
Before being hired as a staff writer on Saturday Night Live in 1998, T. Sean Shannon had served stints at In Living Color, The Magic Hour, and Jay Leno’s Tonight Show, which you might think would give him some credibility walking through the door with the show’s other writers.
It did not. In fact, it was only after he’d written a well-received commercial parody that he began to distinguish himself from some of the staff’s preconceived notions about Leno and his writers. But distinguish himself he did, ultimately staying with the show for eight years.
In this week’s episode of Inside Late Night with Mark Malkoff, T. Sean Shannon discusses his early years at SNL, including his not so subtle protest to Chris Parnell‘s (first) firing that found its way to the table read where he says it was met with… silence.
Click the embed below to listen now, or find Inside Late Night on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
Show Transcript
Mark Malkoff: T. Sean Shannon, thanks for talking with us.
T. Sean Shannon: You’re welcome. Thank you for having me.
I love the fact that there’s a bear visible behind you.
There is a bear up there. I’m obsessed with bears, as you probably know already.
I absolutely do know if there was a bear suit during your tenure, when you were at the show from 1998 to 2006, it probably was you, but Bear City was so funny. Rick Ludwin, who I knew was a vice president of late night, and I would have these long lunches and we would talk about SNL and Carson and everything. And we talked about Bear City and we were just laughing so hard.
Yay. Well, you know, I was, uh, I used, I lived in L. A. when I worked at Saturday Night Live and I would fly back and forth on our weeks off. And dude, this is a million years ago before where they showed movies on a flight. And you had to buy your headphones or whatever. And I never, I never did that. And I remember watching, um, well, what I saw is that you didn’t need words at all. And I saw it was the Johnny Depp film where he was Hans Christian Anderson, right? And didn’t have the headphones, followed the entire movie. Wasn’t an action movie followed the movie without even hearing one word of dialogue. Oh, he’s breaking up with that girl. Oh, this is the moment. And that’s where it came, Bear City, to where like, you know, I don’t think you need words, you know, music. And I think. Just general grunts, you know what’s going on. So that’s how it all kind of started.
Can you explain it for people that don’t know?
Okay. So Bear City is a city where it’s nothing but bears, but it’s all people in bear costumes and then they go through life and like. The one is the guy goes to the convenience store to buy cigarettes, and there’s a panda working there, and he’s a brown bear, and he’s trying to tell him what cigarettes to buy, and the panda doesn’t know what cigarettes, so it’s just the miscommunication. So it’s, that’s all it is, it’s just, there’s no dialogue, there’s a narrator, but doesn’t really tell you everything that’s going on, it’s just basically it’s silent movies or whatever.
I love the fact that Harper Steele was doing GoLords and you were doing Bear City because a lot of that stuff really wasn’t getting in. And I mean, Smigel, um, Robert had the cartoons go in and stuff. Whenever anything like that got on, it was, um, really exciting. Now at the Ashlee Simpson dress rehearsal, when she had that whole thing with the lip sync.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Did you have, cause you got two on the air that night because of the lip syncing. Did you have two that were at dress rehearsal? Were you only supposed to have one? And they added one?
Well, you know, I had, um, so I made 20 of them and I only think eight. aired maybe, maybe 10. And I made those on my own. That’s how those got made. The summer we had off. I don’t remember what summer it was. I just, I wanted to do this and I made them in LA and I paid for them and everything. And I brought them back and they liked them. And Tina Fey was super cool about saying she liked them, which doesn’t hurt. So they kinda, they were on and they didn’t know where to put them. And they were always there for back up. And so, yeah, no, they ended up airing. Cause they need it, uh, to fill time. Cause they cut away after she was caught lip syncing.
Yes, that episode, and Leslie Stahl happened to be there for 60 Minutes. It was, the timing was just, um, amazing. So, you know, you start doing stand up in 1983. You start writing comedy professionally in 91. And you always wanted to write for Saturday Night Live.
Yeah, definitely. That was the ultimate goal.
You get hired in 98. It’s the 24th season, but going back a few years, Fred Wolf helped at least get your packet in front of the writers and Adam McKay.
Fred Wolf is amazing.
He was on the podcast actually, um, just recently. Fred got you tickets to see the show during a time when it was, the show was having some trouble, and this was not a strong show, which, and it was not Paul Reiser’s fault, but it’s Paul Reiser, Annie Lennox.
Wow! How do you know I went to that show?
Oh, I do research. I try to do as much research as I can.
Wow!
So, this is the first time that you’re in 8H. You’re excited to be there. You’re like, “I want to write on the show.” But I have to say, I mean, those sketches, if you were, I I don’t know how it played at dress, you were, I’m guessing you were at the air show.
