60 Minutes - From Saturday Night Live to Sunday with 60 Minutes | 60 Minutes: A Second Look

Episode Date: October 29, 2024

Name a successful comedian of the last five decades and chances are, they got their start on Saturday Night Live -- under the direction of Lorne Michaels. As SNL enters its 50th season, we share never-before-heard audio from Lesley Stahl's 2004 interview with the show’s famously private creator and executive producer, who allowed 60 Minutes cameras unique behind-the-scenes access. Stahl also spoke with Amy Poehler, Tina Fey and Seth Meyers as they pitched, wrote and rehearsed sketches up until 11:30 Saturday night. Plus, 60 Minutes producer Denise Schrier Cetta shares what it was like filming the same week as one of the most controversial musical performances in SNL history. If you enjoyed this episode of "60 Minutes: A Second Look", find and follow the show on your favorite podcast app. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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The voice you just heard was Amy Poehler. Up next, Seth Meyers. I grew up in New Hampshire. I went to school at Northwestern. How old are you? I'm 30. Okay, Tina. And here's Tina Fey, fresh off the success of her first film, Mean Girls. I'm 34. You hear that, Hollywood?

I'm 34. Suck on that. But this was no ordinary interview. When you walk through the halls of this place and you see the pictures of, I mean, the gauntlet that you have to walk through, it just can get unbearable. It just gets overwhelming to think that you have to somehow live up to all that stuff. Stahl and her team were spending an entire week with the cast and crew of the longest running late night show in television history. Live from New York, it's Saturday night. You know, our big ask was that we have complete access.

And they opened the doors for us. We were there the entire week as they created the show from scratch. Writer name, Polar. Boom. Sketch title, Anything Is Funny This Late At Night. That's the name of the sketch. I know anything is funny this late at night. That's the name of the sketch. The Saturday Night Live cast and crew invited 60 Minutes into their pitch meetings and writing sessions, rehearsals, and the lead-up to broadcast. I want everyone to look at the clock. It's 11 o'clock. You're on the air in less than 30 minutes. A close look rarely granted to outsiders.

Even more unusual was the time they spent one-on-one with the show's famously private creator. Comedy is very powerful, you know. Can get to the truth. Yeah, very quickly to the truth. And that laugh that comes from recognition is a very powerful thing. I think someone said Lorne Michaels is the man behind the curtain, the Wizard of Oz, but that's kind of the impression that you get when you meet him and you're in the offices.

He is kind of behind that curtain pulling all the levers. What Lorne Michaels created as a renegade late-night show featuring a cast of unknowns has become an American institution, this year celebrating its 50th season. And even though 60 Minutes recorded hours of interviews with the wizard himself, only about three and a half minutes ever made it onto the screen. All of what you're going to hear throughout this episode is what was left on the so-called cutting room floor. And there was a lot left, including some touchy subjects, drug use, and difficult personalities. We have heard in our research that you can be aloof. Aloof, yes. Yes. Yes. And sometimes tyrannical.

We'll also hear more of the never broadcast excerpts from some of those comedians who know the legendary TV producer best. It's like working for the Sphinx, because almost everything he tells you seems to be couched in riddle. And we'll find out what happened when 60 Minutes was on set for one of SNL's biggest fiascos. That was the first time in 30 years that anyone had walked off the set in the middle of the show. And then we had to go back to our offices and figure out what we were going to do

with this episode. I'm Seth Doan, and this is 60 Minutes, a second look. Today, one of the greatest comedic minds of the last 50 years and the legacy of the show he created. You guys have been capturing the real stuff, for real. Until you came to this room. Hi, Denise.

