Inside Late Night with Mark Malkoff - Susan Morrison

Episode Date: April 8, 2025

Susan Morrison discusses her book LORNE, interviewing Lorne Michaels, attending SNL the first season in 1976, New York Magazine’s infamous 1995 profile of SNL, & more. Buy Susan Morrison’s book: LORNE Follow Susan Morrison on Instagram: @sumolini  

Hi, I am Mark Malkoff and welcome to Inside Late Night, presented by latenighter.com. Today's guest is Susan Morrison, the author of the best-selling book, Lorne, about the creator of Saturday Night Live, Lauren Michaels. We discuss Susan Morrison's writing of the book, her chats with Michaels, attending SNL, the first season as an audience member, and much more. Now, it's time to go inside late night. Susan Morrison, thanks for talking with us. Happy to be here. I'm so fascinated by your book, Lauren, New York Times bestseller. I mean, if you're a comedy person or just, you know, it transcends ages to me.

If there's somebody that's, you know, this shows 50 years, you have people that are obsessed with it from, you know, Ziers up until boomers. And it's just one of those things where as a TV person, I couldn't believe how good it was. I wanted it to be good, and I talked to Bill Carter, actually, who got an advanced copy, and I'm like, please tell me, because I know, I know your reputation, but you've never done a book. I'm like, please tell me that this book is what I wanted to be. And he's like, Mark, it exceeds. It is that good. And it was. So congratulations. Thank you so much. When I heard from Bill Carter, you know, who I've read my whole life, that it not only passed muster, but that he was enlightened by it and found out cool things. I was so thrilled. I mean, he's my ideal reader. And what a lovely, brilliant man. So that was just great. That is what Bill and I wanted. And I think a lot of the public, that's what exactly what you were writing about. I mean, I consider myself, I know a lot about SNL. There's people that have been at the show for years that say, you know more than we do and stuff. And just to kind of read it in the access and just the openness of Lauren was

fascinating. Like, we're going to like, oh, what were you going to say? Well, I was going to say that, yeah, that, you know, I mean, I've been watching the show since the first show, since the first season. and I worked briefly for Lauren in 1984, very briefly. But I have a lot of friends who've always worked at the show. So around the time of the 40th, I just realized, you know, no one has been more responsible for what Americans think is funny, you know, what makes people laugh for generations and generations, you know, for four years. And I also knew that Lauren was very private.

He rarely talked to the press. I mean, he would dutifully give those interviews to Bill Carter when there was an important news thing happening. But he was kind of hiding in plain sight, you know. And I was lucky that I approached him when I did when I think he was starting to think about his legacy, you know. And yeah, he was surprisingly, extremely open. And we got into a great groove talking about all of it. This was 50 times more or less on Fridays. You would go over to the show on production weeks and sit down. You get a whole week shadow in with him, which he said no to Aaron Sorkin. when sort of try to obviously trying to do kind of a competing show there are different tones but the thing

that I wanted to ask you is you're well known comedians adore your work New Yorker you'd never written a book so you write a book proposal which was I was always did Ms. Morrison write a book proposal so you write a proposal and it gets to all the publishers and you make it completely disclosure I do not have

the approval of Lorne Michaels that he said that he's going to talk to me for this you put it all out bidding war all over the place. During this process, were you nervous at all? Were you apprehensive that it was going to get leaked to Lauren Michaels? Because I get the feeling from talking to powerful people off camera, off the record that they are afraid of him. And even publishers, was that were you nervous that this was going to get leaked to Lauren that you were working on this before you went to him? Kind of like a Gene Domanian didn't go to him directly. Well, that's interesting.