No! So I was at dress.
Oh, were you? How did it play? Because on air, everything died. Almost everything died.
You know, the most stunning thing I remember, uh, was what got cut and what got, what was still in. That was the most amazing thing to me. Cause I was like, hold on, how did that sketch make it? And then years later, looking back in, honestly, I can’t tell you what the sketches, I think it was one about Alien and I had an alien baby or it’s still…
That got in. It was an Alien Mad About You. It was like a hybrid. No, it got in.
Yeah. And it was, I thought it was not the funniest sketch. A couple of funny sketches got cut. And I, but when I watched that, I was like, aww, that didn’t work. I see what they were going for, but that didn’t really work. And I don’t know who wrote that. Now I’m trashing some poor guy’s…
Just the vibe from the cold open on there were that year was really, really tough. They were not letting the standbys in. Like they let 60 and usually for dressing live now, I mean, to guarantee that you’re going to get laughs from the real fans, it was heavily VIP back then. It was just the writers and the actors just were not really unified. And there were a couple really tough shows and that was absolutely one of them. But just when you’re there, was it one of those things? Like I still want to write for the show.
Oh yeah, definitely. I mean, there were bad shows every year, you know, every season, there’s a couple of bad shows and I don’t remember it being horrific. I remember that… all I remember from that… Fred remembered that he got me tickets to that show?
Yeah, Fred got you.
Yeah, no, but he remembered that that was the show he got me tickets?
I don’t know if Fred remembers, I’m gonna ask him. I’m actually, I’m talking to him this week.
Dude, he’s the best.
Oh, I agree.
He helped me so much, cause my first job writing was at Comics Only, and I worked with him. And he helped me so much. He used to, so I lived in Santa Monica at the time. And that’s where we wrote comics only. And then we taped it in Hollywood, but he lived in Hollywood and we would quit every day at six o’clock. And he was like, I’m just going to wait 45 minutes because the traffic is so bad. If I leave now, I’m going to get home the same time. I will, if I leave 45 minutes from now, so I stayed behind every night. And would just hang out and pick his brain. Cause he was such a good standup. I remember from standup when I moved out there, I went out there for the summer of 85 to do standup, but I remember seeing him and how like really made an impression of how funny he was on me. And so we became pals from that. And we became pals when I would sit there every night and just hang out with him while he was waiting for traffic to die down.
Comics only. Now that is Paul Provenza, who’s really, really funny guy. Wasn’t that one of the first shows or on comedy? It wasn’t even Comedy Central. Was it Ha?
It was comedy. It was hot and comedy channels combined. And that was one of the first shows once they combined because there was two. I don’t know. There were two comedy channels at the beginning and then they eventually formed into one. And that was one of the first shows. And it also had, dude, he had some really great writers. This guy, John Ross, great standup from San Francisco and Mike Armstrong. You know, Mike,
yeah, you know, I know who he is. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
Steven Wright. He won the Oscar with Steven, right? Uh, he’s an Emerson guy. Uh, dude, so funny. So mature. And I learned so much from working at one gig, but no, so, but I also visited SNL before that, when my buddy Warren Hutcherson was writing there.
He was there. He started, um, he was 91 and he was there through the 92-93 season. And he, um, I would love him on. He definitely, it was a really tough time. Cause you had Smigel. You had Jack Handey. You still had Franken and the Turners.
Dude. I met Handey that weekend. I went to see G. E. Smith. It was Paul McCartney,
Alec Baldwin.
That’s the episode. It was, uh, so I went during lunch break and hung out or I showed up around four, saw them do the Farley McCartney sketch, just blocking and then saw McCartney play. That’s not so bad. And then, uh, he took me to dinner and I met G. E. Smith there, who I love, and he had played with Dylan and I love Dylan. And I asked him about Dylan, but here’s funny. Here’s how comedians are. And he was smart to ask, Warren. I go, Hey, can I go talk to G.E. Smith? He goes, yeah. And then I started walking because wait, wait, come here. You’re going to be nice, right? That’s that’s how millions are such turds that it’s a valid question. I go, no, I love him. But I also met Jack Handey there. And I had, I had written, dude, I’m such a comedy nerd in 85 when I was out there for the summer. I wrote Jack Handey, he was selling Deep Thoughts in the back of like a college magazine, whatever colleges used to give away free magazines or whatever, Deep Thoughts. So I sent him a letter, I sent whatever the check was for the Deep Thoughts book, and he sent back a letter, typewritten, which… I love typewriters, and it was just, uh, you know, I didn’t get enough orders, but uh, thank you for your good taste in comedy. And dude, that meant the world to me. That was like, yeah. So I brought that letter and his book, Deep Thoughts that had since been published to when I went to see Warren and I gave him the book, I go, Hey, I was hoping to get this done. There’s here’s my, uh, name. You can see it on this envelope. And he was like, wow, this is. Wow. You kept this. I was like, Hell yeah, I kept it. What are you talking about? You’re Jack Handey. So, and dude, super cool. That was my first experience. Loved it. Wanted to, uh, write on SNL. Paul Reiser didn’t faze me at all. Yes, I still want it. That’s all I’ve yeah. No, I remember watching it with my older brothers. I’m a kid, but all my brother’s friends from high school come over and watch Chevy Chase like the first year. And I remember, you know, I’m in my PJs, I’m a little kid, but all his friends going nuts. All his, all these big football, he played football and they seemed like giants at the time, because what am I, eight, ten? Dude, it had such an impact. I’m watching these guys pounding a table. And I remember one joke about, it was the trans tennis player, Renee Richards, And she wrote a book, uh, playing tennis without balls. Dude. I’m 10, just the word balls. I’m laughing. I don’t understand what they’re talking about, but, ahhh, no balls.