Hi, nice to meet you. Nice to meet you. Denise Schreier-Chedeb has been a producer at 60 Minutes for 27 years. And I have been watching 60 Minutes and Saturday Night Live since as long ago as I can remember. You put the two of them together. I did, yes. Cheda has been a fan of SNL since childhood, even though her parents were strict about TV time. They called it the one-eyed monster. In fact, if they were away and we were at home alone,

my mom would come back and put her hand on the television to make sure that it wasn't warm, that we hadn't broken the rules. So you would wind up working in television? What does that say about you? Right. I know. I've wondered about that frequently, but the two things that I always had permission to watch were 60 Minutes and Saturday Night Live. And Saturday Night Live was a little bit more rogue. So it was a bit of a guilty pleasure and also a time when my mom would let down kind of her strict parenting style and just laugh with us. What made you think SNL deserves a spot on 60 Minutes? So when I started at 60 Minutes in the late 90s, one of the pieces of advice that I got from one of the higher ups was that when looking for profiles for 60 Minutes, we should be looking for

legends and trailblazers. And so to me, Lorne Michaels was both of those. He trailblazed a new style of comedy on television and became a legend. Why do you think they opened the doors? I think probably something about the trailblazer and legend argument appealed to Lorne Michaels. I recall Leslie Stahl having a phone call with Lorne Michaels to just discuss what this would be like. And our big ask was that we have complete access. And I remember someone telling me at the time that NBC had never let non-NBC cameras behind the scenes at Saturday Night Live. So this was a really big deal.

Chetta and Leslie Stahl started reporting this story in the fall of 2004. You went out to Michael's home on Long Island. Yeah, we went to Lauren's house. That was an unusual thing for him to do, to have journalists in his home, his kind of private area. Lorne Michaels was about to turn 60 when he sat down with Stahl. He'd spent half his life producing Saturday Night Live. So this is where you come to get away from it all, huh?

Yeah. Pretty nice. And have for a long time. And it's a sort of perfect antidote to the city. And you need this. You have to get it right. Yes, totally. It's restorative. Michaels and Stahl spoke for more than three hours over the course of the week. Okay, so you have created one of the funniest shows on television.

Right. So is that because you're funny? Well, it's always awkward to describe yourself as funny. It's a hard question. Yeah, I think probably. I think anybody who talks about comedy for longer than a minute or two and isn't funny probably shouldn't be taken seriously. So we'll see if in the course of this conversation I end up.

Yes, exactly. Well, this is not a quiz. Okay. All right. I know that's one of the worst questions. Be funny. That's awful. Well, I think there are people who can do it.

I think there are, you know, people who can kind of spontaneously erupt and they're funny. You know, I tend to be more dry, I think. You get this sense of his dry humor, but also he would think about every question before he answered with Leslie. It's always kind of startling when you go in to interview someone whose business is comedy, and he was very, very serious, very measured in everything he said, very, I think, suspicious of Leslie's intentions and wanting to make sure that he got every answer

exactly the way he wanted it. Did you grow up in a funny family? Well, I grew up, I think there's something about making your friends laugh that I think, I grew up in Canada

where there was a lot of, Where no one laughs. A lot of spare time, either driving around on a Friday night or hanging out with your friends, was you'd try and make each other laugh. I wasn't really a comedy nerd. I was... Being funny was just something you did

because it helped kill the time and... Were you the class clown? I think I probably... I don't think I was so much class clown, but I think, yeah, I think there were times. You were a cut up. Yeah, sometimes, yeah. But you started out in your career as a performer. Right, a performer, yeah. Lorne Michaels told Leslie Stahl that while he was working on a Canadian television show, he had an epiphany.

He liked all the behind thethe-scenes work more than performing. I noticed one day in the editing room, after watching about four or five hours of stuff, and I'd be looking around, checking the lighting, worried about things, and then this late would happen, and then I would have a big fake smile on my face. And I thought, I'm more interested in this other part. I'm more interested in how it comes together and all the elements. God, you're doing exactly what you wanted to do. Yeah, pretty much, yeah. Michaels relocated from Toronto to Los Angeles and in the late 1960s

got a job as a writer on Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In, a fast-paced comedy show with fake news sketches and political satire. That's where he met a young Goldie Hawn and Lily Tomlin. Tomlin later brought Michaels to work with her on some comedy specials, which got him noticed at NBC. But Michaels wanted his own show. I wonder what your original concept for the show was, what that first pitch to NBC was like. Well, I think I'd been sort of pitching the same show for a couple of years at

that point, but there wasn't that much interest in it because in that period when the three networks were dominant, the phrase would be used to dismiss the kind of stuff that I had been doing was it won't work in primetime. It won't work in, and then they'd pick someplace in the Midwest. Won't work in Peoria. Yeah, exactly. Right. Michaels was confident that what he liked would work in Peoria. I was of the generation that had grown up on television.

