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By Root 337 0

weekend to watch Tina Fey’s dead-on send-up of Alaska governor Sarah Palin, on Saturday Night Live. Tina’s channeling of Palin was by far the best female impression I’d ever seen, and almost overnight, her winks and “You betcha’s” turned her from a star into a superstar. But nothing about Tina’s remarkable rise qualifies as “overnight.” She worked her way to the top from the scrappy improv circuit in Chicago (including Second City), where she honed her performing and writing skills. For all the comedy writers that roamed through our house—and our lives—when I was growing up, there never was a woman at the table. Tina not only made it to the table of SNL writers—in just a few years she moved to the head of it. But to her it’s not about gender, it’s just about getting the laugh. That’s something she’s been doing her whole life.

—M.T.

Step One: Come from a Funny Family

Tina: I grew up in Upper Derby, Pennsylvania, outside Philadelphia, and I think there’s something about the Northeast—New York, Philly, Boston—where everyone’s a little bit of a smart aleck. I went to college in the South, and my roommates would always say, “How come when your family’s here, if you ask them a question, they’ll always give you a sarcastic answer?” I’d say, “I guess that’s just how we do it up there. Everybody’s kind of a wisenheimer.”

Step Two: Have Greek Uncles

I had an Uncle Pierre and an Uncle Napoleon—I don’t know why they were named that; we’re a Greek family—and they were very funny, in a cutting kind of way. They were great at take-down humor. Like, when Uncle Pete would come over, he’d play my mom in Scrabble, and when he’d start winning, he’d turn to me and say, “Go comfort your mother. She’s crying.”

Step Three: Find Your Comic Groove

When I was 12 or 13, I decided that I wanted to try to be funny. That’s the age that you realize, Oh, I get it—some girls are going to be very pretty, and then the rest of us have to figure out what our coping mechanism is going to be. Looking back, having greasy skin and getting your boobs at ten is actually a good way to grow up. It builds character.

Step Four: Do Your Research

My brother always made me laugh. He’d imitate everything he saw on Saturday Night Live—he did a great Steve Martin. But we were all big fans of comedy shows. We watched everything on TV. Old Burns and Allen, classic sitcoms, Marx Brothers movies, Laurel and Hardy, and all of the Monty Pythons. We practically lived on Channel 48.

Step Five: Try Out Your Material

I wasn’t exactly the class clown, but I was definitely funny—I just wasn’t up front about it. I’d mutter things under my breath so my friends could hear it, and they’d always laugh. Basically I think I became funny to get people to like me. I especially remember being a cut-up in algebra class. That’s because I wasn’t great at math, and getting a laugh was a lot easier. My favorite joke was: “Two peanuts were walking down the street, and one was a-salted.” Okay, it’s a really, really dumb joke, but it always made me laugh.

Step Six: Make One Last-ditch Effort Not to Be a Comedian

In college, I thought about becoming a serious actress, but it quickly became clear to me that that wasn’t the right path. My problem with learning how to act was that I was never sure what you were supposed to be thinking about when you were doing a role on stage—unlike with improvisation, where your focus is always on your scene partner. So eventually I began to write, and wound up studying playwriting. And most of my plays came out funny, as opposed to serious.

Step Seven: Take It to the Next Level

In the early Nineties, I moved to Chicago and started studying at Second City. I had a day job, working the front desk at the [Evanston] YMCA, which left my nights free for classes. I’d take the train to work every morning at 4:00 A.M., always with the same group of Polish cleaning ladies. I somehow convinced myself they were looking out for me.

For a brief period, I tried stand-up—at a very, very amateur level. I enjoyed it and really respect it as an art form. But to go out there