I mean, this wasn't me, you know, sort of double-crossing him in any way. But of course, I know how powerful he is, and he has friends in high places all over the place. So it did occur to me that my book proposal might have fallen into his hands, but there's nothing to be ashamed of nothing in the book proposal that would have been, you know, frightening or scary, although I guess I did make it completely clear in the book proposal that it wasn't going to be a hagiography. You know, I had been hearing all of my writer friends kind of bitch and moat about Lauren for 30 years. So I knew that he, you know, there were controversial aspects to how he ran the show and how he managed people. And it's one of the things that I hope to delve into, you know, is, was that

management technique, sometimes withholding, sometimes cruel? You know, was that intuitive? Was it something he, like, learned by reading books about management? You know, how did it all come to be? So I guess it's possible that if he had gotten his hands on the proposal, it might have upset him. But, you know, I don't know that he did. It's circulated for about a week. I signed the deal with Random House and then I went to see Lauren in his office and he was very friendly and when I

said, you know, I said, Lauren, I just signed a deal to write a book about you and the show and I don't need anything from you. But if you would like to talk with me, I think it'll be a better, richer book and reflect your legacy better. And, you know, anyone who's read the book

learns that Lauren hates surprises and he likes to have his hand on the wheel. He likes to be in control. So that first, when I first said that, I think he looked like he was going to keel over. You know, he was genuinely surprised. I don't think news of the book of the proposal had reached him. And, you know, maybe for like a minute he kind of tried to talk me out of it. But then he just played it cool in his usual way and said, well, you know, let's talk about it again.

And, you know, I think he was trying to use the thing that I describe in the book as the Fabian strategy. which is a thing that comes up in 30 Rock where the Alec Baldwin character drawing on his high school Latin lessons about the emperor Fabius Maximus just wins every war by attrition by never actually going to battle. Lauren is good at kicking everything down the road.

So I thought, well, that's what he's doing. He's just going to kind of play me along here. But three days later, we met for a drink, and to my astonishment, And he just started right in telling stories. There were no preliminaries, no negotiations. He asked nothing of me. He didn't want to see anything.

He didn't want any control. He put no conditions on it. And I was sitting there in this bar where he was, you know, telling me stories about Flip Wilson and Robert Goulet. I was like, I didn't even have a pad, you know, so I was running into the ladies' room scrawling things on the back of a phone bill. But then we were just off. And I think that he agreed.

read, partly the timing was right. He just was thinking about his legacy. He liked and respected me. He loves the New Yorker. And I think he figured, well, someone's going to inflict a book on him. You know, better it be Susan Morrison from the New Yorker than some, you know, entertainment hack, Shlemiel, who would turn something sensational around in a year or so. I think he knew that I was going to take it seriously. I always go back to these people with incredible careers in the entertainment industry and probably any industry. Someone like Lauren Michaels, like a gazillion Emmys, the accolade everywhere he goes, people in all of him. And instead of focusing on all those accomplishments, still not over the Chris Smith New York magazine. It's going to be 30 years. I think it's 30 years this close to this. And for somebody, I think that was the last time that they might have let an outsider in for 30 years. So, if it was somebody else, I don't know if something like this would have worked. I've always wondered what really his private thoughts were on Christmas. He's done interviews saying that he knows he remembers the name Christmas. He'll never get it out of his head and stuff. But I've never heard him just so honest about his true feelings about that whole thing. And I talked to Chris Smith about it briefly. I met him once. And his whole thing was, this is what I saw. This is what I observed, which I think definitely is part true, but there were stuff that was in there that I

feel like was unfair in my personal opinion. What did you get talking to Lauren about that Chris Smith piece? Yeah, no, that was very interesting because, yeah, Lord was open with me and in general, but I didn't see him, you know, he doesn't often, it's not as if he lost his composure, but he doesn't crack that often and sort of show you some kind of visceral feelings. And when we talked about the Chris Smith article, I could see that he was still hurt and seething about it. And I think he also felt, you know, Chris Farley, he was pictured on the cover of that issue of New York magazine with this head crammed into a little TV set and the cover line was comedy isn't funny. And, you know, the story made Chris Farley cry. I mean, for years, he worried that

he had ruined the show because of it. So I think for Lauren, it wasn't even as much just a feeling of personal betrayal. I let this guy in, but he knew that it had discombobulated and disconcerted his whole staff. It threw everything off. But the other reason, so that's the emotional reason, but the practical reason that I think that story, which was this big takedown of SNL in the mid-90s that appeared in New York Magazine and which the writer compared the show to like late period Elvis, you know, really bloated and dysfunctional. But is that it was right around that time. And that Lauren encountered an obstacle that he had never encountered before, which is that the critics and the network were on the same side.