I used to say we knew television the way French kids know wine, but we knew television. So we knew good shows from bad shows, and it seemed to us that why would they choose those shows? I mean, it seemed so clear to us what the good shows were. Finally, in 1975, when Lorne Michaels was 30, NBC agreed to give him a time slot, but late at night with a younger audience, where Michaels could experiment and not risk offending the network's primetime viewers. And so on a certain level, it was allowed to develop in an obscure place because nobody cared about late night. The network certainly didn't.

Well, it was pretty popular right away, early on. Yeah, yeah. It kind of took off, didn't it? With a certain audience. I think that it came on right after Watergate. It was a very serious time. The 70s had been, you know, the beginnings of the examination of all the stuff that we'd swallowed whole in the 60s.

And comedy generally follows action. You know, there'd been big action in the culture. And I think it was, you know, what I tried to do was gather the most talented people I could find, people who would never at that point have been allowed to do a television show. Live from New York, it's Saturday Night! The first cast that Michaels assembled for Saturday Night Live would become giants. Starring the number one primetime player, Dan Aykroyd, John Belushi, Chevy Chase, James Curtin, Garrett Morris, Maureen Newman, Gilda Radner. They were raunchy and provocative, and there was nobody like them on TV at the time.

Gilda I'd known in Toronto. Dan Aykroyd I'd known in Toronto. Lorraine Newman I'd worked with on a Lily Tomlin show I'd done, and I knew how funny she was. Jane Curtin came out of an audition. Garrett Morris was hired as a writer. And Chevy, I'd originally met on a line in Los Angeles seeing a Monty Python film. In line? In line, yeah. No. Yeah. He's standing in line with you?

He was standing a few, either a few in front of me or a few behind me. But the people who were doing this knew each other or knew of each other. During a quick break in the interview, Michaels quietly told Leslie Stahl something else about that original cast. You can hear the camera crew setting up in the background as they chat. Everybody that I chose had gone through some screw-up in adolescence in that original group.

Either death of a parent, divorce, something. Some upheaval. They were all having some hole in their life. Yeah, from that and that. And got stuck in adolescence. You know?

Well, you know, you've actually said this. You said, now I know that your father died when you were 14 years old. And I read that you said that you think you got stuck in adolescence because of that. Is that right? Do you think that you're still an adolescent? I mean...

I'm considerably less since being a father, but I think there was a long period of time in which I thought it was all right to challenge authority. We've been talking about the environment in which this wonderful show was born and was nurtured. It was the middle 70s. It was also the time of the drug culture. And I've heard, and I know you've talked about this before, that drugs was kind of another cast member. Marijuana. I think there was a about this before, that drugs was kind of another cast member. Marijuana. I think there was a lot of stuff, obviously. I think we were no different than anybody else

who was working or living outside. I think it was never, or at least in my world, it wasn't in the show. It was there were parties afterwards, as there still are, in the sense that people was, there were parties afterwards, as there still are. I mean, in the sense that people, you pump that much adrenaline and it's 1 a.m. and the good nights are over and then people would go to a party. And, you know, I think there was just as much alcohol as there was anything else.

