Today in 1992, the Saturday Night Live spin-off film Wayne’s World premiered, making Valentine’s Day that much more… romantic?
A-sphincter-says-what?
The film starred starred Mike Myers and Dana Carvey, reprising their roles from the SNL sketches that spawned the film. If nothing else, Wayne’s World gave hope to basement dwellers everywhere who hoped to someday beat up Rob Lowe and score with Tia Carrere.
AWESOME!
Thirty-two years ago, at 11:30 PM Eastern Time, the National Broadcasting Company aired this live:
…and with that, a revolution was born. NBC’s Saturday Night premiered with George Carlin as the host, Janis Ian and Billy Preston as musical guests, Jim Henson’s Muppets, and Not Ready For Prime Time Players Dan Aykroyd, John Belushi, Chevy Chase, George Coe (remember him?), Jane Curtin, Garrett Morris, Laraine Newman, Michael O’Donoghue, and Gilda Radner. A few years later, it would be renamed to what we know it as today, Saturday Night Live.
Del Close, subject of last Friday’s Munden’s Bar story, was acting coach and rehearsal director of SNL in 1981 and 1982.
There are ways of getting ComicMix E-I-C Mike Gold to do what you want. Most of them involve barbeque. It has to be good barbeque, mind you, and we’re talking beef rather than pork. Smoky brisket, a sharp sauce, maybe some hushpuppies (forget the cole slaw), fries, and a coke – get these into him and he becomes remarkably malleable.
Another really good way is talent. Mike is seduced by talent. I’m not talking big names; Mike knows plenty of people who are “names” and it’s no big deal. I’m talking about talent. He loves being a part of what happens when talented people do things; hell, Mike’s plenty talented in his own right. But he really enjoys how creative minds work.
It’s how I got him to originally go for Munden’s Bar. The character that Tim Truman and I created, GrimJack, had proven such a hit in the back of Starslayer that he was being promoted into his own book. Given the page count of comics at the time, it meant we needed an eight page back-up feature. I wanted GrimJack to be all set in the pandimensional city of Cynosure where the main feature itself was set so I proposed that we do an anthology series of eight page stories set in Munden’s, the bar that GrimJack owned and used as his office. Each story would be complete unto itself, each could have a different artist, and maybe I’d even let another writer in. Occasionally. Maybe.
Mike wasn’t sold. His objections were that anthologies could be a lot more work, they didn’t always sell very well, the company liked to use back-ups as launching pads for new series which Munden’s Bar was unlikely to do, and the idea with backups was to have something separate from the main feature that would draw in a crowd perhaps on its own, as GrimJack had done for Starslayer.
These were all reasonable objections. I couldn’t really dispute any of them so instead I fought dirty and appealed to Mike’s love of talent.
I told him I thought I could get Del Close to co-write some of them with me.
Let me tell you about Del. He was an actor, a teacher, and most of all he was the director at Second City in Chicago for twenty-plus years. He was teacher and mentor to some of the biggest names who came out of Second City and later founded, with Charna Halpern, ImprovOlypics – out of which came more students who became important people in comedy. Like who? John Belushi, Dan Ackroyd, Bill Murray, John Candy, Betty Thomas, Stephen Colbert, Mike Meyers, Steve Carell, and so many others that I could spend the rest of the column just listing them.
Simply put – Del Close is one of the greatest influences on late twentieth century comedy and humor in America and, thus, the world. He influenced his students and they in turn are influencing others. Del shaped the sensibility of Second City for two decades. Without it, there is no Saturday Night Live, no SCTV (Del created the format for that show), none of the other improv groups that have also fed American humor in all its forms.
Hyperbole? If anything, I think I’m understating it. Del is perhaps the only individual I have ever personally met whom I would call a genius. It’s not just a matter of intellect although Del had a considerable brain; it wasn’t just a matter of knowledge – Del was enormously well read on a multitude of different subjects. It was perception; he knew how it worked because he saw the patterns. I think Einstein knew what the answers were; he had to then find the proof. Same thing with Del.
“Dying is easy. Comedy is hard.” That deathbed sentiment, most often attributed to either actor Edmund Kean or actor/director Sir Donald Wolfit, was much on my mind as I enjoyed this week’s offerings.