They both were really down on SNL. Now, Lauren had weathered many negative articles about the show with the headline Saturday Night Dead, and he had weathered a little bit of network interference. But generally, he didn't have those two on the same side against him. So here he was the odd man out. You know, you had the press, led by Chris Smith, saying that the show was a disaster. And the network executives were kind of bolstered by the success of friends and Seinfeld.

And they thought, hmm, this isn't working. We're going to, you know, we're going to get under the hood and try to make it work. And it was the article that, you know, without the Chris Smith article, I don't think you'd have had things happening like Don Olmeyer and the other NBC West Coast people interviewing young Jod Appetow, you know. and suggesting that he could take over the show. It was the first time where Lauren really felt mortal. He felt like NBC could fire him. So that was a big change. The Chris Smith article going back, and I haven't read it in a while,

but there were definitely things like Sarah Jessica Parker hosted, and she was talking about how Lauren, I think, she had some, I don't know, was talking about the week or maybe had some issues with some sketches or anything. And Lauren put his head on the desk and it was kind of dismissive. But they don't, it didn't include that I know, of that Lauren, his wife had just given birth that week or was about to give birth or did. And there was complications with the pregnancy possibly and stuff. And like, there was no context. It was also the

same day that Michael O'Donohue died. I mean, it was a killer week. They didn't put that in either, I don't think. I mean, he did write that Bill Murray came and did the, but there's definitely more context with some of the stuff that I don't feel. But I definitely, I talked to producers. I talk to people that were over there at the time when this went down and just the anger of people feeling betrayed. And just for 30 years for that still being an issue, I thought was so interesting. Well, let me just jump in. One of the things that's interesting is that a lot of the writers and performers from that cast, you know, I remember talking to a lot of those people. I watched the S&L 50s show. It was really fun in a hotel room with a lot of the writers, including Dave Mandel, who was there

at the time. And those guys definitely feel that they were, you know, that it was. It wasn't really fair. There was sort of a hit job, and things were taken out of context, and they were all made to look like losers. And the irony is that even though the show was a real hit job, it succeeded in bringing the cast and the crew and Lauren closer together. You know, they felt bonded in their, you know, they felt that they had been under attack and, you know, small comfort. But they all did all those people. It's not just Lauren. They all feel that that piece was beyond.

the pay-all. Smigel told me he tried to make it clear to Chris Smith. This is like it's sports. It's like lost Dana Carvey. They lost Robert Smigel. They lost Jack Handy. The Turner's. Some of the most valuable people and was going to be rebuilding. And that really wasn't conveyed. Do you think if Lauren didn't have pressure from the networks with Don Allmeyer and Gary Constantine that the changes would have been made that they would have. I don't know if I think Sandler and Farley might have been back. I don't know if they would have gone to the ground lanes with Farrell and Oterrey because they hadn't They haven't hired a groundling cast member since Julius Sweetly, and they were very not really pro-groundlands for a long time. Do you think that it would have been inevitable that Lorne would have made those changes? Gee, that's what's such an interesting question. Well, what Lauren always says that it takes three years, you know, to really affect a cast turnaround. Even if you're hire a whole bunch of people, they're not going to take, you know, in the first year. It takes a while. So I think that I think that it would.

He would have kept Farley and Spade, Farley and Sandler. I think it would have kept those guys. But I think he would have found his way to Farrell and the groundlings. I think that would have happened. It just might have happened in a slower fashion. I think he has a pretty good sense of the rhythms for how to replenish. The only time when I think his instinct was sort of behind the curve that way was in how long it took him, you know, to sort of really get. that he did need to make, take some extraordinary measures in order to achieve the kind of racial diversity that the show should have. You know, he dragged his feet on that for a long time. To me personally, it seemed like the culture had to change. And it was like that

an entertainment before the show reached up to the diversity. Do you think that's a fair assessment? Well, yeah, I mean, I think that what Lauren always said, and I think he was entirely sincere. And, you know, we have the same thing here at the New York. I mean, that this is an, you know, the place is based on excellence. It's very simple. Just hire, you know, his take was hired the funniest people you could find, whoever they are, whatever they look like. And then it's going to work out. And, you know, I mean, that sort of worked until it didn't work until society had changed in such a way that you really did. You know, it was accepted. I mean, now that's swinging back with all anti-DEI nonsense going on from Washington.