John Belushi died from a drug overdose in 1982. By that point, he'd left SNL, as had Lorne Michaels, who took a five-year break from the show starting in 1980. There was a period, which ended abruptly for me when John Belushi died, but there was something, a value system that was much more fraternal in the sense of whatever gets you through the night or who might have judged what somebody else does as long as people show up on time, can do their job, whatever. Clearly a bogus value system. And it didn't work. And I think people felt that, you know,

people's privacy and what they did was their own thing. When another cast member, Chris Farley, was struggling with addiction years after John Belushi died, Lorne Michaels sent Farley to rehab, though in 1997, Farley died of an overdose. It was two years after he departed the show. Do you remember what it was like to be in the room during that question about whether or not he ignored drug use? we have to ask the hard questions and it's not easy and you need to sit in that really uncomfortable feeling. And I think there's always a part of me that feels like, oh, it's too bad we have to ask this question. This is a painful question. And it certainly was for Lorne Michaels to talk about drugs at the show and some of the people who have died. I think Lauren,

he wouldn't say that he felt responsible, but anybody who is close to somebody who suffers from a substance use disorder and that ends their life, there's always, that's a horrible situation to be in and a burdensome feeling. So I think that's what we were sensing from Lorne. But again, he was very careful about how he responded to these questions about drugs and alcohol. There was alcoholism, there was bulimia. Uh-huh. And you were running all of this.

How did you deal with these problems? I think, first of all, I can sort of carbon date the moment where Gilda Radner saw herself on camera and thought she looked heavy. Because I remember being... When she looked like a total rail. Later, but I mean at the time. When she wasn't a rail.

Yeah, at the beginning. And I'd say, no, I think you look fine. But I think you know, and we all know, that when you're around people, when you're around cameras all the time, and you see your image all the time, you begin to put it under a microscope, and you start, you become much more dependent on the people who make you look good. But I'm trying to get at you. Sure.

Because you had alluded to it just a bit ago. I mean, you kind of, it was live and let you. Sure. This sort of, because you had alluded to it just a bit ago, and I mean, you kind of, it was live and let live. Yes. You know, here's our job, but we're doing our job as long as you're doing the job. It's your life. Right. Was that your attitude? No, I think my attitude was incredibly paternal. By the time that Lorne Michaels sat across from Leslie Stahl, he was firmly positioned as the patriarch of SNL. Aside from that five-year break from the show in the early 1980s, he'd shepherded generations of cast members to fame, among many others Dana Carvey, Mike Myers, Chris Rock, Adam Sandler,

Molly Shannon, and Will Ferrell. In 2004, he was presiding over a star-studded ensemble that included Maya Rudolph, Daryl Hammond, Tina Fey, Seth Meyers, and Amy Poehler. Wait, something is happening here. Something's happening here. I mean, are you guys feeling this? What it is ain't exactly clear. This is happening, right?

When we come back, you'll hear what happened when Leslie Stahl tried to get them to open up about Lauren Michaels. I've heard a lot that he's like a father, that he is paternal. I don't know that he is that paternal to us, but I do think that the way you feel about him is often a reflection of the way you feel about your own father. So if you have authority issues or daddy issues, they are going to come out here. There are very few things that you can be certain of in life. But you can always be sure the sun will rise each morning.

You can bet your bottom dollar that you'll always be sure the sun will rise each morning. You can bet your bottom dollar that you'll always need air to breathe and water to drink. And of course, you can rest assured that with Public Mobile's 5G subscription phone plans, you'll pay the same thing every month. With all of the mysteries that life has to offer, a few certainties can really go a long way. Subscribe today for the peace of mind you've been searching for. Public Mobile. Different is calling. 16 seconds. We're rolling on this, Leslie. This is good stuff. This is very good stuff. Are we rolling?

Chances are you recognize that voice. It's Amy Poehler. We're going to learn a lot about each other today. This is good. This is why we're here. Because we barely talk to each other. Yeah. Unless we're being interviewed. Is it kind of a sour environment here, as we've all heard? Dark and mean?

Poisonous. It's poisonous. Yeah, that's what we heard. Artistic souls lying around like umbrella carcasses. Wouldn't you say, Amy? Well said, Daryl. When Leslie Stahl visited the set of Saturday Night Live, it was the show's 30th season. Amy Poehler sat next to Tina Fey and Daryl Hammond on a couch.