Their original cast. So you’re, you’re watching that.
But not getting it because I’m 10. My brother, but knowing that this is something that, that there’s a crowd at my house, there weren’t crowds at my house on a Saturday night, and they’re watching the show, and it means everything to them, and my brother’s my hero.
It worked on so many levels, because you have Landshark and Coneheads the broad visual comedy that’s going to play the samurai, and then they would sneak in, or not sneak in, but I’m sure some of the, Especially with the drug humor and stuff is going to go over for the most part. Uh, somebody’s head that, that young, that’s not going to really get that. But my point is it worked on a lot of levels. So you’re one of these people I really admire because it, it took you a while to get hired at SNL. Did you have to do four packets? Was it over four seasons that you…
I think it was, uh. It was at least three, I know that. I don’t know if it was four. In Living Color was two. I got that on two.
No, I know, I mean, you got, you were on Living Color, you did, um, Magic Hour. You definitely were, um, and you did Leno, which, it’s so strange to me to think about that writing on one of the most famous, the number one late night show would put you in not the best opinion of your peers when you get hired at SNL, because you said in an interview that you get hired. And then when Adam McKay found out that you were a writer at Leno, he didn’t say this right away, but he was a little skeptical just because…
Yeah, no, he came up after the first commercial parody packets. He came up to me and went, Hey man, I gotta be honest with you. I wasn’t excited that you were coming from Leno, but boy, I really liked your commercial. And I think I had two. And he liked them both and kind of, but I still had other hurdles, but it wasn’t considered a good comedy show because it was, it wasn’t Letterman, which was the comedy gold standard, especially if you’re a comedy nerd and it was, um, they, they didn’t find their feet early, Leno. Who, I will say, favorite stand up up to that point on Letterman. There was no one funnier than Jay Leno.
Agreed. Those 40 appearances or whatever he did.
Oh my God. You can go back and watch him today. Solid. And then also off the cuff, possibly the funniest human I’ve ever met. Jay Leno. Oh my God. So funny. Dude, he was so, he’s so brilliant. So what are you doing hanging out with Rick Ludwig?
I did a podcast about Johnny Carson for eight years called the Carson Podcast. So I was in front of a lot of just NBC people, people that went on Carson as guest.
How about Bob Smith? Did you ever, he was a writer?
He would not talk to me. He is legendary. Um, and you know, you worked with, um, Greg Fields, who was a former Carson writer.
Dude, no, yeah, Fields was the best.
Yeah. I really wish I would have been able to talk to him before he passed away. I know that…
He was one of my mentors too. He, and he, I knew like Fred Wolf told me about him before I had met him, but dude, another. Oh, effortlessly funny, that guy.
Yeah, definitely both of their names have come up, but Bob Smith, people still, at the, um, that worked with him, I still hear people talk about how, uh, funny Smith was. So what was in your packet that you submit? Because they get hundreds of packets.
What, Estelle?
Yeah, yeah, McKay’s reading these and,
Uh, Okay, so, I don’t, I can tell you this, I’m finishing up when it’s the Home Run Derby. With Mark McGuire and Sammy Sosa. So I’m watching that in the background and I forget what the first two sketches are, but the third one is a topical political piece and I don’t know what was going on then and I wish I did, but I remember I had a couple, I remember having like three really solid bits in it. You know, I could track it down eventually, if I cared to, but, um
It is one of those things, you do have an in with Fred, God, in front of Adam, but you still have to deliver, and you absolutely
No, no, no, no, exactly, but I also had a guy, another thing that helped me was there was a guy at NBC, one of the executives, Gary…
Considine. He won’t talk to me. That’s okay. Very friendly, but declined politely.