But this, there was really a collective sense that you needed to exert some extra effort. to make the show, you know, or any institution more reflective of the population of the United States. And I think that for Lorne, one of the things that, yeah, there was a lot of pressure on him from the press. But I think also it kind of jibed with something he says all the time, which is the show's on in all 50 states, you know, the shows for all Americans. And I think he must have also realized, well, wait a minute, my cast doesn't reflect the demographics of America now. And then he started, you know, he had that special audition where he saw 25 African-American women in the middle of a season because he wanted to change things. And, you know, and he's continued in that

direction now. The staff is especially diverse and the writing staff is more diverse. It has. It's just amazing to think back that 95, 96, when Will Ferrell came in that they did a press conference and they had no black cast members and Tim Meadows had been let go, moves all his belongings back to Chicago. Yeah. And then they call him back with two weeks and they're like, well, we're, we're Would you like to come back and stuff? And it's just, yeah, it's just in a completely different place. What stands out is a 16-year-old Susan Morris and going on over to 30 Rock to see the first season to see Elliot Gold host the show. Because the first time I saw the show, I was 16.

I could tell you everything from the warm up to what got cut at dress. I know this was going on a long time. But can you just take me through what you do remember leading up? Yeah. You're going up the elevators and what stands out? Well, first of all, I don't know. I don't know, you know, I was from the suburbs. I don't know if I had ever even been in Rockefeller Center.

So walking in that building is, first of all, this capal. You know, it's so glamorous. And it's funny. It's one of the things that Lauren recognized in 1975 the first time he visited that studio. He said, well, first of all, audiences, you know, are just going to be put in a good mood just by walking in this building, you know, it's different from going to one of those, like, CBS sound stages on West 57th Street, which, you know, might as well be like a, just a basement.

So I remember being very glamorous, but the thing that I was not prepared for is that we didn't have the word meta in 1975, but that kind of breaking the fourth wall, the fact that I was sitting in the middle of a working television studio, our seats were right next

to home base, you know, right next to the little, it used to be like a little walkway that stuck out with the audience that season. And so just looking up at Leon Redbone in the chair and Ellie Cool, I had no idea that there were going to be cameras flying around my head, the cue card people right next to me, you'd see costume changes happening in a corner, the scenery crundling in and out.

That was, to me, the most extraordinary thing. I just, you know, that I was sort of getting to see how the sausage was made. And the comedy, the thing I remember most, that had the brilliant Star Trek sketch where Belushi plays Captain Kirk. And, and, you know, and, you know, And oh my God, it was so funny. And Elliot Gould comes on as an NBC executive canceling the show, canceling Star Trek, and he plucks the spock ears off of Chevy Chase. And even that, the idea that a show would be making fun of NBC in an NBC studio, that kind of blew my mind. You know, I was back in Connecticut, you know, probably reading, you know, Jane Austen in my English class or something.

I mean, this, I just, I was not that sophisticated about showbiz. And I could tell that what was happening here was really, you know, just structurally groundbreaking. I think a lot of the comedy references, I bet if I watched that weekend update, I probably wouldn't have gotten a lot of it. I don't know if I was getting the generalissimo, Frank, you know, Franco stuff at that point. That was the amazing thing about that show is they play up to the top of their intelligence where a 16 early, I was watching the show. There were definitely things I wasn't necessarily. getting. I think this is in Al Franken's book. But Jim Downey, longtime head writer of the show, and Al Franken always said, and I think this is really true, and it's a hard thing to pull off, that in terms of like the political references, the news references in the show, they always wrote it so that you would, it could reward people who were incredibly all Quran and got the references, but it wouldn't penalize you if you didn't. You know, the jokes work on a pure comedy level. And, you know, if you get the Tom Delay thing and everything, lucky you, but you're not going to not get it if you don't have all those insider shadings of knowledge.

