Gasping for Airtime - Jay Mohr [85]
During my second season, Janeane Garofalo was hired midseason, presumably both to pump some life into SNL and to create sketches for the women. Though Janeane’s very funny and a talented actress, she was a drag when she worked at SNL. Upon her arrival, Janeane told the press that the show was biased against women. What better way to motivate writers to write for you than to tell the New York Post that they don’t want to write for you! She described the show as a boys’ club and a frat house—though apparently no one was notified that I was a boy.
Janeane’s comments were piling on. The reviews of the show from my first season through the midpoint of the second ranged from savage to brutal. Critics called the show nothing short of humiliating, and headlines like “Saturday Night Dead” were commonplace in the New York tabloids. The negative reviews were almost always accompanied by a reference to the show’s problem with women, which always burned my ass. Every so often Lorne would begin a pitch meeting by reassuring us that he knew we were working hard, but he certainly never would have addressed such an issue as one cast member complaining to the press about the show.
Aside from a few brief snickers behind closed doors, the Janeane matter was never openly addressed by the staff. Janeane and I were always friendly, and I’d often go down to Lundy’s Deli with her and Chris Elliott for sandwiches and beers. However, I was annoyed at her for spouting off in public because I was one of those so-called oppressive white guys, and no one was writing for me, either. Many performers write their own sketches. That’s one of the few ways you can attempt to control your destiny. Trust me, if Janeane wrote a funny sketch, it stood a great chance of being on the air because the writers were constantly being asked to create more sketches for the women on the show. The problem was, Janeane realized early on that she didn’t want to be on SNL, so she didn’t contribute anything.
Interestingly, when Jan Hooks and Nora Dunn were on the show, there were never any articles about the show hating women. The reason was elementary: Jan and Nora were two incredibly talented women who wrote their own sketches. I cannot remember a Saturday Night Live episode during the time they were in the cast that they weren’t on the show. They produced, and they were given airtime because they were brilliant.
Perhaps Janeane’s complaint should have been about the lack of female writers on the show. Nobody could argue with that. Out of twenty-two writers, only three were women. The female cast member ratio was only slightly better. My first season, the female cast members were Ellen Cleghorne, Melanie Hutsell, Julia Sweeney, and Sarah Silverman. My second season, Sarah left and Laura Kightlinger, Morwenna Banks, and Molly Shannon were added (along with Janeane in midseason). Out of this group, perhaps because she was new, Sarah Silverman wrote the most. Julia, who was a real sweetheart, kept bringing back her androgynous Pat, but while it was great in its time, there was no longer anything the least bit funny about it.
Though I didn’t feel personally betrayed by Janeane because I wasn’t the direct target of her complaints, I did work at SNL, and her bitching certainly wasn’t helping the value of the property on which I wanted to build my dream house.
For some reason, Weekend Update pieces aren’t chosen on Wednesday night with the rest of the show. In most cases, it wasn’t until Saturday afternoon when you learned the fate of your Update piece. When the rehearsal schedule was printed up on Wednesday