He, uh, he didn’t really like me when I was at the Tonight Show.
Why?
Dude, I don’t know. I’m a force of nature. He, uh, also I like to be on air. My thing on there at The Tonight Show was they would just hire random actors, unknown actors, to do bits. And I’m like, Well, I’m funnier than a random unknown actor if I write something. So I would put myself in stuff. And so that was, he was like, ah, you just want to be on air, which was true, but was, I did want to be on air, and I’m like, Yeah, but you don’t have anybody doing it, like, if you had people doing it, If you had Chris Elliott, yes, no, I, I won’t be doing that. But, you don’t have Chris Elliott here, you have no one, you hire random actors. So, I think that was my reputation there a little.
But, when you brought in Fred Willard, cause it was all you, it was Gary, like, T. Sean, give me a hug?
Dude, I cannot tell you how No one in an executive level is ever excited to see Fred Willard. And I don’t know how that happens. I did a pilot for Comedy Central and it was a sketch show, a sketch pilot show. I have Fred Willard and I’m trying to get this other guy to be in it. This guy, Lou Wagner, brilliant actor. I’m, I’m in like Fred Willard’s sketch group in LA. And this other guy, Lou Wagner, genius actor, was in the original Planet of the Apes. So he’s another older guy at this point. I’m trying to get him in, to play the boss of one of my sketches, and the, the lady Running comedy at Comedy Central goes, uh, no, I go, why can’t I have him? They go, we gave you Fred Willard. That cost me a favor to use Fred Willard. What world in comedy is that happening? That’s… dude, it was the most insane thing I’d ever heard. And it’s always like you hear, Oh, executives are dumb or whatever. But when I heard that, I was like. You’re, you’re kidding me. You, you can’t be serious, but so back to Gary. So when I went to SNL, so Gary told, uh, Tim Herlihy too, that, uh, yeah, you don’t want to hire, I don’t like this guy. You, you won’t like this guy. He just wants to be on air. And Tim Herlihy told me, yeah, we didn’t respect Gary’s opinion about anything. So that kind of bumped you up another notch too, that Gary didn’t like you.
I want to point out at Leno.
The last thing I have to end on this, Gary did. After six months at SNL, he goes, dude, I was wrong about you. You’re really funny. So he was super cool. And I always, that was, I didn’t think anyone, the way he didn’t like me. I didn’t think he would ever admit it, but he was very open. He goes, you know what? You fooled me. You get, you are very funny. So that I will always love Gary for.
I like that, that he, yeah, that he, um, obviously noticed talent wins out.
No, no, it was super cool.
Fred Willard, you brought in to Leno and they kept using him and then you were your friends with him You didn’t know him and suddenly your vacation in Europe with him and you’re I’ve spent a little time with Fred Willard The sweetest guy, was such a nice man him and his wife
Yeah, Mary and me so they have a sketch group and when I leave the tonight show I joined the sketch group and that helped me at SNL, cause I would write a new sketch every week. And so when I would go back to SNL after a summer, I’ve got 25 sketches, you know, not that many, that’s way too many. How many do I have? I have 12, but it was, and they all didn’t go there, but it kept the arm warm all summer. And I learned, and also him reading sketches makes them 10 times funnier. But, and also the other thing he loved baseball, he was obsessed with baseball and comedy, which are the two things I’m obsessed with.
You’ve been to every Major League stadium. I do want to mention your work ethic. Cause you mentioned on the summers, you’re working on sketches and you’re the only writer I know of, perhaps they’re more in the Saturday Night Live that would actually go into the office on Sundays. To write.
Yeah.
Were you the only one?
Yeah, most times, most times I was the only guy there. Another guy who would be there was Hal Wilner, the music guy, who I love.
Oh yeah, who passed away a couple years ago. He was very well respected and um, yeah, people loved him over there, yeah.
Dude, so I loved, uh, so we would, I would hang out with Hal and Hal was one of the coolest, he was a guy, I, I saw, he was older than me, but he had that same thing about digging all the things before him. Like, William Burroughs, Salvador Dali, he had a letter from Salvador Dali, Lou Reed. So we would just talk about music, Hal Willner, he was the only guy up there. But I just loved it because it was, no one was there. And I love being alone.
Even Mondays.
How sad is that? I love being in a giant building alone.
It’s nice to have that also, I mean, it’s just, you can have totaled the building yourself. And then also, even Mondays, a lot of the writers are not writing, but you would come in early before the host pitch,
Dude. It’s always gonna have something to, something to have, you know? And even if it just turns out to be, you know, rubbish. Yeah, man, I’m gonna be a better writer if I write something, aren’t I?