It seemed like you got almost everybody to talk. The only people I saw, and it's one of those things where it's hard. I don't know personally if they turned you down. You weren't able to get a hold of them or possibly. I know from my own interviewing people over the years, hundreds of people that sometimes people privately are not doing well. But I know the two people I noticed that weren't there. And I wouldn't know. if there's anybody else, and if you approach these people were Edie Baskin and Jim Singer-Lay? You know, I saw Jim, I knew Jim from before, because we worked together with the new show, I saw Jim at one of Franken's Senate fundraisers at the Turner's apartment and told him I was doing this and we kept trying to plan it and he was just kind of all over the place and then he was having some health problems. So I just, but, you know, there wasn't, it was just basically after five years of reporting, I kind of said, oh, I had to stop and I have to start writing. And if I could backfill, I will, Edie Baskin, you know, I got back in touch with when I was doing

photo research. She was another person who, it's not for that she didn't want to talk to me. It's just more that I kind of ran out of time. And then I had some nice conversations with her toward the end when she was, you know, I was licensing some photos from her. Now, there's one person that I didn't get to talk to that I would have liked to. But again, at a certain point, since I had everybody, I just, I had to kind of just stop. And this is just sort of a funny story. Because the only person who actually I got kind of a turndown from, and I don't even know if he was ever given the ask, was Andy Sandberg.

I thought I would have liked to talk to him just about the digital shorts and everything. And this is, I think, the reason that didn't happen was because he was probably the only person that I approached through a publicist. I mean, pretty much everybody else. It was just word of mouth. This person would put me on to that person. because I knew a lot of these people already. But I was dealing with Andy Sandberg's publicist for some other New Yorker piece that I was working on.

And I knew she represented him. So I said, oh, by the way, I'm doing this book. I've talked to everybody. I would love, you know, get on the phone with Andy or take him for coffee. And she, you know, she said like, oh, okay, and just kind of, and just basically never delivered it, which was irritating to me. I'm so surprised. I think that it probably didn't get to him.

I've been in that situation many times. Well, yeah, I suspect that this publicist was just, you know, thinking about what the current projects on her docket were. And she wasn't getting any commission off of him talking to me for some books. So I just assumed that he never got the ask. But I think it's kind of hilarious that, you know, the only person that I used a publicist with, he should fire as publicist is all I could say. I was going to ask you, Jim Singarelli is somebody that lasted for decades until really the digital shorts started to take off commercial parodies. I mean, legendary pieces. Him and Lauren at one point for many years, I'm being polite here, didn't see eye to eye. We're not on the same page in terms of socializing. And so the fact that Lauren would keep certain people like Bob Odenkirk who interviewed you. And Odenkirk told me, quote, we hated each other. This was a couple decades ago. And that he would keep some people on the show that apparently he wasn't fond of personally.

Were there more, were there people around there that Lauren would keep around other than those? And that was just, as long as they're doing their job, I don't have to like them, but they're good at their job, they can stay? Well, I think Oden Kirk didn't make any, you know, he wasn't that politic of person. He made no attempt to disguise his, you know, sort of contempt. It was his own fault. He admits it. It was his own fault, 100%. And he, today he just says, God, I was such a day. I mean, so tonight I'm going to the opening night of Glenn Gary, Glenn Ross, which I'm excited. That he said, which I'm excited about. But no, he, he, I think was. a malcontent and he recognizes that he was immature. But I think that Lauren, you know, I never spoke to him specifically about this, but I think he always felt that a certain amount of tumult and, you know, that this was just not bad for the mix, you know, just kind of keep people on their

toes. I think it's a different thing with someone like Signorelli because, you know, as I say in the book, Lauren likes rabbit's feet. You know, he likes people who are familiar to him, who've been around for a long time. You know, when he hired Howard Shore to be the first musical director of the show, you know, he was his friend from camp in Canada. And I remember Lauren telling me that Michael O'Donohue said to him at that point, you're hiring a guy from your summer camp in Canada. Are you kidding me? You know, there got to be better people in New York City. But Lauren always gravitated toward, I mean, of course, Howard is brilliant. It was a brilliant hire. But Lauren liked people who were there at the beginning. You know, there's a comfort level.