Seth Meyers sat behind them. It was hard to get a serious answer out of a crowd of comedians. But it got even harder when Stahl brought up their boss. Are you guys afraid to talk about Lorne on 60 Minutes? He never talks to me. I've never really talked to him hardly at all. I mean, he hands down notes to me. After a brief silence, Daryl Hammond, known for his masterful impressions of Bill Clinton and Donald Trump, was the first to answer.

I've always felt it was a good boss-employee relationship. What he does for me is, when I get ready to do a cold open, he shakes my hand. And that's like some sort of strange communication between us. It's as if he's saying, you know that I'm really expecting you to do this. And I sort of say, I will. I'm going to do it. That's all in the handshake. But when to do it. I'm going to do it. That's all in the handshake. Yeah, I mean, we've done it. But when you do it great and you have a home run, then...

Wink. Part of the reason it might have been hard to get the cast members to talk about Lauren Michaels was that Stahl was asking them about some of the more intimidating aspects of his reputation, that he's always been hard to please and withholding of praise. While no one denied those qualities, they were quick to defend Michael's approach. I think loyal and intelligent and honest is more valuable than effusive. I don't know if it's always helpful to be like your friend in those moments. He's just not going to give you a high five and be like, you did it.

Actually, do you see? You're just not going to get it. You can't expect it. You can't be looking for it because you're not going to get it. But a lot of people in past casts, in fact, most of them have talked about how he keeps you off balance because you don't know if he loves it or doesn't love it. And so you're, I don't know, there's a sense of insecurity that develops. I feel that he knows how to give it to each person in a minimalist way. He knows each person psychologically. But what's he trying to do with you psychologically? The hell if I know. He's trying to get the best he can get out of you.

Leslie Stahl and producer Denise Schreier-Chedda attended a table read of potential sketches for that week's show. The room was packed with barely enough space for the 60 Minutes cameras. Let her through. I'm okay. I'm going to sit here. Stahl sat in a chair backed up against the wall while Michaels took his seat at the head of a conference table alongside that week's guest host, Jude Law. Cheda remembers Michaels staying stoic.

I mean, I remember being in that room that day and saying, oh my God, he's got to laugh. But the bar is so high that he sits there. How many minutes do you think we were shooting before he even made a little smile? So that struck me. Five, four, three, two, one. One of my favorite things about Lorne on Wednesday is that he doesn't laugh loud, but when he laughs, like, he laughs very hard. I mean, that's one of my favorite things in the world is that we can still make Lorne Michaels laugh that hard. I take very seriously the amount of fairness that you have to have when people care so

much about whether their piece gets on or not. You can't be laughing and totally connected with someone on a complete friendship level and then stand back coldly a couple hours later and cut it because it hurts too much. We have heard in our research that you can be aloof. Aloof, yes. Yes. Yes.

And sometimes tyrannical. Tyrannical I can't respond to because I'd have to have a big outburst and be tyrannical to either prove or disprove it. But I think- Can you do that? Do you do that? No. No. I think I- But aloof? Aloof, definitely.

This notion of Lorne Michaels as aloof is something that's repeated by Leslie Stahl. Is that an apt description of him? I think absolutely. I think the way that Lorne has managed the show is by, yes, he is the ultimate authority, but he's also letting everybody play. And he's letting them know that they have full responsibility for their own success. He is absolutely not going to keep a skit in the show that is not one of the funniest skits just because some cast member stayed up all night working on it. So I think that aloofness is something that became an effective way to run the show and run his life. So aloof and effective.

Yeah. I think that it's definitely, it's not an environment that's going to work for everybody. Conan O'Brien had been a writer for Saturday Night Live and The Simpsons before Michaels tapped him to replace David Letterman to host his own NBC late night show, which Michaels also produced. I felt like I was under the gun all the time. It was nerve-wracking. I wasn't always a happy person. I think I did good work there. I think Staring Out Live is a place where if you have a funny idea, if you really do have a funny idea, no one's going to stop you from getting it on the air. And so I think it's a place where you can do great work. It's not the place for everybody. And because of Lorne or why? I don't think it's a place where you can do great work, it's not the place for everybody. And because of Lorne or why?

