Live From New York - James H. Miller [74]
ALAN ZWEIBEL:
There used to be a Japanese restaurant downstairs in the Woodward Hotel on Fifty-fourth Street that was open ’til like four in the morning; so we used to go there all the time. I remember a Friday night I was there with Gilda. It must’ve been about one-thirty in the morning. There was a newsstand in the hotel lobby. When I went to the men’s room, I saw the latest edition of the Daily News; it said that Mr. Ed had died. I went back into the restaurant and I said to Gilda, “Mr. Ed just died.” She said, “Wouldn’t it be great if tomorrow night on ‘Update’” — and I completed what I knew she was going to say — “we interview the grieving widow, Mrs. Ed.”
So I’m mulling this over and I can’t stop thinking about it; somehow we have to do this. I go to a phone and call Lorne at home and tell him, “Listen, Mr. Ed just died, can I interview Mrs. Ed?” He said, “You get a horse, you can do whatever the fuck you want.” So it’s two o’clock in the morning; how do I find a white horse? I wouldn’t know how to find a white horse at noon. So I call a prop guy at home, and tell him Mr. Ed just died and I want a white horse for this “Update” thing.
Now in those days I used to come in at seven on Saturday morning to get a start on “Update.” There was a restaurant downstairs; I’d get all the newspapers and sit there and write jokes. So I start writing this Mrs. Ed interview. Bill Murray was going to interview her and Gilda was going to do the voice. Now Audrey in the production department finds me at the restaurant and she says, “Who’s getting the white horse?” I said, “I called a prop guy, he’ll take care of it.” She threw her hands in the air. She says, “You don’t ask them about white horses.” I said, “Who do I ask?” She says, “I’ll take care of it.”
I swear to God, an hour and a half later there’s a white horse in the studio. I went up to Audrey and said, “Where did you get the horse?” She wouldn’t tell me. But she was the person who could make anything happen.
TOM DAVIS:
We were going to do a Franken and Davis sketch — I think it was in the fourth year — and we’re dressed as sumo wrestlers. And I suddenly stop and just announce that we’re gay.
AL FRANKEN:
Tom says he can’t stand it anymore, we’re gay lovers, and I go, “My wife and kid are here.” “They don’t know?” “No, they don’t know!” And the kid is in the audience going, “I hate you, Daddy! I hate you, hate you, hate you, Daddy!” Then I go back behind the curtain, you hear a gunshot go off, and my legs sort of flop out from under the curtain. Then our music plays and I come out and we go, “Good night, everybody!” And that was it; that was a “Franken and Davis Show.” And for a while we would say, “Brought to you by the International Communist Party — working for you, in Africa!”
TOM DAVIS:
And where the censor got involved is, we’re dressed in these sumo outfits, basically naked. Our genitals are covered in the front, but our asses are hanging out. Just being naked. And the Standards and Practices people hadn’t seen the costumes. So Al and I put on the sumo outfits and went down to the fourth floor, and we’re just walking around NBC naked, and we walked into the office of the head censor, Herminio Traviesas, and he just started laughing, and he said, “All right, I give up!”
DAN AYKROYD:
Naturally the censors didn’t like the refrigerator repairman sketch, where I kneeled down and the audience could see the crack of my ass. And the censor said, “Don’t put that pencil in there.” I was checking this fridge and I had to put the pencil somewhere. “Don’t put the pencil there!” And of course I said I wouldn’t, but then on the air, I did. And you know — massive laugh.
ALAN ZWEIBEL:
Gilda was doing Emily Litella, who would get some topic rolling because she was so hard of hearing, and so she would try to defend violins on television and Chevy would correct her and tell her, “No, it’s not violins, it’s violence.” “Oh, that’s very different. Never mind.” So that worked and it was cute for about a year, and now Jane Curtin is on “Update” and we wanted to give more life