Live From New York - James H. Miller [180]
Now I look at him and I go, “Who is she?” Because I don’t watch the show. I’m not interested. I mean, of course I know about Belushi and Chevy Chase, and I’ve seen their movies. But I was never an avid follower of Saturday Night Live. And Lorne goes, “Don’t you know the cast here?” I go, “No, I’ll be honest. I really never watch. I know Dennis Miller, because he shows up when I’m performing.
Then from there it just turned into mania, you know. Next thing you know, I’m getting calls from Entertainment Tonight. I’m getting calls from all these different tabloid shows. And what was supposed to be a fun, light week wound up the most stressful week I had in my entire career. To this day, if I turn on the tape for somebody, you can see the blood in my face, how high my blood pressure was.
I was out of my mind, you know, doing that show. It wasn’t fun, I’ll tell you that much. What really bothered me about the whole thing is, these performers that are supposed to know what character comedy is didn’t know I was playing a character. When I heard this was the end of Nora Dunn’s contract, I’m going, “This is a play to get publicity — to make herself into something.” In my opinion, she was just looking to make something out of her career after Saturday Night Live.
The one good thing is, the ratings were incredible. It was the only time, you know, in the few times that I have seen Saturday Night Live, that they threw people out of the audience. I mean, I got heckled during my opening monologue and they had to throw people out. There was all kinds of security. There was a bunch of people in the balcony they threw out. Because the dichotomy between who I am as a performer and who I am as a father and a husband is very different.
I’ve never met Nora Dunn to this day. And obviously it didn’t work out for her the way she thought it would. And, you know what, that’s what she deserved. I guess she thought she was going to become like a major star from that. That’s not how you become a major star. I thought it was a foolish move to start with.
And Nightline is this great show and look what they’re putting on. It’s not a world affair. I’m a comic. I’m a bozo from Brooklyn.
JAN HOOKS:
I know there was a meeting before Nora was due in the following week, so I think we had one more show. And we took a vote: Get her out of here! Get her out of here!
VICTORIA JACKSON:
I ran into Nora’s manager a couple of years ago in L.A. He mentioned he represented Nora. I’m like, “Oh. Great.” I couldn’t hide that I wasn’t thrilled. And he goes, “I’ll tell her you said hi.” And I’m like, “Yeah, okay.” So the next week I saw him again, and he goes, “I told Nora that you said hi, and she said she kind of gave you a hard time when you were working together.” And I went, “Oh, so she actually admits it. Cool. I thought maybe it was all in my head, you know?”
DON NOVELLO, Writer:
The first time I did Father Sarducci was at a place called the Intersection, a coffee house in San Francisco. But then I started driving down to L.A. to do comedy clubs in ’73, and I started doing it at the Comedy Store. I was on the Smothers Brothers Show — I was a regular on their NBC show — and I did it there. When I got on Saturday Night Live, I think it was the fall of ’77, I knew Franken and Davis from the Comedy Store and I had met John Belushi, and John pushed to get me on as well. I think Brian Doyle-Murray and I were the first new writers after the original group of writers.
People were just afraid of Father Sarducci, you know. Everybody always said, “We’re not offended, but we think other people will be offended.” When I began smoking, someone said, “Priests don’t smoke.” I never made fun of the religion. I never did the sign of the cross or talked about Jesus or anything like that. I just made