• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 1270 0

Lorne would hear, “What are you using that guy for?” I remember one time they did a Q rating, and I happened to be on the show that they evaluated. They got all this stuff on who’s likable on the show and who’s not. It was like the second or third thing I ever did, and I guess whoever did the Q thing, they said I sucked and I was not fun to watch. And so I remember Lorne caught some flak from NBC saying, “Don’t use that guy. People don’t like him.” But Lorne and Downey and Smigel, they kind of looked past that. Lorne always said, “When you first get on the show, it’s going to take time for the audience to like you, because they’re used to seeing Dana and Nealon and Hartman and guys that they’re comfortable laughing with.” Sure enough, they cut to one of us young buffoons and they go, “Who’s that guy? How did this idiot get a chance?” But after a few times of being on the show, the audience grew a little more comfortable with you and they said, “Okay, this guy I guess is on Saturday Night Live,” and then you get more confidence as a performer.

JACK HANDEY:

I was in a fraternity in college, and I thought I had heard some pretty graphic sex stories, but Sandler would just go into detail about some of his sexual adventures to the point where you would just be crying and laughing, it was so embarrassing — just the details he would go into. But very funny. Sandler was always a sweet guy to me and I think to most people on the staff.

ADAM SANDLER:

I remember actually my first skit. I was in a thing that Smigel wrote and that I helped write a little bit. And it was Tom Hanks and Dana Carvey, and I just came on, I just had two lines, and I remember that countdown. I remember telling Hanks right before, “Hoo, I’m nervous,” and he goes, “Hey, it’s going to be all right.” I said, “Man, I feel like I’m going to faint or something.” He goes, “Well, don’t.”

I wasn’t always funny on the show. I remember sometimes I would be funny at dress rehearsal, because I felt loose and like, “Well, no one’s really going to see this, just this couple hundred people,” and I was used to doing stand-up in clubs and I felt pretty confident in front of a crowd of two hundred or so. But then the live show would come on — and this happened to me the first couple of years — I’d hear the countdown, and I’d be like, “Oh no, oh no, everyone’s going to see this. I’d better do as well as I did in dress.” And then I would choke and my mind would be spinning out. And right after I would get off I would say, “Is there any way you could run dress for the West Coast?”

MARILYN SUZANNE MILLER, Writer:

It was a boutique aspect. Each one was their own boutique. There was the Adam Sandler boutique, which presented writing and acting and music and lyrics by Adam. Which was not the way it was when I was at the original show; we were the writers, they were the actors. And indeed they were a different generation than me. Adam I loved. It was a whole other sensibility than mine, but I loved it.

CHRIS ROCK:

The live show was incredible. It was incredible to meet these famous people every week and see these great musical acts and see this whole show form around you and how they built it. The best thing about the show was that when you did write a piece, you were responsible for it. You were in charge of the casting. You were in charge of the costumes. You produced the piece. I wouldn’t know what the fuck I was doing if I hadn’t been on Saturday Night Live. It’s the absolute best training you can have in show business.

JANEANE GAROFALO, Cast Member:

The only thing you could count on in my day, when I was there, was if it was a Sandler or Farley sketch, it was on. That was the only thing you could ever bank on.

ADAM SANDLER:

Herlihy and I wrote a movie, Billy Madison, and we said, “This could be pretty funny, maybe we could do this.” And I showed it to Lorne, and he read it and told me, “There’s some funny stuff” but that maybe this shouldn’t be my first vehicle. And I remember saying, “Oh, okay, all right, I guess I’ll just write something else.” I didn’t have