Rob Riley, who had a brief but productive run in Saturday Night Live‘s writers’ room during Dick Ebersol’s star-studded final season has passed away.
The writer and performer died on August 8th due to complications from a stroke suffered in 2018, the Chicago Sun-Times reports. He was 80 years old.
Riley made his SNL debut in March 1984 performing alongside Jim Belushi in the short film Sugar or Plain? before joining the show’s writing staff later that year, where he worked alongside writers and performers like Billy Crystal, Larry David, Christopher Guest, and Martin Short. (He was hired several episodes into Season 10, and remained there for the rest of the year until a writers’ strike cut the season short.)
Best known for his musical sketches on the show, Riley penned “A Couple of White Guys,” which depicted Jim Belushi and host Alex Karras as a “dynamic new act”: two nerdy guys from Connecticut who rap about things like owning a Volvo, living in the suburbs, and commuting to their office jobs.
The sketch was mini-phenomenon, with “White Rap” even getting some radio airplay, prompting Belushi to reprise his role two weeks later alongside host Pamela Sue Martin as his wife. A third spin on the sketch came several weeks later with “A Couple of Red Guys,” featuring Belushi and Gary Kroeger as rapping Soviet Russians who defect mid-song.
Riley also wrote that season’s cold open “Gerry and the Mon-Dells,” featuring Mary Gross as a singing Geraldine Ferraro backed up by three men in Walter Mondale costumes.
A noted improv performer, Riley studied under Del Close and performed as part of Second City’s Mainstage with future SNL colleagues Belushi and Tim Kazurinsky, as well as the late George Wendt. He also lent his voice to the comedy classic Groundhog Day, as one of the radio DJs heard waking up Bill Murray’s character each day.
Riley remained an active part of the Chicago theater scene after his time on SNL, with stints in Colorado and Los Angeles.
Kazurinsky praised Riley to the Sun-Times, saying “He had a writer’s head, very sharp,” recalling a sketch the two had performed at Second City in which Riley “just destroyed [him].”
“He was just such a talent,” Riley’s wife Nonie Newton-Riley told the paper. “He could write. He was a musician. He skied. He rode a motorcycle. He swam with the endurance of a polar bear. We loved the fur off him like the Velveteen Rabbit.”
Rob Riley was my father and he is missed terribly, but we are so thankful for the many great memories he gave us over his 80 years. I saw firsthand the hard work he put in behind the scenes to research and develop his characters, and I loved helping him learn his lines by reading his cues. I always felt proud when his audiences delivered thunderous applause and well-deserved standing ovations at curtain calls. His spirit lives on in ways big and small, not least through his two adorable granddaughters, Isabella and Matilda. Thank you for publishing this fine article to highlight his accomplishments.