So you go in for your, your meeting, you meet Adam McKay. It goes well. When do you meet Lorne Michaels?
I don’t meet him for like six months. I’ll tell you, I don’t know if John Goodman’s the host or he’s, so we have an early tape of… so it’s the Monica Lewinsky stuff. So they’re, they’re doing an interview on The Today Show. And I don’t know if it’s Linda Tripp. It must’ve been Linda Tripp doing an interview. On the today show. And then it’s going to air Friday. So Thursday night, they let us look, watch the interview. So it’s me and Steve Higgins and John Goodman’s going to play, uh, Linda Tripp.And so we watch it and I don’t know what episode I’m sure you’ll be able to track it down and tell me about Paul Reiser was in the crowd that night! But..
Pretty much, so that’s about right.
So we go to Lorne to tell him about what we saw. So it’s me and Higgins on phones. And then it’s Lorne. He goes, so he knows everything, dude. That guy’s so smart and funny too. And, uh, he goes, uh, this is my first time talking to T Sean and I go, uh, pretty cool, huh? He goes, let’s see how it goes. So that was the first time I ever talked to the guy and I don’t know how many shows in it was. But he had, you know, I mean, he knew who I was.
At what point did he tell you and the new writers that you will quote, never be happy here?
Oh, no, no, that’s the first day I’m there. So he goes in there and, uh, he’s given the first season of the speech. What are, you know, we’re here. And then, um. So he goes, uh, for all the new people here, just know you will never be truly happy here. If you like edgy stuff, you want everything to be edgy. If you like the political stuff, you want more political stuff. If you like characters, you think we should do more characters. We have many masters to serve, so you will never be truly happy here. It didn’t, I didn’t understand it for like two years later, but it was very, it was, it made a lot of sense.
It’s interesting. Cause I, there was an interview with you and you were talking about this. And I think, um, at the time this was absolutely true. More topical material was getting in than ever before. Is that and the over the top characters, you said that, um, you know, the Jack Handey would write a sketch about an alien or something like that, or you would, and Lorne’s like “why the alien?” He would rather go with the topical, whereas now things have changed a lot that, they still do topical, but back then it just seemed like topical stuff was getting on. Some of it wasn’t even worthy of getting on, but they would rather have topical stuff than having a Jack Handey weird sketch on it. Am I wrong on that? Would you say, or is that fair?
I don’t, I don’t think so. I think there’s a, but there’s a valid point for that too. I completely understand that idea. And maybe it gets away from you every once in a while that you, you’re more interested in topical than funny. There’s a zeitgeist. He used that word once and everyone, no one said anything except me. And I went, I don’t know what that means because it’s a German word meaning in the air. But I think that’s what it is. Like, I think you get more credit for being topical than you do for just being funny.
That’s what you said in an interview that you learned that you have to be topical. I will ask you this. I heard this from another writer a long time ago that when you were there, at least at some point, that for every premise sketch, there had to be written two character sketches with some ratio.
I don’t, I don’t know that. I never picked up on that, but. You had again, many masters to serve. Cheri doesn’t have anything this week. Can we write her an update? Ana doesn’t have anything this week. Tim Meadows doesn’t have, you know, I think sometimes you, yeah, you, uh, Rachel, what is Rachel? We don’t have Rachel in any sketches. She has this one character. She put, well, let’s do that then. So I don’t know if it’s, I don’t know what the rule of two to one, I don’t know that, but I do know that, yeah, you got to service the people that are there.
You do, and you have to write what’s going to get in, and it’s very different, it depends on the time of the show and what’s getting in the most. What stands out about Norm Macdonald coming in to host, um, in October of 1999, because he had been fired from the show. He shows up with Sam Simon, he shows up with Andy Breckman, Fred Wolf is sending in some sketches from Los Angeles, and Robert, uh, Smigel is contributing. What stands out about that week? Um, it is frowned upon a lot of times. It’s not their favorite when a host bring people in. Andy Breckman said it was clear that they didn’t feel welcome by some of the writers. What stands out? Do you think that that is a fair assessment? And what, what just stands out about that week? Cause it’s definitely this infamous monologue and just him being there after he was fired.
What stands out is Sunday, I was hanging out after the show and he came in to watch football on all channels because he had bets on every football game. That’s one thing.
After he hosted?
