A week before her death, the originalSNLwriter still had too many stories to tell.
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I never am at a loss for cocktail-party chatter, thats for sure.
I really appreciate you calling me back.
Theres lots of stories.
So, of course, it became necessary to spend Tuesday nights at 30 Rock and stay over.
They said, What do you mean?
The kind that you crank?
And I said, No, the kind with buttons that you push.
I made that stipulation in my contract, and I got it.
Id leave a note for the receptionist, who came in at 9 a.m., to wake me up.
Eventually we got a shower in the office.
We used to tip the delivery guy in joints.
That was just what I did for five years.
I used to get fresh flowers every week.
I had a window, so that was a good thing.
I ultimately got a monitor put in so I could see what was going on in the studio.
It was always sort of a little smelly in there.
I mean, it wasnt coal mining, but it was still pretty rough.
I just remembered one moment that was very interesting to me.
I went and looked out the window, and it was an extremely heavy snowfall.
How did it work when you were collaborating with other people?
Then, of course, other people would be up at various times and would drop in.
And wed go, No.
No, we dont.
Our sketch is set in a convent.
What was the general atmosphere like?It was very convivial and cooperative.
Theres probably no one there that I didnt collaborate with in some sketch or other, including the performers.
She actually admitted that she had changed into her pajamas to get to come up, for the joke.
Just to get a laugh.
That was her personality, you know?
She would pretty much do anything she would bang into walls.
It was like a family.
It was a dysfunctional family, but it was a family.
Most of the fights would be more along the lines of, like, you know, You pig!
Im going to my room, and Im never speaking to you again, so there!
Which, you know, didnt last.
Yeah, in those confines, youre almost forced to forget and forgive quickly.It was a lifeboat situation.
You were forced to get along.
But I mean, everybody kind of did get along and was protective.
It was competitive, of course.
Theyd say, Oh, too bad.
Itll probably be in next weeks show.
It was competitive, but supportive.
We had a sort of rough relationship with John.
He wasnt really a sexist kind of person.
Away from the show, I had a perfectly good relationship with him.
But I dont know … Its more like nerd rock, because he had those high-water pants and white socks and stuff.
I mean, all that was missing was the pocket protector.
So Bill ended up in it with Gilda, and Danny did the DJ character.
It was just sort of our luck because it clicked into Bill and Gildas relationship.
He used to leave her messages when he was traveling saying Todd called.
So the whole noogies thing and everything was symbolic of their slightly sadomasochistic relationship.
So we sort of had to reclaim them.
That and Uncle Roy, which youll never see.
Was there a lot of hanging out during work hours?
I never spent a lot of time hanging around.
I just was working.
It was just customary, like a regular weekly basis of counting on that.
It was a great sketch, actually, but I was sort of offended.
I just thought,Well, why are you attacking your predecessors?
And instead of coke, they had candy, like jelly beans or whatever, on their desks.
They kept going with sugar.
Nothing was going on, but in the old days, they would have had something to see.
People used to borrow my bed sometimes.
Marianne Faithfull had a massage in it.
But I dont think it was borrowed too much for hanky-panky.
I think Jim Downey kept it for a while after I was gone.
But its funny because, I mean, they rented it for four years.
Were any particular sketches tough for you to write?Oh God.
Ted what-ya-call-it fromMary Tyler Moore.
You remember that character of Ted?
His real name was Ted, too, but I forget his real last name.
Ted Knight?Yes.
The Virgin Mary cannot receive noogies.
We were like, You know, in case you hadnt noticed, its not the Virgin Mary.
Its Gilda Radner playing Lisa Loopner playing the Virgin Mary.
They were adamant because they said it struck at the foundations of Christianity or something.
It went on and we thought,Thats that.
It was at the time of those Brooke Shields ads with tight jeans.
She loves Manhattan, thinks Woodys a riot.
If her building goes co-op, her daddy will buy it.
But she owes it all to the Scarsdale Diet.
She shops the sales for designer clothes, she has designer nails and a designer nose.
And then at the end it said, Guaranteed to ride up.
I thought I should have gotten some kind of special award for equal-opportunity offending.
The Christmas pageant, we just thought it was very innocent, childish fun.
We never thought that anybody would possibly be offended by it, but they were.
People would get offended by such crazy things.
and blah, blah, blah.
It was a dead fish!
But its not so much delirium its just that theres a demand.
That was very satisfying, you know?
It was because I wasnt doing that anymore.
I would sort of push everything off and think,Oh, I can finally get some good sleep.
And then I would have weird dreams.
Often dreams that involve something about, you know, Lorne wants you!
and this, that, and the other.
I still have those dreams, 40 years later.
It was live television it was there, and then it was gone.
Sometimes I enjoy it, and sometimes it makes me sad.
And sometimes I see something and I go, Oh my God, we wrote that?
I forgot about that one.
Does that include the sounds and smells?Yeah, absolutely.
It brings me right back.
Oh, the Muppets.
I must say, Im proud of never having written for the Muppets.
I remember that Muppets-set smell forever.
The other thing is that I cannot eat Famous Amos cookies.
My quota on Famous Amos is done.
So the smell of popcorn actually triggers an anxiety mechanism in me.
Thats not to say that he was a bad boss or anything.
And we would be like, Yes, absolutely, of course.
But I mean,couldwe?
I remember one sketch,Christina Crawfords Christmas sketch.
It was a pretty long sketch.
And Mick Jagger was giving her a neck massage, and we started showing her what the cuts were.
And Mick was like, Oh, no, dont take that out.
Thats the best line!
So we were like, Oh, Mick likes it.
We should leave it in.
And of course, you know …
I mean, hes not an expert on comedy, so he actually was wrong.
But we were like, Oh, if Mick thinks its good, we should keep it in.
People always say, Well, what was it like, what was it like?
And I say, well, it was everything in a way.
It was five years of my life, so it was kind of everything.
And it certainly gave me a career, you know?
