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So what happens is, Fred Silverman is blindsided by this thing at home and goes into a complete rage. He thinks that I’m responding to his canceling the meeting with me by calling him a lame-o on national television. And what are you going to say — that it wasn’t me? Then he’d think I’m such a wuss that I allow Al Franken to just steamroll me against my own better career instincts. Anyway, it all blows up and that’s that. And then his hurt feelings lead to my hurt feelings. It all seemed to be end-of-season emotions, which are just end-of-season emotions — that time when you never want to see anybody again ever. The upshot of it all was that Fred took it personally, and that put a further strain between him and me, and we never did meet.

FRED SILVERMAN:

I never liked Al Franken to begin with. You don’t mind it if somebody like John Belushi gets up there and makes jokes about you, because I respected his talent and he was funny. But I thought this piece that Franken did was just very mean-spirited and not very funny. I don’t think I called Lorne about it. I think I sent a letter, a note or something, to Franken and said in no uncertain terms that I thought he was way off base and that I wasn’t going to forget it. And I believe he left the show shortly thereafter. I don’t believe he stayed on the show very long. I don’t think Lorne put the sketch in there to be mean. He never did a sketch to be mean. That was not his style. I never blamed Lorne personally.

WARREN LITTLEFIELD, NBC Executive:

Brandon was sitting in the audience and they had just done the “Limo” sketch and a page comes over and says, “Mr. Tartikoff, you have a phone call.” And he says, “Who is it?” And the page goes, “A screaming Mr. Silverman.” Brandon stopped for a second and then asked, “Did you tell him that you knew where I was?” The page said, “No, we were just told to find you.” Brandon said, “Okay then, tell him you can’t find me.”

Brandon just couldn’t take it. Here it was, midnight on Saturday night, and he just couldn’t take Fred screaming at him at that hour. We always thought that was a wonderful lesson that Brandon was imparting to us about survival in the executive ranks.

BARBARA GALLAGHER, NBC Vice President:

I went to Lorne when I saw the “Limo for a Lame-O” sketch in rehearsal. He said, “Too much, huh?” I said, “Yes.” He said, “Go talk to Franken.” So I go over to Al, and Al goes, “Wasn’t that the greatest?! Didn’t you love it?!” I said, “Al, I’m not going to censor you, it’s not my job. I’m just telling you it’s pretty dicey right now. Fred’s in a bad way, and this is really going to hurt him.” And Al said, “Good, because he hurt Lorne.” So I went back to Lorne, and Lorne said, “I’ll take care of it.”

Well, the bit was worse when it came on the air. I was home watching the show. The phone rang; it was Fred. When he couldn’t get Brandon, he called me. He said, “Did you know about this?” I said, “I did.” He said, “And you didn’t do anything about it?” I said that I’d told Al we weren’t going to censor him but that it was too much. Fred said, “You call Lorne and tell him how hurt I am and how could he do that, how could he let that go on at this time?” Fred had offered Lorne the world to stay on at Saturday Night Live. He wanted him to stay. He’d said, “Whatever you need, whatever you want — just stay.”

So I call over to Lorne and Al gets on the phone and says, “So, Fred’s pissed at me?” I said, “No, Al, he’s not mad at you.” Al said, “Well, it’s not Lorne’s fault.” I said, “Yeah, it is. He’s the producer.” Al said, “Lorne lets us do what we want to do.” I said, “Fred is really hurt. If you heard his voice, he is really hurting.” So Lorne gets on the phone. He says, “Is he mad?” I said, “No, he’s hurt, and he’s blaming you.”

I was right in the middle of all this. And if you know me, I hate confrontation. I’m worse than Lorne. I will run 3,000 miles the other direction or get a root canal before I have a confrontation.