Live From New York - James H. Miller [115]
I think one difference between Lorne and me was that I never wanted to go to dress more than three sketches too long. He has stronger feelings about the ability to repair things late. So he often-times will go to dress much longer than that. I mean he’ll go a half hour or forty minutes longer going to dress, and obviously it’s worked for him for a quarter of a century. I was more comfortable being about three long. But that’s the big thing that you’re facing, that Wednesday night deadline because of the sets.
DON NOVELLO:
This was an amazing thing. I’m not sure of the year, but I would say early eighties. Bill Murray was hosting, I was a guest as a performer, and I really was like a writer for him. And at the end of the show, everyone’s going up on stage to say good night, and there’s a commercial break — two minutes, four minutes, whatever — and during the break, Ebersol suddenly comes running up and says, “It’s on the news, Russia’s invading Poland, and you should announce it.” Bill said, “What should I do?” And I told him, wisely as it turns out, “That’s a news thing. This is a comedy show. Why would you want to do it?” Ebersol says, “Come on, we’ve got thirty seconds, you’re going to do it.” Well, I was not going to stand there when he announced it, so I went and stood way in the back, even though I was one of the main guests. So Bill announced it to America that Russia had invaded Poland and “the poor people of Poland, our hearts go out to them.” It was really almost teary-eyed. And it didn’t happen. The “invasion” didn’t happen, at least not that night. But I guess Ebersol wanted this to be the comedy show that broke it to America that Russia invaded Poland.
ANDREW SMITH:
Dick was tremendously successful with the network. He could get anything out of the network, whether it was money or one thing or another. He understands network politics and that side of it, you know, better than anybody else. And, of course, his best friend was Brandon Tartikoff, which didn’t hurt. He was brilliant at that side of being an executive producer. But he obviously wasn’t a comedy writer and was somewhat foreign to comedy, although I guess there are some issues as to whether he invented the show with Lorne or not.
FRED SILVERMAN:
There are very few people who can produce that show. I never got along particularly well with Ebersol, but I think he did a pretty good job, actually. He walked into a real mess and kept it going, to his credit. The show had had its ups and downs, but he managed to hang in there.
DICK EBERSOL:
It was like a war, and most of it was about the fact that Fred just didn’t like having a show that had that level of freedom that was attacking Fred. Saturday Night Live does not work if it censors itself about its own company. You have to attack. I made a point the very first show I did by myself, in April of ’81, of letting Franken do a piece on “Update.” We were friends, but deep inside he thought he should produce the show, and I let him do a piece on “Update” the sum of which was that “Dick doesn’t know dick.”
DAVID SHEFFIELD:
Ebersol is a guy who walks the halls slapping a baseball bat into his palm. He is not easily intimidated. We were at a meeting one time, twenty minutes until air, and this pipsqueak guy from the network says “I just think we really ought to —” and Dick turned around and said to him, “Just shut the