to having these people around. And sure, I mean, he and Downey, you know, had bad patches. He and Kevin Nealon had rough patches. Chetty? Yeah, yeah, definitely Chevy, Franken and Davis. I mean, but if they were part of the family, you know, he would keep them. I always thought it was very interesting how even after some of these staff people, I'm thinking about like John had, Gary Weiss, people who, you know, were his sort of showed him the ropes,

not just about television, but about like what was cool, which is really important to him. People who showed him those ropes early, you know, when he was, even before SNL, took care of those people their whole lives, you know. I mean, I, you know, I don't know if he was sending them an allowance or what, but really always made sure these people had a roof over their head. It's an amazing, old-fashioned, paternalistic sort of setup. More than once I said it reminded me of the godfather. In terms of Johnny Carson, Joan Rivers' debacle, 1986, where Carson doesn't find out until, I guess, the night before the Joan Rivers is going to be going to Fox and signed up to go against him, is the only person that he was kind of, I don't know, Carson and Rivers weren't friends, but they were bond of each other. They had this history. In terms of Gene Domanian, it's the closest I can think of with Lauren with somebody that was in-house that when Lauren found out that Domanian was advised not to say anything. when she was negotiating to take over the show.

In terms of relationships with somebody internal, is that the closest? Do you think to what Joan Rivers, Johnny Carson, was there anybody else on that list of leaving out? Let me think. I mean, yeah, I mean, we know Lauren doesn't like surprises. I mean, I date that part of his personality to his father's death when he was 14 years old.

You know, he had an argument with his father one night. Later that night, his father collapsed with a heart issue, was in the hospital for two weeks. Lauren didn't get to see him. ever again. Then he died, and poor adolescent Lorne carried around this idea within his whole life that fighting with people is dangerous. Non-confrontational. It always comes back to that, non-confrontational. And being surprised is the worst thing that can happen to you. So I think that with Gene, yeah, the fact that she was negotiating behind his back, I think that was really painful.

And so many other people, you know, when Jim Downey and Gamelin Pross, two writers from the early seasons, went to go to Letterman, and, you know, they all described these very formal, almost courtly meetings with Lauren, where they would meet with him and sort of get his blessing. They understood, you know, he's sort of like the character and the godfather, you know, that Robert DeValle describes as, you know, he insists on hearing bad news immediately. I mean, he doesn't want to hear it through the grapevine. And I think that most people, you know, people there become Lorinologists, you know, people find out, they know these things and they spread the word. So I think it's a lot of people had very elaborate stories about how they were telling Lorne that they were moving on. You know, they kind of choreographed. I mean, Dana Carvey told me that he was so scared of telling Lauren that he was going to leave. He just couldn't do it. He kind of ran away from home in the middle of the night, you know. Yeah, it was mid-season without any.

really fanfare or press it was but Lauren loved him and I think he understood him and I don't think there were any hard feelings there keep bringing him him back I was surprised that Lauren thought that NBC would ask him back in 1980 only because Fred Silverman I think Fred was still there at the network at the time just because of that if there wasn't a Fred Silverman who I believe had some issues with Lauren maybe stemming from Al Franken and some of the treatment on the show. Was that pretty much, do you know or do you think was the stumbling block for them not asking Lauren to come back? Other than he was burned out, he said he was burned out.

Yeah, I don't think that, I think that, I think it's actually a very pragmatic business thing. And I think Lauren would, this is how he would see it. He asked for six months off so he could rest, hire whole new cast, hit reset. And Silverman said, and I bet this is true. You know, we've already sold the ad slots in the fall. You can't come on in January. We've sold the ads. NBC was in dire straits right then. It was sort of tanking. The last, it would just not have made a business sense for Silverman to have to go back to these advertisers and say, whoops, the show's actually not coming on until January. And I think, you know, he was that kind of hard-nosed business guy. So he said to Lauren, sorry, got to start on time. And I did think that Lauren thought

that maybe they would be able to negotiate their way around it. What happened then was that as the next round of negotiations was about to start, Franken did that weekend update thing where he just made fun of Silverman having a limo and, you know. Lamo, limo for the lamo. Limo for a lamo. He asked people to send postcards, you know, against saying that, you know, Fred Silverman was a Lamo. And I don't think that that was the thing that caused it to go, you know, that that was why Lauren didn't come back to the show. But I think that the tensions were so evident after, you know, the whole business thing of ads being sold, that this was just rubbing salt into the wound. And I think that at that point, Summer Winchester, forget it. You know, let's just, just forget it. I want to ask you,

