Live From New York - James H. Miller [275]
With videotaped good-byes from the cast closing out the show, all that remained for the night was the season-ending party, held downstairs at 30 Rock. There was the usual mass gathering of New York chic, and the traditional more private room for Michaels, the cast, writers, and VIP’s. Donald Trump stood around and watched, while Yankees pitcher David Wells and his wife hung out with former Yankee ace David Cone. Music blared, many danced, but most of all, people seemed to be taking a deep breath. There would be no pressures Monday to invent material for another host, just the promise of summer. Ana Gasteyer would be having a baby, Jimmy Fallon was running off to do a movie for Woody Allen, Tina Fey was writing a movie for Paramount, and so forth.
WILL FERRELL:
We can’t use the word “graduated.” I said that to Lorne once and he said, “I hate that word.” On my last night, the biggest overriding feeling really was that of it being very surreal. It was emotional at times and then strange in the sense that I had so much to do, and was moving around so much from sketch to sketch that it didn’t even really hit me until the very end. And even then I tended to focus on how something played better at dress than it did on air, like I did every week. It got to me more after the show; it was sort of a “retirement party meets a wedding reception.” There was a sense of accomplishment but a sense of I was glad it was over. I will miss most the obvious things — the personal relationships and the people. I’ll miss most the moments you’ll never see: the goofing around during the blocking of sketches on Thursday and Friday. Those were the parts of the week that were the most fun for me. That seventeenth floor has the same feeling of living in a dorm, except that everybody is doing comedy, and I liked that feeling.
What I’ll miss the least for sure is the crazy hours, especially Tuesday night. There really is no reason why we have to come in late on Tuesday and work late and write sketches until seven A.M. It’s a remnant of the coke days, I think. It was fun at first in a weird sort of way, but after seven years of doing it, you have to say, “Wait a minute — why do we do it that way?”
What I hope to do now is establish a career in features; that would be great. My dream of all dreams would be to do what Tom Hanks and Jim Carrey have been able to do: make the transition somewhere down the line from doing comedy to dramatic parts in the movies.
On May 21, 2002 — a few days after that final show of the season — about 150 members of the Saturday Night Live family, past and present, gathered in Studio 8H to pay tribute to Audrey Peart Dickman, one of the show’s producers from its beginnings in 1975 to 1993, who had died the previous summer. Dickman occupied a special place in the hearts of the show’s cast and crew for more than two decades; thus the occasion became a rare moment when the show’s past and present met in the show’s home studio.
Chevy Chase chatted amicably with Bill Murray, old animosities gone with the wind, or rather with the passing years. Old-timer Dan Aykroyd joked with new-timers Jimmy Fallon and Tina Fey and Horatio Sanz. Such veteran writers as Rosie Shuster, Marilyn Suzanne Miller, Ann Beatts, Herb Sargent, and Alan Zweibel showed up, like graduates at homecoming.
Lorne welcomed everyone to 8H, made very brief remarks, said he had difficulty speaking about Audrey, and left the stage. Murray, among those memoralizing Dickman, recalled