Lady sketches, or Alec Bald-win as The Handsome Priest (whohilariously made Victoria Jacksonshudder while simply talking aboutOreos: "And then I lick out thecreamy center").Those first five years were a mar-vel. though not the Nirvana somemake them out to be. "I was therefor the golden years," saysMichaels, "and trust me," he adds,"they weren't always that golden."

Ho," "Mister Robinson'sNeighborhood" - ss well as withcolorblind comedy like his sketchesas embittered showbiz legendGumby.A gradual rebuilding processbrought'stability, and continuityended a few years of revolving-doorcasts, which helped viewers finallyget to know "SNL's" performers.Nora Dunn, Kevin Nealon, JuliaSweeney, Rob Schneider and NormMacdonald became familiar namesthrough these years (and some per-formers who didn't, like Ben Stillerand Jay Mohr, springboarded to suc-cess elsewhere)."I feel the show's an institution,"says Shannon. "Completely. in


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Ten Sketch Movies'ANY OF the mostmemorable characterson "Saturday NightLive" have moved fromTV to the big screen. But onlya few of these crossover filmshave found true critical orbox-office success:

THE HITSfhe Blues Brotherc (1980): DanAykroyd (also co-writer) and 'John Belushi; "SNL" writerRosie Schuster plays a cocktailwaitressGilda

Aykroyd, Jane Curtin, BillMurray, Laraine Newman andGilda Radner as themselves.Goneheads (1993): Dan Ayk-royd (also co-writer) and JaneCurtin; with an "SNL" inva-sion force of Chris Farley (Ron-nie), Phil Hartman (Marlax),Jan Hooks (Gladys Johnson),Jon Lovitz (Dentist; uncredit-ed), Tim Meadows (AthleticCone), Michael McKean (Gor-man Seedling), Garrett Morris(Captain Orecruiser), KevinNealon (Senator), LaraineNewman (Laarta), Adam San-dler (Carmine), David Spade

Sweeney


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WhateverHappened To. . .[arainellewman(1975-80)

-oles camefew and farbetween,with veryoccasionalguest-star TVroles, cameosin big films(1994's "TheFlintstones,"

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Tim Kazurinsky (1980-84) - Now a Chica-go-based comedy writer, Kazurinsky was a"Police Academy" movie regular, appearingin "PA2" to "PA4" (1985-87). With partnerDenise DeClue, he co-adapted the DavidMamet play "Sexual Perversity in Chicago"as the frlm "About Last Night . . . " (1986),the Molly Ringwald film "For Keeps" (1988),and the Sinbad comedy-Western cable movie"The Cherokee Ilid" (1996). His latest screenappearance was in the parody film "PlumpFiction" (1997) as Priscilla, Queen of theDesserts. He's scheduled to appear in thecomedy "Goodbye Sunrise" with SeanYoung, William Devane and M. EmmetWalsh.

Saturday Night Live 25th anniversary : Lorne Michaels, Molly Shannon interviews

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