I don't think it's just Lorne. I think you're trying to do something that's inherently impossible, which is put on a funny hour and a half of live television, you know, 20 times a year. Some television is asking the impossible of people. And if you do it for 30 years, you are going to have a significant number of people, 15%, 18%, who say, you know what, I couldn't stand it. It wasn't for me. And they become happy sitcom writers or happy stand-up comedians or happy film writers. But it's not the environment for everybody.

This interview with Conan O'Brien was never broadcast. And in large part, that was because the week that we were doing our piece and the night when our cameras were there for the live broadcast, something happened at Saturday Night Live that, you know, upset the apple cart in terms of what we had planned for the story. When we come back, how an unprecedented snafu upended Saturday Night Live's episode. And during this election season, a look at SNL's enduring political influence. I'm Mike Wallace. The novelty store or joke shop may seem like the home of innocent fun. But according to the Consumer Product Safety Commission, it may more often be the cause of serious, even permanent injury.

The laughter you heard may have been a giveaway. That was not really Mike Wallace on 60 Minutes. It was Harry Shearer impersonating Mike Wallace on Saturday Night Live in the 1980s. But all jokes aside, 60 Minutes has provided a lot of material for SNL over the years, and the two shows share a lot of the same DNA. I asked producer Denise Schreier-Chedda about it. TV's oldest institutions having premiered in 1975 and 1968, respectively. Yet together, they retain a surprising vitality and relevance in this chaotic 21st century. They're talking about the presidential campaign around October of 2020. America still looks to 60 Minutes to get to the bottom of things, and it looks to SNL for a reminder to laugh no matter how bad things may seem. That certainly resonates with me. What I find

remarkable about 60 Minutes and Saturday Night Live, these are still two programs that have been on the air so long. It'll be the 50th season for Saturday Night Live and the 57th season for 60 Minutes. And these are two places where the American public can still tune in and see humor, reporting, features. You know, they're very different, but they're also tapping into, you know, what's important in the country and what people are thinking about and caring about. SNL is known for its political satire, always has been. Every president is a regular feature on that broadcast. I mean, I think it's one of the great things that Saturday Night Live has given the public is just this irreverent look at Democrats and Republicans and independents. As you said, Saturday Night Live has been spoofing every president, I think, since Nixon, certainly since Ford. And so no candidate has been spared.

Leslie Stahl sat down to interview Lauren Michaels just before President George W. Bush was reelected in 2004. And Stahl asked him about the show's approach to politics. And we try very hard not to be partisan. And in a time now where everything is. Why not? Well, I think it's that you're supposed to speak truth to power, that that's our job. That if you're founded on a distrust of authority,

and that's sort of adolescence, then I think whoever's in power is probably wrong. And it's your job to go after them, but not in a way that's partisan or in the belief that if somebody else were in power, things would be much better. Just who's ever in power? Listen, you know, we did a show after 9-11. We've done shows during the Gulf War.

We did, you know, there are lots of times when no one's in the mood to laugh, and you still have to go out and do a show. But the politics. Yes. Do you think you influence anybody? I think people in Washington have always watched the show because we do, people in Washington. They watch themselves. Exactly.

People in Hollywood have always watched us because we do Hollywood. Now, Al Gore admits that in 2000, he looked at the caricature to see what he'd done wrong and how to fix it for the next debate. I think that's so. I think Republicans generally have a better, seem less bothered by us than Democrats. Really? Yeah. Better senses of humor? No, I'm not sure about that.

But I think less, they, just paying less attention. When SNL went live that week, the show featured several politically themed sketches. But when we watched the show in 2024, it was a Halloween commercial that parodied a future president that caught our attention. Hello, this is the Donald from Trumpsylvania telling you to watch this week's special Halloween episode. Daryl Hammond was impersonating Donald Trump, who was at that time best known as a reality TV host of The Apprentice. These contestants are going to be shaking in their suits because unlike Frankenstein, I am not afraid of fire in any of them.