Steve Higgins has been at that show since 1995 is Lauren's number two person creatively. Other than giving him his feedback on sketches after read through, he's witty at host dinners, I hear. And a very funny man, what does he do? Because, you know, Jim Downey had that kind of number two. And he was very hands-on with writing and he was writing sketches. And I know Steve Higgins was early on. I just don't hear that from people that that is his role. What does he do? And by the way, I just want to point out that I heard he's one of the funniest people ever. And it seems to me when he's on foul and he's holding back probably his wit somewhat. And I can understand that. But what does he do you observed? Well, I'm going to answer those questions out of order. I mean, first of all, he's really funny in the room. You know, he just, in meetings when things are really tense, he's always the guy who just has a, you know, I remember at the meeting between dress and air the week I was there for the Jonah Hill show, there was this discussion of this piece, teacher fell down by Allison Gates. It was a Kate McKinnon sketch, a very moody piece.

and somebody said something like, yeah, it has a, the character has a touch of Betty Davis in her, and Higgins just came back and said, yeah, if you want to get the tweens, now Voyager, yeah, it's just so funny. But no, he's very silly in a meeting, and Lauren likes silly. And, you know, he does like that strand of silly, hard laugh. But in terms of his professional duties at the show, I think a word I use somewhere in the book is he's a reliable errand man. You know, we were talking a minute ago about how Lauren avoids confrontation. Higgins is very often the guy who tells people that they're hired and who tells people that they're fired.

You know, he'll go and sit down with somebody and tell them how it's going or how it's not going. And he is that guy. A lot of the producers have that function. Aaron Doyle, Eric Kenwood, they do versions of this. But I think that Higgins, because he's been there so long, he has a little bit of a sage status. You know, I remember him saying to me, Lauren wrote the Constitution to SNL. But Higgins is also, you know, he's kind of an interpreter of that constitution. He'll go around and explain people how things work and what they should do and way more than Jim Downey ever did.

Because Jim Downey, you know, was a brilliant writer and an encourager of creativity. But I don't really think that, you know, he was that effective or nimble. and administrator. And Higgins, surprisingly, is good at that stuff. Yeah, I mean, everybody I talked to in terms of his being really, really funny and just having him around as a constant source of just really, really stable and really great for the overall environment, for sure. How would you describe Lauren Michaels and Dick Ebersall's actual relationship, the real relationship? It seems to me, and I could be off that Lauren, if he could get an erase button, it seems like a lot of the Ebersol's all stuff, wouldn't exist.

I could be off on that. That just for me, but in terms of their actual real relationship, because I like Jason Raiment, I don't think you probably, in that movie, probably was a good reflection of their actual, that's at least the gist I get from talking to people of their relationship, but how would you describe their relationship? Well, if I had to choose one word for it, you know, it was transactional. When they first met before SNL, I think that they, both were genuinely, I think they did have a little mind meld, and they were both very young

people in Hollywood who had a vision. Both of them thought that the variety show format needed to be updated. Other variety shows were almost like vaudeville. They were like the 50s. And Lorne told Eversal, look, there's no reason why TV can't be like the movies, you know, which, you know, you had Altman and Scorsese and Malik breaking boundaries with the movies. and rock and roll, which was, you know, pushing the music industry forward. But TV was kind of a backwater. And Ebersol was the first executive who he met. You know, he was pretty naturally young as an executive who saw it that way.

