Live From New York - James H. Miller [32]
And then after a while, he started to chuckle. And then he’d actually laugh. And I figured, “Well, if he likes it, it’s going to have a wider audience than most people think.”
AL FRANKEN:
I felt very confident that the show was going to work. It was youthful arrogance, I guess. I looked around and I thought, “This has never been on TV before, and this will work, this should work, and of course it’s going to be a hit” — which is an attitude I’ve never actually had since.
LORNE MICHAELS:
The only note we got from the network on the first show was, “Cut the bees.” And so I made sure to put them in the next show. I had them come out and talk to Paul Simon. He says, “It didn’t work last week. It’s cut.” And they go, “Oh,” and just walk off.
PAUL SIMON, Host:
I was up for doing the very first show. It didn’t seem like there was much downside risk. Then Lorne said, “No, let me just work out the kinks on the first show.” But I would’ve been happy to do the first show. It would’ve been more historical. But he went with George Carlin, and I did the second one.
EDIE BASKIN:
They had used publicity pictures of Carlin for the first show. I already had pictures of Paul Simon, so my pictures of Paul became the bumpers. And then Lorne said to me, “I think you should photograph next week’s host instead of using publicity pictures.” And that’s how it all started.
PENNY MARSHALL, Guest Performer:
I met Lorne when he came out and talked to Rob about hosting the third show. I wasn’t anybody; I’d been on The Odd Couple, but Laverne and Shirley didn’t go on until four months later. Rob was on All in the Family. I listened to Lorne talk to Rob at Lorne’s apartment, and I kept my mouth shut. At the end, Lorne said to me, “Penny, what do you think?” And I said, “I think you’re the most manipulative human being I’ve ever met, and you do it beautifully.” And we’ve been friends ever since.
NEIL LEVY:
Rob Reiner refused to go on after dress rehearsal. I was in his dressing room. It was hilarious because it was like a monologue, him going, “I can’t do this show, I can’t do this show! It’s bad, it’s horrible, I’m going to make mistakes, I don’t know the lines, I can’t do it, I’m not doing it, I’m sorry, that’s it!” And it was like he was not going to do it. And Lorne just talked him through it. And of course Rob did a good show.
ALBERT BROOKS:
We had agreed on how I would make these movies, and certainly I wasn’t going to make a living off of it. If I remember correctly, we agreed on a budget of like a thousand dollars a minute, which I bring up because it’s funny that I was actually able to do that. I think all six films probably cost, you know, fifty grand. Most of the films were four minutes, but one — the open-heart surgery movie — ran thirteen minutes, and Lorne refused to air it. But then Rob Reiner, who is my close friend, hosted the show and insisted on showing it. Otherwise, it would have never been seen.
LORNE MICHAELS:
My agreement with Albert had been for films of three to five minutes. I’d wanted three, he wanted five. Because the heart surgery one was thirteen minutes, it necessitated commercials in the middle and on either end — which meant we were away from the live show for close to twenty minutes.
CRAIG KELLEM:
One of Albert’s films got lost at the Grand Central Station post office and he went completely apeshit. No one could find it. So Albert, long-distance, through his willpower and his endless energy, managed to actually find the specific postal clerk who had handled it. It was like a whole investigation conducted by Albert Brooks to find the lost film, which he eventually did.
BARBARA GALLAGHER:
I was in an office with Eugene Lee and Franne Lee,