I love snl’s show yesterday.The sketch with 1-800-eat-…It was good.Finally something that isn’t boring.They need more shocking stuff,but It’s hard to shock anyone nowadays.
Nobody said things would be easy,and nobody was right-George Bush.
The home security commercial was pretty shocking - and very funny. “Because there are a lot of dirty freaks out there.”
Jerry Seinfeld, though, blech. David Bowie was great.
I hope this isn’t violating any rules here, but I am super curious about the answers to these questions, primarily question number 1!!
Q(1) Where were Eddie Murphy and Joe Piscopo on sunday night? Is there so much ill will between them and the show that they couldn’t go back to celebrate?
Q(2) There was a season about 5-10 years ago that was so bad that Lorne Michaels swore he’d never show any reruns of it. Exactly which year was that? Did anyone from that season even appear in the audience?
Q(3) Was anyone else missing?
Seriously, no one who knows is talking? Since all we have is speculation anyway, please allow me to do my utmost to answer those questions.
A(1) The reports of animosity between Murphy and Piscopo mostly exist in newspaper reporting at the time. I just finished watching the “snl in the 80’s” documentary/clip show in which Joe Piscopo could not have spoken more highly about Eddie Murphy. Kazurinski said Eddie was a mench and often would ask that his fellow performers get to perform more sketches (since at the time it really was the eddie murphy show (w/ joe piscopo)). I could go two ways with this, one, there are lawyers involved (public image and the like) that have necessitated the silence, and their non-admittance to the snl 25 year special. Or, option 2… perhaps the more reasonable one, in which we get to understand as snl fans/viewers that eveyone is a piece of shit, especially popular performers! SNL is aired from the capitol of capitalism, and behind the scenes is not a loving company of actors, but an unceasing popularity war. Piscopo had every reason to be jealous of Eddie, even considering in the 80’s documentary he magnanomously suggested that he fought for getting eddie involved in the cast because he didn’t want the superstardom. Sounds like an awfully fishy position for an actor to take. Eddie was very vocal about being “better” than the show, not just based on his hollywood success, and I’m sure that young, arrogant, and talented performer pissed a lot of people off. Anyone who knows the truth, please step forward!!! Rich Hall, I am looking at you!!! Surely you must know something!! By the way, Rich Hall is excellent in case you didn’t know. Watch the old SNL with him in it, and watch QI (I was stunned when I saw the refrigerator magnet gag he re-used on QI, done as the original sketch on SNL)! (P.S. david spade called murphy a “falling star” on air in 1989, and murphy demanded an apology from lorne michaels, who refused. Clearly there was pre-existing animosity between snl and eddie murphy)
A(2) I am not totally sure, I have not heard/seen this Lorne Michaels quote. It could possibly be the denny dillon year (can you believe how ill prepared Jean was to cast/run that show?), but I think it is more likely to be one of “his” seasons he was reffering to. That season (11) ended with a sketch involving lorne, john lovitz and the snl cast all burning in flames, then when the credits rolled, ? marks were put by all of their names. Word is, only lorne and lovitz found that funny, most of the rest of them were fired. It was the first season he had returned and the show still sucked as badly as when he had been gone. I am pretty sure if there is a season which he personally wouldn’t want aired it would be season 11. (fascinating idea for that season though, the breakfast club meets snl)
A(3) I did not see Rich Hall in that audience!! But seriously, except for the intro with bill murray, not much camera time was pointed towards the audience. So unless they were there to preform as well, I have no idea if they were there or not. Does someone have the listing of attendance/invites? You definitely got the distinct impression from the 25 year anniversary special that eddie was invited and chose not to come, but who knows if this is even true.
Since this ancient thread has been revived, I’ll mention that, just the other day, I was randomly wondering why Eddie Murphy, almost uniquely among all poeple who have been involved with SNL, has so completely disassociated himself from the show. Anyone know anything?
Zobie alert!
When this thread was started, there was no Cafe Society for movies, tv, etc. Now there is.
Moved from General Questions to Cafe Society.
samclem, Moderator
It seems to me that after Eddie Murphy was arrested for picking up the transvestite hooker, SNL’s Weekend Update anchor at the time (Dennis Miller or Kevin Nealon?) made several blistering, balls-out jokes about the situation, and I wonder if that didn’t keep him away from appearing on the subsequent SNL anniversary specials…
Is 12 years 9 months and whatever a record?
Since the OP was written there’s been a bookshelf or two written about SNL. I’ve read some of them, but I’d like to read Gasping For Airtime by Jay Mohr, which I understand goes into detail on how much blood there is over just a minute or two of extra airtime. Chris Rock also had negative things to say about the back fighting (but Chris Rock is a bitchy little girl so no surprise there).
What I’ve wondered: back in the 90s Murphy had a very straight laced reputation as a drug free family man. (Hooker, divorce, Spice Girl, etc. has tarnished that, though to my knowledge he’s still one of the most clean living superstars where drugs are concerned.) Piscopo otoh had a reputation as a womanizer and, due to his super buff period, was rumored to use steroids. I’ve wondered if those things combined to a falling out.
