Gasping for Airtime - Jay Mohr [15]
Ten shots and still nothing. Eleven went in and out. Twelve was an air ball. Thirteen bounced off the side of the rim. Finally he nailed his fourteenth shot from about twenty feet straight in front of the basket. “Let’s go,” he said. And with that, Charles didn’t miss more than five out of a hundred the rest of the day.
There was a stunt coordinator on the set to make sure the guy in the Barney suit wasn’t injured, which was a good thing. I had written the sketch so that Charles beat the snot out of Barney. The action began with Barney guarding Charles one-on-one and Charles cracking the cuddly, lard-ass dinosaur in the face with an elbow. In take after take, Barkley was murdering this poor guy. The stunt coordinator assured Charles that there was a professional stuntman in full padding under that Barney suit. At one point, Charles elbowed the stuntman in the face so hard that the entire Barney head popped off. The thing probably weighed five pounds, and Charles knocked it clean off a guy’s head with one shot. Nice.
For the next couple of hours, it was more of the same. Barney getting punched, kicked, cracked in the head—you name it. When we finished, the stuntman peeled off the suit. As he emerged from the costume I could see that he was indeed in full padding. Every inch of his body had some sort of pad on it. He looked like he had just fallen off a motorcycle. He was drenched in sweat and his entire face was covered in scratches and abrasions. He looked like he might start crying. Mental note: Never piss off Charles Barkley.
After we finished shooting the sketch, we all had to go to the offices for the rewrites and rehearsal. Charles was nice enough to invite Al and me to ride with him in his limo back to 30 Rock. He talked about golf the entire trip. The only thing I could have contributed was that I once caddied and had enjoyed Caddyshack, so I kept my mouth shut. Besides, because I was the new, unfamiliar face on the show, there was always a pregnant pause after I spoke. The guest host would look at me as if to say, “Sorry, who are you again?”
Though I wasn’t going to be performing in any sketches that week, I didn’t care. A sketch that I wrote was going on the air, and I was cruising through Manhattan in a stretch limo with Sir Charles. Baby steps.
I had written “Barkley vs. Barney” so that after Charles referred to it at the top of the monologue we could just roll tape. When the sketch was over, Charles would say, “Nirvana is here, so stick around.” This would eliminate the traditional monologue, which is usually the least funny part of the show. Perhaps this is because it’s written dead last. I’m talking Saturday afternoon. Why this is, I never figured out. Since the show opens with the monologue, logic says it would command some type of priority. It doesn’t.
The night of the show, I felt fantastic. It was actually happening. Worst-case scenario, I had written the opening monologue/sketch for the season premiere of Saturday Night Live. For the first time since I walked into 30 Rock, I felt like I had really contributed something. With “Barkley vs. Barney” as the monologue, no one would have to sit through a host reading cue cards written an hour before showtime.
As the countdown to the show began, I didn’t know where to stand. I figured I should be on the floor watching over my sketch like a parent. That’s what I had seen the other writers do during rehearsals. When the show is in progress, there’s an organized chaos in the studio. It’s an electricity unlike any that I have experienced anywhere else, on any other project. Cameras are flying around the room. Actors are running across the studio to their next setup. All of this is happening around the eighty audience members sitting in chairs on the stage floor. The camera and cable guys have worked there for years and know exactly what