Live From New York - James H. Miller [33]
Albert was always wanting more money. Lorne only needed like tiny pieces and we were getting ten- and twelve-minute pieces. And he’d be on the phone complaining and I’d say, “Albert, we have a whole show here, you can’t do those things, we don’t have the time.” He was good about it, but it was constant, constant, “You can’t do this, Albert.” Finally Penelope would sit on him and get him to cut the film.
HERBERT SCHLOSSER:
The Albert Brooks films never appealed to me, to be honest with you. They slowed the show down. I think he’s a brilliant guy, but I just didn’t find him that funny.
JUDITH BELUSHI:
In the first three shows, John was the opening scene of the first show and I don’t think he had a good scene again for three shows. Something that made a break of sorts was the third or fourth bee scene, when he went off on “I hate being a bee” and this whole “bee” thing, and he had his antennae swinging around his head in some special way. It was really the first time he got to show his personality and show that there was more to him, and he got a great response. But it took a while. It was slow to grow.
CANDICE BERGEN, Host:
After the first couple shows, the dynamics of everything became so complicated and so loaded. People were learning things. They realized that you couldn’t do the show stoned, because they were missing their costume changes. A live show was not compatible with grass. And then the burnout rate was so high, especially for the writers, because they were really just putting in all-nighters routinely.
CHEVY CHASE:
On “Weekend Update,” I was being a newscaster; I was being Roger Grimsby, actually. You know, it came out of that: “Good evening, I’m Roger Grimsby, and here now the news.” One of the strangest pieces of syntax I’ve ever heard in my life: “And here now the news.” But I knew I should say something. And on the fourth show, it just came out: “Good evening. I’m Chevy Chase, and you’re not.” And that was it.
CRAIG KELLEM:
There was a momentum from the beginning, but what was interesting was that, even though I don’t remember the ratings being unbelievable after the first couple of shows, Lorne — ever the decider of what was what — decided the show was a hit right from the beginning and acted out of that belief, and it was infectious. I remember what he said. He said, quote, “I guess we’re a hit.” I thought, “Where’s that coming from?” But it was vintage Lorne Michaels. He believed it was a hit. He felt good about it. It got on the air. He looked on the bright side of the numbers and the bright side of the reviews. He certainly got good feedback from friends and family. And that was it. It was a hit show. It’s wonderful, the strength of his belief in how he sees things in this world.
He’s also not the type of guy who’s going to humbly share credit for something when he feels and thinks that it’s his baby, and why should he share, particularly with Dick Ebersol? Ebersol came from ABC, where he worked for Roone Arledge, and Roone managed to work his way into being executive producer and was also the network guy. So I think Ebersol kind of wanted to follow in Roone’s path and had a sort of stage-door-Johnny aspect to his persona and wanted to be part of it and wanted to be one of the gang. But he wasn’t one of the gang. He was Dick Ebersol from NBC.
DICK EBERSOL:
Lorne and I never had any real disagreements between us until the fourth show, the first time Candice Bergen did the show. There was a complete fuckup that night