DALLAS, TEXAS – I
was a devoted fan of “Saturday Night Live” through its golden age, which was
its first five seasons from 1975 to 1980, where such legendary cast members as
Dan Aykroyd, Chevy Chase, Bill Murray, Jane Curtin and the late John Belushi
and Gilda Radner changed the face of late night and comedy television with such
memorable characters as the Samurai, the Blues Brothers, Roseanne
Roseannadanna, and the Coneheads. In fact, during that five-year-period, I made
sure I was home by 11:30 every Saturday night to catch every new episode of 90
minutes filled with great comedy, memorable hosts and unforgettable musical
guests (which became the talk every Monday morning with my friends at the Sir
Winston Churchill High School cafeteria).
So imagine my
surprise when last week, I was chosen to be the lead staff person during a
Saturday morning talk session with former SNL staff writer Alan Zweibel, who
worked with the show during that golden age, at BBYO’s annual International
Convention, which took place last weekend in Dallas.
Zweibel fascinated
the standing room only crowd made up of mainly teenage BBYO members from around
the world, as he recounted to them his multi-faceted career as a comedy writer.
He talked about his comedy influences (which included Mel Brooks and Dick Van
Dyke), his rather inauspicious start as a stand-up comedian, and the
realization that he could make better money as a comedy writer, in which he
began by providing jokes to other comics and talk show hosts, for which he was
paid a princely sum of $7 for every joke that was used.
Although he has
written for “Curb Your Enthusiasm”, has written several books (including his
affectionate memoir of his friendship with the late Gilda Radner called Bunny
Bunny) and screenplays, the main focus of Zweibel’s talk was his years at
SNL, and offered a lot of great backstage stories of how he came up with some
of his best sketches, and the hazards of writing jokes and sketches for a
90-minute live TV show on a weekly basis. My favorite anecdotes included his
unusual job interview with Lorne Michaels in 1975 for the job as one of the
original SNL writers (he produced a binder filled with 1,000 jokes, yet
Michaels hired him on the basis of reading only one of his jokes in the
binder); how he sat under the “Weekend Update” desk and grinded out jokes while
the segment was on the air, and handed them to the anchors when he completed
each joke; the trouble with an out of control horse during a “Bill Murray’s
Celebrity Corner” interview segment on Weekend Update with “Mrs. Ed” in 1979; his
favorite host (Steve Martin) and not-so-favorite host (Milton Berle); and his
constant run-ins with the show’s resident censor.
And Zweibel
announced to his admiring audience that he is currently writing two new plays, is
about to work on a new season of “Curb Your Enthusiasm”, and is releasing a
book called For This We Left Egypt?, which is a parody of the Haggadah,
a prayer book that is used during the Jewish holiday of Passover (and will be
the subject of a future review in my Book Banter column). And after the session
was over, Zweibel spent about an additional 15 minutes chatting with some of
the teen audience members, in which he posed for pictures and offered advice to
those who want to pursue a career in comedy and comedy writing. As for me,
Zweibel posed for a picture with me, and graciously autographed my copy of Live
From New York, the excellent oral history of Saturday Night Live, in which
he was one of the many show’s alumni who were interviewed for that book. For a
devoted fan of Saturday Night Live’s golden years, it was great to come in
contact with one of the people who made that golden age happen.
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