I mean, Lauren had been talking to executives for years, and when he talked to them about what he wanted to do, they would just stare at him. You know, they didn't get it at all. You know, Money Python wasn't on in the States yet. They had no idea what he was talking about. But Eversal was the first person who sort of was on his wavelength. in terms of content. And he also worked at the network. So he could be, you know, a go-between between these old fogy executives and Lorne. So, you know, Lawrence basically saw him as kind of an on-ramp. And I think that they must have had, you know, some sympathico. I mean, they must have been,

I don't know that they were ever friends, you know, Eversal was kind of a nerd. He tried too hard. You know, Lauren's whole thing was to be very laid back and swanier, and when Ebersol would come around his, Lauren's suite at the Chatea Marmont, he kind of stuck out like a, you know, like a Rube who was trying too hard in his kind of ultra-preppy clothes. You know, Lauren's friends were kind of sitting around, Moky Pot talking in their English accents. But the fact is that Eversal did get the show on the air, and Lauren was grateful, and I think he admired his, facility with the higher-ups. Now, what Lauren gave to Ebersoll was kind of cool, you know, some kind of cool cachet. And then once the show was often running, it was a very standard issue kind of, you know, breakdown of Eversal wanted more credit for the creative part of the show

than Lauren thought was appropriate. He started, you know, talking about the show to reporters without even mentioning Lauren's name. And I think Lauren felt that he started neglecting his is network duties. He was the guy who was supposed to keep, you know, keep things running smoothly behind the scenes, dealing with the budgets, dealing with the higher-ups. And suddenly, who had Ebersol booking ABBA on the show, you know, which was really anathema to someone like Warren who did not want ABA on his show. Things change and then they're booking boy bands and stuff. Oh, yeah. Well, no, now it's like a publicity stop, you know, for every big A-list star. But back then, Lawrence's whole thing was he wanted people who wouldn't otherwise have ever done network television.

Yeah, it was incredible. Tom Waits, the people that they were putting on TV. Severance is one of my favorite TV shows. And your daughter, Nancy and Helen worked on the show. Were you tempted to ask for spoilers? Did you get any spoilers? I didn't get spoilers. I did watch this whole second season with Nancy, which was really fun. And I would be asking her, so what happened then? What were the goats like? You know, and she had all kinds of backstage tidbits, but I think from the way they shot it, you know, it's not as if they shot it consecutively. And she and I get the impression from her, Adam Scott, who she works for. And it was like, they weren't really sure how it was all adding up either. So everybody, it sounds like, was completely thrilled that this season was as big a hit as it was. I mean, I think it's brilliant. I loved it. I loved it. I couldn't believe that. I mean, just the pressure to keep that the quality up. Did you know in advance last question that you were going to be on Jeopardy, a question on Jeopardy? Oh, my God.

No, that was the most exciting part of the whole thing. I mean, that must have been so surreal because I know they tape it in advance, but, you know, I didn't know how they locked that stuff down where you were maybe tipped. Watch this night. No, a friend just texted me a picture from a taxi. And then I happened to be riding in a taxi from JFK. And it came on and I just felt like it was like the Twilight Zone. I feel like I could talk to you forever. Would you come back at some point? Sure. No, let's do it again at the end of the season or the paperback or I'm happy to. I would absolutely love for you to come back. New York Times bestseller, Lauren, highly recommend it. For somebody that knows too much about SNL, I was blown away by it. So congratulations. And I know that your original manuscript, the one that Judd Apatel calls the director's cut was like over a thousand pages. And I'm just saying for the paperback, I would gladly pay $50. $100 for that. So I'm just putting that in your ear.

Well, one thing that might be fun to do in the paperback is a glossary of all the SNL terminology that a lot of people keep telling me that they like that. So maybe I should think about that. Oh, I hope you too. Thank you so much for doing this. Thank you. Really fun, Mark. I really enjoyed it. Thanks for listening. Please subscribe so you never miss an episode. On Apple Podcast, please rate it and leave a review. Be sure to go to late-nighter.com for all your late-night-night t-y.

and you can find my podcast at late-nighter.com forward slash podcasts. Have a wonderful week and I'll see you next Tuesday. I'm going to be. And so you're going to I'm going to I'm going to and

I'm going to I'm going to I'm going to be. I'm going to be. I'm going to be. Thank you.