Actual dying, as well as the comic derivative (in which a stand-up delivers his routine to an unamused audience), has long been the purview of NBC’s Saturday Night, a.k.a. and n.k.a. (now known as) Saturday Night Live. There have been entire seasons during its thirty-two year run where an honest laugh was hard to come by, but, given its longevity, its influence and success far outweigh the flop-sweat.
So it was with a small amount of caffeinated anticipation that I watched Starbucks Entertainment’s initial toe-in-the-exclusive-DVD-waters — Saturday Night Live: The Best of ‘06/’07, which resulted from a strategic alliance with NBC and Broadway Video, which, in turn, resulted with an enclosed, promotional, extra DVD featuring a free episode (complete with deleted scenes and a “Bonus Featurette”) of the spin-off series 30 Rock.
I’ll admit to being a veteran fan of SNL, even during the eras when every uninspired wag declared it “Saturday Night Dead.” Even at its worst (and that gets really bad), it was interesting, from an instructional sense, at the very least. Thankfully, recent seasons – being the head writer Tina Fey era, closely followed by the present head writer Seth Meyers (no relation) era – have been as fitfully entertaining as some of the glory years featuring Billy Crystal, Christopher Guest, Martin Short, Mike Myers (also no relation), Dana Carvey, Chris Farley, Adam Sandler, and, oh, so many others.
Having seen virtually every episode on TV, my usual DVD meat here were the extras, which went some distance in communicating the particular problems and triumphs only available to SNL. First, there were two comedy sketches that were taped during their dress rehearsal that were cut from the telecast show – one from the Peyton Manning episode and the other from a Justin Timberlake installment. The one thing both had in common is that they really only worked because of the featured players’ talents – those players being, respectively, Kenan Thompson and Timberlake himself.
In fact, one of the only quibbles I had was the lack of Thompson, who started his career on the Nickelodeon Channel’s SNL knock-off All That, on the audio commentary – especially during his recurring “Deep House Dish” bit. I would have liked to hear what he had to say about his lone minority status amongst the present SNL men. Otherwise I was gratified to hear many of the writers and actors describing what life is like trying to put together the show and be funny in the kill-or-be-killed comedy gladiator environment producer Lorne Michaels has maintained.
My only other quibble was with the idea of what constitutes “The Best.” I’m not sure in what stratosphere it’s okay that the obvious, redundant, predictable, uninspired “Julia Louis Dreyfuss being persecuted by an insane boom mike guy” sketch is included while the hilarious, beautifully performed Alec Baldwin/Kristen Wiig “Car Pool” sketch is omitted. I can understand it, however, given that, truth be told, the best of ‘06/’07 would simply be the Alec Baldwin and Justin Timberlake episodes alone (with one or two of the SNL Digital Shorts thrown in – especially Peyton Manning’s United Way piece and the “Dick in a Box” music video, which is shown uncensored on this DVD).
But all was forgiven when I saw the disc’s final special feature: the jokes that were cut from SNL’s Weekend Update news satire between dress rehearsal and broadcast. The jokes themselves were funny (almost all showcasing Seth Meyers’ [still no relation] more daring, sadistic, side), but what really had me laughing aloud was Seth and co-anchor Amy Poehler’s reactions to the audience’s groans, disbelief, or gasps.
After that, the 30 Rock disc was all pleasure, despite the featurette being a glorified commercial for the Season 1 DVD and up-coming Season 2. 30 Rock deserves its enshrinement as one of TV’s best comedies, since it’s obvious that even its deleted scenes are cut because of time concerns, not humor content. Each display the wit of the scripting as well as the exceptional skill of the performers.
Speaking of wit and skill, remember this name: Francis Veber. If you’re a true fan of comedy cinema, you probably already know it, along with the names Neil Simon and Richard Curtis. After all, he’s been writing and directing some of the screen’s greatest comedies since the 1970s. Okay, so you may not know his more than a dozen international screen hits, but you’re bound to know the fairly lousy American remakes of his French films, which were directed by everyone from Billy Wilder to Richard Donner and starred the likes of Jackie Gleason, Richard Pryor, Tom Hanks, and Martin Short, among many others.