But all of the sketches that night were largely overshadowed by the episode's musical guest, Ashley Simpson. If you look at the tape, the Lorne, the head producer, everyone from 60 Minutes, I mean, our jaws just dropped. Take us through that episode. What happened? We had shot all week in the offices of Saturday Night Live. We'd been with Lauren in his office. We'd seen the writers, the performers as they pitched their skits and started practicing writing them.

And costume people were working on things. And all that led up to Saturday night. I want everyone to look at the clock. It's 11 o'clock. You're on the air in less than 30 minutes. Right, yeah. At the final rehearsal on Saturday, 60 Minutes cameras had captured some concerns.

The rehearsal was running long and producers debated cutting Simpson's second song. There's some issues with Ashley Simpson's voice. So she may not, you may save it on the set. If she can't sing the second one, that might solve all your problems. That might be one of the solutions. All right. But eventually they decided to keep it in the lineup.

So Ashley was getting ready to perform her second song and a recording came on. On a Monday, I'm waiting. Tuesday, I'm fading. But the wrong song came on. So she did an awkward little dance and then walked off stage. With 60 Minutes cameras rolling and as viewers watched live across the country, it became clear that Ashley Simpson had tried to lip sync her second number. Like this was so unexpected that the musical guest would basically be caught lip syncing. And that was the first time in 30 years that anyone had walked off the set in the middle of the show. And so everybody was shocked and somehow they managed to pull it together and finish the show. And then we had to go back to our offices and figure out what we were going to do with this episode. And we realized

we had to include it in the piece, but then we circle back and re-interviewed Lorne and ask him if this was something that he knew was gonna happen or was it a surprise to him. Do you remember if he wanted to sit down for that follow-up interview? He did. He definitely wanted to sit down. He wanted to clear the air that this was not something

that was common practice at Saturday Night Live. I think he said that once in a while, if someone's doing a really intense dance break in a performance, they might have a little pre-recorded vocals, but that this was really an anomaly that a performer would lip sync an entire piece or plan to lip sync an entire song and that he was completely unaware. Oh, I think accidents happen. I think that's the nature of live television. And I think... But you do everything to make sure accidents don't happen. We watched this for a week. You know, there's things that are, you know, that you're not in control of.

Now, are you being this calm and nonchalant about this? It's like the same way you'd feel if you're a ball player and it's rained out. It really doesn't have anything to do with you. You don't control the rain. And I think in this case, it was much more what just happened, which is, I think, what everybody else felt. And I was in the control room going, well, I mean, there's just egg out there now. I mean, there was nothing to watch.

Is this worse than Sinead O'Connor? Well, Sinead O'Connor is an interesting thing. It was not the first time that the live nature of the show caused controversy. In 1992, Sinead O'Connor took SNL producers by surprise when she ripped up a photo of Pope John Paul II as an act of protest against child sex abuse in the Catholic Church. Well, it was just an absolute hushed. You know, you could hear a pin drop except for the switchboard, which, as it then was, was lighting up in the control room.

It's only on a live show that that can happen. And I think that there were lots of things that happened and there are lots of mistakes that, you know, stuff happens. Of course, by 2004, Michaels was an old pro at managing all of the things that can go haywire on live television. It seems that Lorne Michaels is pretty calm throughout all of this. Ashley Simpson doing this, as you describe,, as he describes this awkward little dance and going off stage. And it's clear that there's lip syncing involved, but Michael seems pretty calm. Is that your memory of it? Absolutely. And I think, you know, look at you, you've, you work in the field, you've been under, you know, time pressure, events unfolding as you

didn't expect, and probably a calmness comes over you. I think it's, it is something that a lot of people in the news business, it's a quality that we have that you keep a cool head when things are falling apart around you. And I think that's, you know, that's a parallel with live comedy,

you know, anything can happen. But do you think that, do you think the reputation of the show was hurt? No. Well, everybody's saying that it's live and it was lip syncing. A lot will depend on your piece.