After he hosted, he came back Sunday.You know what? I don’t remember, cause dude, I’m, I’m like the old school. Any old guys come in, I’m happy. Sam Simon, I was excited to meet. Breckman. So I, I hope they don’t think I was rude to them, but no, yeah, it does get, you know, we’re the writers and that you have writers. Yeah, I mean, there’s a natural, you know, it’s going to rub the wrong way, especially that there’s more than one, that you bring in a crew. I’m sure that bothered people. I don’t, and people have scored coming in doing that. Yeah, no, I never, but I do think there’s a natural inclination. If someone’s coming in to do your job, not to like, I remember we went to, when I was at The Tonight Show, we went to Chicago to do a week of shows and the union guys in Chicago wouldn’t let our union guys from California do anything. And I remember. Those guys were kind of pissed off. They got a free trip to Chicago, but they were also, you can’t touch a stool. Don’t touch. So that, I mean, that’s just one completely different profession that those guys weren’t happy about being told we’ve got this. And I don’t think anybody ever, it wasn’t as blatant as the Chicago union guys were. But I do think there is that, you know, and especially egos, I think people are going to be, I don’t know, I think if you bring writers in, regardless if they score, if they’re good, if they can fit in. I think that’s beautiful, but comedians for the most part can’t fit in. They’re not very good at getting along with people.
I think you’re absolutely right about when you go in as one of those writers, you have to fit in. And, um, I know that you were buddies and I knew him as well. Tom Davis, when he would come in and he would always. Steve Higgins said that in the, the James Andrew Miller, Tom Shales book, he’d always say you guys are doing a great job. Whereas some of the guest writers would come in and you could just tell their attitude was a little bit like, it was better when I was a writer.
Yeah, no, you know what you guys are doing wrong. Yeah. This is a reason why people don’t like Saturday Night Live anymore. You would hear stuff like that every once in a while.
Really? They would, they would actually say that to the current writers?
They would be, yeah, no, it would be like not writers so much. But I remember like, uh, friends. Or hanger ons, or publicists. Oh, man, man.
Everyone has an opinion on that show, and it’s always, like, it was funnier. Five years. It’s like a cycle.
It was funnier when it was your era, whatever era you were.
It seems like a cycle. Getting back to Norm Macdonald, he did a controversial, he did a very controversial at the time monologue. Not controversial, I would say to the viewing public, but he, he said, I haven’t gotten any funnier. The show’s just gotten really, really bad. Lorne did not want him to do it. There were people that were booing him off to the side that were not the studio audience. Um, Norm said that they were writers. Do you have any insight on, on the booing and writers? Not, I’m not saying you that were upset that Norm, um, was trashing the show.
Yeah, I didn’t boo. I didn’t, I didn’t dig it though. I just like hearing, uh, the show, you know what, but after, you know, you have to also factor in that this guy’s probably not in the best, uh, opinion of this show that fired him, you know, when he was one of the funniest things on the show. So, I mean, I understand completely where he’s coming from. I didn’t like to hear that, you know, I mean, there was another one once, uh, where it was Horatio was a political character, cold open, and he was half Democrat, half Republican, and I think it ended, and it was a statement of how bad political things are and it ended with, and then now the cry of the mediocre, Live from New York. It’s and I remember hearing that going, yeah, that’s kind of sh*tty. I don’t want to hear that fella. I don’t know. You know, I didn’t dig that more than Norm doing it.
That’s interesting. I mean, it is, I mean, your name’s..
Do you remember that cold open?
What’s that?
You remember everything. Do you remember that cold open?
Oh, I remember some things. I don’t want to, um, there’s, there’s certain people like Arthur Meyer who wrote for Fallon, who knows every date, he knows the host, the music I’m good, but I’m not Arthur Meyer and there’s, there’s one other, um, gentleman named Ian, who’s really good. I am not in their league, but I’m good. I feel like I’m. I’m good at what I do and I have been made fun of by SNL writers and cast members for my overly.
No, I think it’s cool.
I have to ask you, I don’t know if you’ve ever talked about this publicly, but people have mentioned it, which is, is you were a hero to so many people on the 17th floor because when Chris Parnell was let go, he comes back. And you, this was, I would think this would be a really brave thing that you write this Benihana sketch, which is skewering Lorne Michaels and the producers for getting rid of him. And I would think politically, this would not be a great move to, um, really to do this. What happened? Like, tell me the whole thing about.
You know, firs,t I’m a force of nature. You know what? I will attribute this partly to 9/11. Blaming the terrorists. That’s what I’m doing. Dude, I think it just, it was, uh, you know, I think that was a large factor of it. It’s just how shocked I was and how, I mean, this is just from the psychological angle of it. But I do think I do, I think I do take up for people. Me and Parnell weren’t buds. I mean, we were friendly, but it wasn’t like me and him hung out every night or we went drinking or ever go to the movies together. But dude, he was so solid. He was Phil Hartman solid. And they let him go and no one took up for him. And it was all… dude, I was furious. I had no power, but I was furious. I’m like, how can you not do, you didn’t, you didn’t mention. And people had their own people to protect. Uh, this is my friend from Second City. So I’m, I’m making sure they’re protected or whatever. This is my friend from somewhere else. No one stood up, you know, stood up for him? Will Ferrell, who’s one of the greatest human beings I’ve ever met. And, surprise, surprise, Chris Kattan.
