Live From New York Part 27

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.

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.