Live From New York - James H. Miller [151]
What astonished Sid, what he could not believe, is that we wrote thirty sketches to get nine. He was absolutely baffled by that. Because that’s not the way they did it in his day. He said all of these things should be one line in a meeting. You kill it right there or you decide it’s perfect, it’s the right thing, and then you go work on it until it’s great. He just didn’t agree with the system. I don’t know if it was Lorne’s invention or what.
DICK EBERSOL:
I met Susan St. James when she came to host the show that was the second show of the next full season. At midnight the writers went on strike and we couldn’t go back on the air. She was pushing the movie Carbon Copy. She does the show on Saturday, and five weeks after that show we were married.
ROBIN SHLIEN:
This is a very Dick story: When Susan St. James hosted the show, that’s how they met — I guess it was immediate attraction — and he ended up with her at Xenon, a big disco back then. And they were like making out at Xenon and someone from some paper caught them and it was in the paper the next day. Now most people would be embarrassed about this, right? Dick put the clipping up on the wall of his office.
DAVID SHEFFIELD:
Favorite hosts included Stevie Wonder, who was a terrific host. It was an interesting week because cue cards were right out. He had a little earpiece, and someone was feeding the lines to him off-camera, his brother. He was just a great host.
There was one host who came on, he was drunk and senile. He kept going, “Where’s Gilda? When’s Gilda showing up?” He was so arrogant; he basically just did a monologue. Donald Pleasence.
DICK EBERSOL:
The first three shows of the ’82–’83 season — the first show was hosted by nobody. That was the one where Jimmy Caan’s sister had bone marrow cancer and he pulled out, so we did the show with no host. And Rod Stewart was the musical guest. And Tina Turner was in New York, and I suggested to whoever was managing Rod at the time, why don’t they get together, and they had a memorable duet.
With John Madden, it was really about the closest I ever came to having a heart attack before I had a real one in February of ’96. In the last half hour of dress, John had, in effect, a second monologue, and basically it was bringing him out to tell some stories that he told normally about various crazy football players who had played for him on the Raiders. But it was so funny, we had helped him shape it into like a two- or three-minute monologue about an hour and ten minutes into the show.
So we were in a break and John was up on home base to do the second monologue when he said, in a booming voice, “Ebersol, Ebersol.” And I’m under the bleachers in approximately the same area that Lorne works at today. I stuck my head around the corner so he could see me. He said, “Come here a minute.” I came to about halfway to the stage area with a full house, whatever it is, three hundred–plus for dress. And he said, “I just want to tell you now I’m going to finish this dress rehearsal and then I’m going to leave. I’m not happy with how things have been going, and I’m enough of a trouper to finish it for this audience, but then I’m outta here. This is just the pits.”
I’m standing there and I’m dying. And he lets about two or three seconds go and then he gets the biggest smile on his face in the world and he said, “You know I’m a practical joker, don’t you?” The place went nuts. But in the meantime, I had just about had a heart attack.
ANDY BRECKMAN:
When Sam Kinison hosted, I don’t think I’ve ever laughed harder. He did a little bit of his act for the staff about necrophilia. There was an article in the paper about a guy who was caught having sex with a dead guy in a funeral home. The question was whether Sam could do the joke on the show. It was in the air all week whether or not it was something he would be allowed to do, and I guess they eventually decided he couldn’t.
DANNY DEVITO, Host:
The first time I did it was when Taxi had just gotten a bunch of Emmys and they then promptly