Live From New York - James H. Miller [178]
As it turned out, there was no point in the show where the censors wanted to cut anything, but because of the technical nature of this thing, this sort of jury-rigged system, the video got screwed up, and Lorne vowed never again. Whatever the circumstances, he would never allow that sort of tape delay on Saturday Night Live.
Saturday Night Live is live live. If someone were to say “fuck,” it would go out over the air. At least the East Coast of America would hear it. They would make a repair for the West Coast.
BOB ODENKIRK:
Lorne waits until the last second and then he picks whoever’s hot. He and Jim Downey picked Andrew Dice Clay, and I don’t think they knew who he was or what he did. I don’t think they’d ever heard his act. And so they were shocked.
NORA DUNN:
I didn’t hear about Andrew Dice Clay hosting until Monday. I was very familiar with his work. He had a routine about sticking a woman’s head into the toilet, fucking her up the ass, and then telling her to make him some eggs. Where’s the joke?
VICTORIA JACKSON:
I think the Andrew Dice Clay thing was totally a publicity stunt on Nora’s part. We’d had other comics that degraded women. Like Sam Kinison. Sam made fun of Jesus Christ and although I’m a Christian, I still went to work, because my contract wasn’t based on, “I come to work if I approve of the host.” If Nora’s passionate platform of life is women’s rights, she was meaner to me than anyone in my life, and I’m a woman, so obviously she doesn’t really love women.
LORNE MICHAELS:
I came back on a Sunday. Nora Dunn announces to the press that she’s not doing the show. It would have been nice if she’d called me. Already it was like a circus. It all seemed so out of whack. The reason I got so furious and stubborn about it was, “Wait a minute. You haven’t seen what he’s done yet. You’re just assuming that we’re going to put him on in a full embrace.” I was on Nightline the night before the show and some woman said something about Hitler and the Holocaust, and I went, “Whoa. Just a minute. How did we jump to the Holocaust? Because the Holocaust is really a giant thing, and we’re here talking about a comedian with a bad act. And we haven’t even done anything with him yet.”
My sympathies were with him. One of the things you’ll find is consistent from the beginning to now is that we’ve always obeyed the rules of hospitality. You don’t invite somebody to your house to piss on him. My point is that this person has put themselves in your hands, they’re completely vulnerable, the show only works if they look good, so why would you have anybody over that you don’t like? What — because you need the ratings? It doesn’t make any sense. He was completely vulnerable.
Nora painted herself into a corner, I think. We’re not one big happy family, you’ve probably figured that out. That said, everybody plays by a set of rules.
NORA DUNN:
To me, Andrew Dice Clay hosting was the pinnacle of everything that upset me about the show. I still feel that it’s a black mark that they endorsed him and let him walk through that door.
Anyway, I talked to a couple people at the show, told them I wasn’t going to do the show, and then I made a statement. My brother had given me the name of a friend of his who was with the Associated Press, and he said, “You’d better just cover yourself here.” So I made my statement to the guy, and he told me he wouldn’t release it unless I wanted him to. I thought by Wednesday it would all be resolved and they would just tell him, “We’d rather you don’t do the show.” Then the reporter called me back to say that another