Live From New York - James H. Miller [228]
NORM MACDONALD, Cast Member:
Me and Jim were kind of like alone at SNL, you know, especially when the new bunch came in. In many ways they resented Jim, because he was much smarter and funnier than them. And he was like the old crew, you know what I mean? When he went over to “Update,” I think they would have been happier to have him gone. After Jim got fired as a producer, I think it shocked the new establishment there that I wanted him to come to do “Update” with me. It was weird for everybody.
Jim liked just doing “Update,” because we figured it wasn’t that important to the show, you know, and we could just do whatever and they’d leave us alone. I didn’t even want to go to dress rehearsal, because I didn’t care about the audience reaction at all. It would have been fine with me if we’d never rehearsed it and I could just do the jokes that I thought were funny, because I have more faith in me and Jim than I did in any audience. I just like doing jokes I like, and if the audience doesn’t like them, then they’re wrong, not me.
DON OHLMEYER, NBC Executive:
That was part of the problem. Not part of the problem; that was the whole problem. I think what you have there, in Norm’s statement, is the quintessential issue. When Saturday Night Live is really good, they do care what the audience thinks. And when Saturday Night Live is not really good, they’re kind of doing it for themselves and their pals. That was what I felt was the weakness of “Weekend Update” at that time, which was that they were doing it for themselves. There were a lot of inside references. There were times when you would go an entire “Update” with nothing more than a titter. You can pull out the tapes. I’ve looked at them — ten times. And looked at them and looked at them and looked at them, because I wanted to make sure I wasn’t being an asshole in this.
CHEVY CHASE, Cast Member:
Norm said he didn’t care if the audience laughed? What’s shocking about that? That’s sort of the way I felt — that as long as six guys on a couch behind that camera that I was looking into laughed, and I knew those guys, then I was there.
One has to do that, you know, and one has to figure what’s going to work and what isn’t. Of all the other “Update” guys, the one who was the funniest to me was Norm. Because he just came out and said it. Perhaps that’s the writing — Jim Downey and those guys’ writing. But it’s also Norm’s quality of “I don’t care.” You can take that too far in your life as an entertainer-performer and maybe it would affect — in a negative way — other things that you do. I’m just suggesting that that’s a quality that lends itself to being successful, as an “Update” guy and as an actor on Saturday Night Live, which is not caring whether people say you’re good or not, only that you have your integrity, and that you think it’s good.
NORM MACDONALD:
I said “fuck” one time during “Update.” Something got caught in my throat and I went, “What the fuck was that?” If I hadn’t brought attention to it, I don’t think anybody would have even heard it. I pointed it out, because I couldn’t believe I said it — although I’m usually shocked that I didn’t say it, you know what I mean? It takes a lot of discipline not to say “fuck.” In sketches you’ve got to say what’s on the cards, but in “Update” I would do the joke and then say whatever I wanted afterwards. So when you’re just talking like that, you can easily say “fuck.” I like to say it a lot in real life. Anyway, Ohlmeyer said it was cool. He was good about it. He said he knew I didn’t do it on purpose. Ohlmeyer should have fired me then, but he was cool.
As for Lorne, he left us alone for the most part. That’s what I liked about Lorne. Sometimes he would say, “You don’t want to do a joke like that, because you want to avoid a lawsuit,” you