But no, I don't think the reputation of the show was hurt. No, I think it's like it happened. It was live. It didn't, it kind of blew up. And lots of times that's happened. Well, it blew up because everybody thought that she was lip syncing, that you'd approved it and you were trying to pull one over on us. That's what the impression was.

Honestly, if I were to try and pull one over, it would be much more complicated than that. With 60 minutes watching. Exactly. Maybe Michaels appeared so unbothered because over the decades, he's heard plenty of criticism. Saturday Night Dead. Yes. Saturday Night Dead. First time I read it was in 1976.

Oh, right away. In 1976, and then when Chevy left, it was, we weren't as good as we used to be. Then we went through a bad season for the next four. Then when I came back in 85 and I was getting beat up, they would say, well, the golden age of the show and how great it had been then. And I went, wait a minute. All you can do is keep moving forward. Well, yeah, but you've survived now. Theoretically, yes. And there's a lot to be said for surviving. Yeah, that's true. You're still up on your feet. But how has it survived? What is the secret?

Is it you? I mean, let's get rid of modesty. Push it over here. Is it you? Or what is it? Well, I don't think it's me. I think it's always been about a group. And I think that there's this magic thing in comedy, which is that a group of people making a group of people laugh...

Has it changed with the times? I was saying the other day, the four longest years of your life are high school. And in that time or in college, people attach to a cast. And those are the people that are, for them, Saturday Night Live. And that's the standard by which they judge every other group. So it are the people that are, for them, Saturday Night Live. And that's the standard by which they judge every other group. So it's the people. Yeah. That's how it's entirely the people. I'm there as, you know, to give it credibility. No, I'm there. I, you know,

I'm, I'm, I'm there because I've always been there and because I love doing it and I, and I remember most of the stuff. So, and you know how to do it. I know how to do it, but there's an entire group of people there, all of whom the show couldn't exist without. This season will be Saturday Night Live's 50th anniversary. I'm curious what you think Laura and Michael's legacy will be and the legacy of the show. Well, gosh, I mean, they gave us something to laugh at for all these years. And especially now, I find that that's even more important. And how wonderful to have a program

with a 50-year legacy that no matter what is happening in the country, there's a place for humor and equal opportunity humor on both sides of the aisle for people of every demographic. I think that's a line that Lauren even talked about in one of our conversations that he tries not to cross, like really vicious, mean skits. Now, they go close to the line, but usually, you know, it seems pretty fair when it comes to humor and comedy. So I think the importance of the show has only grown. SNL is an institution.

Hard to imagine it without Lorne Michaels. Could there be an SNL without Michaels? aloofness that we talked about or, you know, this ability to make decisions and be calm, but to really structure the place so that people can find their own voices and work hard to bring out the best in themselves. There's been some speculation that this year will be Lauren Michaels' last season, but in late September, Michaels told The Hollywood Reporter that there was, quote, no immediate plan to retire. He said, quote, as long as it's important and I can be useful, I'll stay.

Michaels will be 80 years old this fall and has spent more than half of his life as the driving creative force behind that familiar broadcast, which has endured for half a century. This episode of 60 Minutes, A Second Look was produced by Julie Holstein and Megan Marcus. Additional producing from Hazel May Bryant. Maura Walls is the story editor, and Jamie Benson is our senior producer and engineer. Our fact checker is Annie Cronenberg. Recording assistance from Alan Pang and Marlon Polycarp.

Bill Owens is the executive producer of 60 Minutes. Tanya Simon is the executive editor. And Matthew Polivoj is the senior producer. Invaluable support from Steve Raises of Paramount Audio. Denise Schreier-Chetta produced the original 2004 broadcast story

for 60 Minutes titled Live from New York. Thanks also to the crew and editor of the original piece. And as always, a very big thanks to the incredible team at CBS News Archives who helped make this podcast possible. I'm Seth Doan. We'll be back next week with another episode

of 60 Minutes, A Second Look. In the meantime, leave us a rating and review. It helps more people discover our show. Thanks for listening.