Groundlings together.
Dude, yeah, but also, dude, didn’t see Kattan doing that and he did it and I, dude, unbelievable respect for Chris Kattan after that. Always liked him, but boy, didn’t think he, of everybody at Saturday Night Live, him and Will Ferrell are the only ones who kind of stuck up for him. I think it’s kind of bullsh*t. You know, that guy was solid. He had no reason to get rid of that guy. Dude, no one says a word, but that’s what it, that’s kind of that place. You’re worried about, you know.
So they bring him back, and then is it the first table read that you write the sketch that you know is not.
No, no, no, no, no.He had left. It’s Reese Witherspoon, first show of the year. I remember that, that premiere, yeah. And, uh, so I write this thing about how they fired this guy at Benihana’s, and it was just an indictment of everybody who didn’t take up for him. And it’s Will and Kattan have gone to Benihana’s to eat. And they go, where’s Chris? Oh, he doesn’t work anymore. Why not? That’s Benihana’s. Cause that’s all anyone said to me. That’s SNL. And I go, well, did you say something? Nah. Really? You know he’s great though, right? Do you think he’s great? Oh, yeah. He’s glue. He’s nails. Dude, Phil Hartman-esque. You need nails and glue to keep stuff together. And also, like Phil Hartman, super funny on his own. But to help get sketches through? Oh, solid. And no one took up for him. And it was just kind of, and I was all ornery because I’m, you know, 9/11. I’m not in a good mood. And boy, that shift at comedy, dude, I was in such a zone too. Oh God, my commercial parodies were so good that year. And then, um, 9/11 and then it’s like, God, none of this is funny anymore. Nothing’s funny. And you have to. And it just shattered the world. I was still mad about that. And I think that’s why I acted out like it. It was very foolish to do what I did. How did it do at the table? Oh, not a laugh. Oh, it was just. Yeah, no, oh died hard, and I’m in a little back little hallway where no one can see me, and people are looking around. And everybody knows what this is about. I think most people do. It was, it was someone like, uh, I remember right when I got there, I’m walking down a hallway and Mike Schur comes out of a, like it’s a tea hallway or whatever, and I’m coming this way, and Mike Schur is walking up to someone else, and he goes, Oh my god, did you read T Shawn’s sketch? It’s in the… Oh, hey, hey, T Sean, what’s going on, man? And then disappeared. And it was like
I’m surprised that one of the producers didn’t pull it out.
Dude, that’s the great thing about that place. They put sketches in, man.
So, did this have any repercussions about you getting sketches in for a while, or did it affect you at all?
It had repercussions, but it, um, but I do think part of it is again, blame the terrorists. I do think it was just such a different, uh, you know, atmosphere.
Was it just harder to get stuff on? Were those the repercussions?
No, no, not really. And I, I heard Lorne didn’t even get it. And then someone goes, I think it was about Parnell. He just went, Oh, and then just blew it off. But dude, always respected, Lorne. Always. And then, that’s the other thing that bothered me was when people would talk sh*t about him. You know, first of all, the humble brag, or whatever you call it, of, uh, Yeah, I gotta go to dinner with Lorne tonight. Really? Really? You’re all put out because you have to go to dinner with Lorne? Get the f out of here. Don’t act like that.
There were writers and writers that I mean, not writers, but there were performers that would say that, really?
There were writers who would say that, to where it was just like Get the f out of here. Don’t tell me that’s not the coolest thing ever, that that guy invited you to dinner. Dude, that guy’s so brilliant. The one thing people don’t, you talk about, dude, super funny. That guy, to me Dude, he was funny and smart, man. So that, that kind of bugged me too. When people, Oh, he’s crazy white head. And then I’m like going, okay, if he’s crazy white head, why don’t you stand up to it? Why don’t you mention go, Hey, you know what? I really think we could use Parnell here. I don’t, I think you should reconsider that. And no one did. No one would.
I’m going to mention this only because you brought it up, which is back then at that point that was a nickname for some of the writers where that was what they called Lorne behind his back, correct?
