Live From New York - James H. Miller [184]
So he invited me out there to cheer up the troops, as he saw it. His sense of it was that it wasn’t mean, that it was mostly silly. But I don’t think he ever saw the one where we had him on his knees saying, “Please, God, don’t make me a one-termer.” I don’t think they knew or wondered about my politics, whether I was incredibly left or whatever, but I was sort of in the White House and Barbara would bring up politics and George would say, “Let’s not do it.” And for my wife and me, it’s still one of the peak experiences and most mind-blowing experiences of our life, to be in the White House with the president, who had just lost the election, during Christmas. It was just so gorgeous and surreal. And we’re in the Lincoln Bedroom and suddenly he comes in, and he’s six-foot-four and he goes, “How ya doin’, meet ya downstairs,” and he just sort of charmed the pants off us.
I only met him that one time for ten minutes in 1988, and then we just mercilessly made fun of him for four years. Al Franken’s a pretty famous Democrat, Jim Downey’s a real Republican, I refer to myself as a radical moderate. So in the beginning of George Bush’s tenure, he was so damn popular, I think he saw some of those sketches where the angle was how happy he was. It wasn’t until the last eighteen months, where we had the recession and the no-new-taxes thing, where some of the stuff was heavier hitting. I think between Lorne and Al Franken, they wouldn’t have allowed me to make it soft. We make fun of liberals too, you know.
It’s scary to go out there and know you don’t have it. You just say, “I’m George Bush” and cop an attitude. When I was in college I would tape Dan Aykroyd off the television, tape his Jimmy Carter, shamelessly practice it, and then go to the clubs and just steal it, do his Jimmy Carter. Then eight, nine years later Danny’s in the office going, “I really like your George Bush.” It was kind of surreal.
I would actually give Lorne credit in terms of the way he worked with me. He sort of saw my potential before I did and kind of pushed me out there.
MIKE MYERS, Cast Member:
I wanted to be on the show since I was eleven years old, so I wear having done it as a badge of honor.
I didn’t really audition. Producer Pam Thomas, who is the wife of Dave Thomas of SCTV, had seen me at the tenth anniversary of Second City Toronto — as had Martin Short. Pam called up Lorne and said, “Have a look at this kid” — and so did Martin Short. I got called in for an interview and I got hired from the interview, which was very lucky for me. But I wasn’t quite sure I had gotten hired when I came out of the room. Dave Foley from the Kids in the Hall, who’s a really great friend of mine — a great guy from Toronto as well — was there when I came out of Lorne’s office, and he and I started walking downtown. We tried to dissect what Lorne had said. He said, “Would you want a job here?” And I didn’t know if that was an offer, but I said, “Yes.” So I just kept asking Dave, “So, does this mean I’m hired?” Foley and I walked all the way from Midtown down to the Village trying to decipher if I was hired.
CONAN O’BRIEN:
I remember very clearly when Mike Myers showed up. He was wearing a leather jacket with the American flag on the back. It was his first time there and he was very polite and proud to be at SNL. He was asking us all about what he should submit in our read-through and we were giving him advice, Robert Smigel and Bob Odenkirk, Greg Daniels, and I. And then he came to us and he described to us this idea, this character he had named Wayne who had a cable show in his basement, and the show was called “Wayne