Though sometimes you have people you like at work but just don’t keep tabs with once you move on- everybody here who’s worked more than two jobs has been there. Essentially, co-stars are co-workers, and work-friends aren’t necessarily off-work-friends.
That Jay Mohr book is a fascinating read.
I am not too up with Jay Mohr’s career or what he is like in his personal life, but for some reason it kind of surprised me when he recently mentioned on a late-night talk show I was watching (Craig Ferguson?) that he attends Mass every single day.
As I mentioned, I don’t know much about the guy, but he wasn’t someone I would have guessed was deeply religious.
Is a “Zobie” like a Tony for Zombies?
In 1975, that described just about everyone I knew. 
I remember how great we all thought the show was.
1980-81 was the first season after all the remaining originals left, isn’t it? That’s when I stopped watching. Just wasn’t funny.
A few random points:
[ol]
[li]Christine Ebersole is not related to Dick Ebersol (notice the different spellings).[/li][li]There were originally two shows from the original cast that Lorne swore would never be re-run: Louise Lasser’s in the first season and Milton Berle’s in the fourth. Lorne eventually relented on Lasser, but has maintained that if he has anything to say about the matter, the Berle episode will be buried with Lorne himself, never to be seen again.[/li][li]Ironically, several years before hosting SNL, Milton Berle was a presenter at the 1976 Emmy Awards, which was the year SNL swept the awards. That put the show on the map.[/li][li]Jean Doumanian, who took over as producer in 1980, had been the show’s “associate producer” (read: talent coordinator) during the original run. She had virtually no experience in running a show, which is why almost none of the original production team believed she could do it.[/li][li]Dick Ebersol, who took over from Doumanian, was NBC’s director of late-night programming when NBC President Herb Schlosser thought up the concept of a late-night comedy variety show on Saturday night. Ebersol hired Lorne Michaels, who had wanted to do such a show for years. Michaels saw Ebersol as an ambitious, inexperienced schmuck, but at least Ebersol knew how to navigate network politics. Once the show was on the air, Michaels did some backstage manuevering to get Ebersol promoted to vice-president, effectively removing him from the picture.[/li][li]Ebersol hired Michael O’Donoghue, the original show’s head writer, in 1981 as his Chief of Staff. Once the show was somewhat successful again. Ebersol began to get more hands on, which infuriated MO’D. After enduring weeks of MO’D’s tirades, Ebersol fired him during the Christmas break.[/li][/ol]
Dick Ebersol is (was?) married to the stunning Susan St. James, (who is many years younger than Ebersol, a significant age gap even for Hollywood) and several years back, they were flying back from their vacation home in Aspen CO. with their son Teddy when their private jet crashed during takeoff and Teddy was killed in the accident…
Just watched that one–I’d never seen it before, even though I have the Season 4 DVD set. It’s a stinker, all right. Especially Berle’s endless, mawkish, time-filling monologue at the end. The only funny sketch in the whole show is Dan Aykroyd doing his Irwin Mainway routine.
According to wikipedia, St James is a little less than a year older than Ebersol…
Were other cast members from the non-Lorne years on the special? SNL has been Lorne’s little cult for a long time, and he may just not consider those to be his show. That would cut out Eddie Murphy, Joe Piscopo, and a lot of other people.
Piscopo was on the 1989 anniversary special but not the 1999 one. In terms of guest hosting, I know Martin Short (1985-85) has done it several times as has Julia Louis-Dreyfus (1982-85). Murphy hasn’t done anything with the show since guest-hosting in 1984.
I vaguely remember reading excerpts from a book on SNL that mentioned one female cast member and said the writer had no idea what ever happened to her. Not much to go on, but does that ring a bell for anyone?
This is all just from my memories, but:
Eddie Murphy from the start had a very unsentimental, strictly business relationship with SNL. I remember reading an early interview (in TV Guide no less!) with him sometime between his 2nd & 3rd season with the show. He states matter-of-factly that in that disastrous first season he knew he was the best thing on the show, and yet they held him back. He said, “They tried to Garret Morris me!” The network didn’t want any break out stars to emerge because that had caused turmoil (and big salary requests) in the show’s initial run (Chevy quit after one season, Belushi & Ackroyd wanted to soon after). This plus as others mentioned the new producer didn’t know what she was doing. Even so Eddie Murphy was a bonafide star at the end of that horrible first season, and he knew it. But he was (and still is) smart about his career so he came back for a couple more years, made his first hit movie, 48 Hrs, while still doing the show, then when the time was right he moved on.
Point is Saturday Night Live owes much more to Eddie Murphy than he owes to it. He’d have been a star one way or the other, but without him SNL literally might have been canceled after that awful sixth season. And he did it all without ever being an annoying, egotistical prima donna. He knew exactly how talented he was and how best to make use of it. He’s certainly made more than his share of stinkers, but he’s made enough good stuff to overshadow all of it. And his beginnings on SNL are only about one tenth of one percent of his body of work (though some of the most consistently good) so why should he ever want to dwell on it?
It can be seen on the DVD of Season 4.
IMHO he is doing it as a career move.
For whatever reason, the populace at large finds him to be unlikeable.
Every former host was invited, except the one from Season 3, Episode 12…OJ Simpson