Yeah, yeah. I never did. I thought it was a sh*tty thing. And also I was like, who the F are you? You’re some half okay writer. Where do you get off? Like, where’s, where’s the, again, my heroes, people older than me that really respect, Tom Davis, man couldn’t get enough of when he came by any of those guys and then people would say that Then they like Parnell get fired. So yeah, I don’t dig I didn’t dig that whole scene of I thought it was kind of rubbish You know,
I was gonna ask because you wrote so much, um with the cold opens you contributed a lot I talked to, um, Harper Steele and Harper was saying that they wrote some of the sketches as well with the cold open. I always thought that the cold open real estate was Jim Downey and to get that cold open slot was, I mean, really hard to do. How were you able to do it?
No, a lot of it, a lot of it was written Thursday or Friday night.
But wasn’t it all Downey for the cold opens? Wasn’t it? Didn’t he have that?
Not always. It was his cousin. When I show up, it’s right after Downey and Norm have left. Was Downey there that year? Downey would send sketches in.
Downey was actually, would phone, he would do it over the phone, he wouldn’t even email it, he would just dictate it over the phone, but yeah, because he got, he was let go with Norm, or he left, yeah, he got let go by the, by Ohlmeyer, and then he, um, Was coming back to do some cold open. So, um, what stands out? What is your favorite cold open that you’ve contributed to, or you wrote one or two that stand out?
I wrote one, dude, this was a solid one. This was one where I was like, this is a great sketch, but it was when they were trying to impeach Clinton. I think Livingston was the Speaker of the House, got fired. And then another guy, Newt Gingrich got fired. They, they both lost their job over headhunting for Clinton. And so it was them sitting at a bar, both those guys going, what the hell happened? We, we have a dress with his semen on it. He’s still president. I got fired? What the and it was just them going over all the evidence they had and they just played it so wrong. And you know, everybody, the moral high ground that it was like, Hey, what about your girlfriend? I resign. And it was all that stuff. And so that was my favorite. I don’t remember. Could it have been the Bill Paxton show with musical guest the 10,000 Maniacs!
Catherine O’Hara, 10,000 Maniacs from 1992. But who’s..
Okay, here’s one for you. Do you remember who was the host of the Barenaked Ladies show?
Oh my goodness. Okay, let me think. They only did one song. They were only, they got a song cut.
It was, they were saving one week to play second. They were all excited.
Can you believe that happened to a bunch of people that you’re I’m trying to think. Let me think. Barenaked Ladies, tell me. I can’t believe I’m failing.
I have no idea. I was just going to tell you that story that they held out. They have one week. We’ll close with that one. Ah, we got cut for time, guys. Sorry.
It was really strange because, 90,
I think Sheryl Crow got a song cut for time.
Will Ferrell’s first year. This was, um, Koechner and all those people were coming. Yeah, they did that to Joan Osborne. They did it to Everclear. They did it to a few bands where they did told them, they’d do two dress songs. And they, they were told you’re only getting one in.
They would only tell them after Update. See, you know, about the meeting after Update that where, what are we doing the rest of the show? This has, we have to lose this. We have to lose that. And. You could cut music back then because it wasn’t sponsored by Budweiser. It didn’t help. Also, I think a big thing is the ratings…. People would turn away when music came on.
They were dipping, and it’s strange because in 95-96 when they were doing it, Don Ohlmeyer had a lot of control. Lorne was building back up, getting power back from the network, which he ended up doing, but they dictated some of the stuff that season where they were getting cut the music, but When you were there that first season, it’s like Elliott Smith, Eagle Eye Cherry, Barenaked Ladies, Rick, even Ricky Martin, um, I believe only did one song. Um, and I think that after that, it didn’t really happen.
Well, I think cause they got Budweiser to sponsor it or something. I think it was all. Uh ratings driven it was, like they looked at it and they go well people don’t stick around people turn away. Like they would do that, and they did that at Leno, too, at the time where they would go minute by minute And you would go We used to do a couple bits that I loved that was just found footage And one was just people arriving at universal studios coming off a escalator then walking down this carpet we would do a fake red carpet and you would go oh this guy looks like Whoever, uh, Jonah Hill, and it’s some chubby kid walking or whatever. And another piece we do is where we film people, like we would go to a baseball stadium and film people and there’s, and it would be, what were they thinking? And they would go through at NBC and they would go, okay, we lose viewers when you do these bits. And so we would not, we don’t want to do these bits. These are the bits. Dude, it worked…Leno stayed number one for a very long time and they were really good at analysis.
It affected the stand up comedians. That was one of the reasons that they were not doing them anymore, the minutes to minutes and that’s.
Yeah. They always blamed it on Leno. Yeah. They always blamed it on Leno. Oh, he doesn’t like comedians.
They did it. I mean, their goal and they, they achieved it wildly as they were number one the entire, almost the entire time. And they, Dave was in the, uh, in the beginning.