Well, screw them. Just about the only decent Anglicized spin-off from Veber’s delightful work was The Bird Cage starring Nathan Lane and Robin Williams (as the “straight” man!) and the Broadway musical La Cage Aux Folles. So forget Hollywood. Thanks to DVD, we can go right to the source and see the original French films. Hollywood makes pancakes, and not always very well. Veber makes light, delicious, airy, soufflés – and very funny ones at that.
The latest is The Valet, coming out on DVD September 18th. The title and cover illustration display the awkwardness with which America approaches his work, given that the film’s original title could be better translated as “The Stand-in,” and whoever poorly photoshopped the picture felt the need to stick an gawky “Parking” patch on the title character’s jacket.
Once beyond the awkward airbrushing, the brisk, entertaining film is sweet, as are the few, but prime, special features. For Veber fans, “The making of” featurette is a rare pleasure – a subtitled French TV documentary that goes behind the scenes at every production point. For Veber novices, it’s a tad tricky, since they reference his past classics and on-going themes with the reverence he justly deserves. For instance, anyone who doesn’t know that he repeatedly gives his leading character the name Francois Pignon, no matter who the actor playing him is, may have a rough patch during the doc. The other treasure for Veber fans is the audio commentary, in which the imaginative writer/director performs his chore for the first time in English.
So, naturellement, if you’re a Veber fan, The Valet is a must. If you’re not, The Valet is a good place to start. It, like most of his other farces is fast, witty, informed, observant, sweet, and satisfying, not to mention funny in an appreciative ha-ha, not a knee-slapping haw-haw kind of way. Quel pleasure!
Ric Meyers is the author of Murder On The Air, Doomstar, The Great Science-Fiction Films, Murder in Halruua, For One Week Only: The World of Exploitation Films, Fear Itself, and numerous other books and has (and sometimes still is) on the editorial staff of such publications as Famous Monsters of Filmland, Starlog, Fangoria, Inside Kung-Fu, The Armchair Detective and Asian Cult Cinema. He’s also a television and motion picture consultant whose credits include The Twilight Zone, Columbo, A&E’s Biography and The Incredibly Strange Film Show.
By now you’ve heard about all the new teevee shows announced by the networks. Here’s some new Comedy Central shows you might be able to look forward to, as a while bunch of new shows are going to pilot:
Root of All Evil, a courtroom show in which comedians argue that their client is the root of all evil. The show would pit Paris Hilton against Dick Cheney, or chick flicks against video games. Lewis Back is the judge.
Held Up, in which a bank teller is held hostage by two teams of robbers and a comic version of the Stockholm syndrome ensues.
An animated Larry the Cable Guy show, as if Larry wasn’t animated enough. Here he’s the co-owner of a cable TV channel whose other owner would prefer to program classier fare.
Michael Ian Black Doesn’t Understand, starring you-know-who in a sketch show/
Night Writer from one-time Saturday Night Live head writer T. Sean Shannon.
The Watch List, which features material from up-and-coming Middle Eastern-American comedians.
According to TV Week, Comedy Central also has production deals in the works for David Alan Grier and JoKoy.
I realize the whole concept of a public apology has become somewhat tainted, but I hope Mr. Shatner and Mr. O’Neil each accept mine in the spirit in which they are intended.
When the first episode of Star Trek was aired, I thought the show was rather lame. I had just turned 16 and I wasn’t all that much of a teevee viewer. That summer I took up an interest in a young woman who was a dedicated Trekker, long before the term was invented. Ergo, my interest in the show waxed. As we headed towards the awesome events of 1968 my interest in television in general waned as, sadly, so did my relationship with the aforementioned young lady.
As Star Trek’s popularity picked up in syndication, I managed to catch all the episodes, but with growing popularity grew derision towards its star. I found the jokes made about Mr. Shatner’s stylized performance to be hilarious, and I even did my own on radio. At the time I knew better: I remembered his fine performances in The Twilight Zone (perhaps the most famous episode of that praiseworthy series), on The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (where he co-starred with both Leonard Nimoy and Werner Klemperer), and most significantly, in the lead on The Andersonville Trial, an astonishingly brilliant teevee movie directed by George C. Scott and co-starring Cameron Mitchell, Richard Basehart, Jack Cassidy, Martin Sheen, Buddy Ebsen, Albert Salmi. That’s one of the best casts ever assembled for a broadcast, and Shatner – its star – was more than up to the task.
Mr. Shatner proceeded to healthy runs on numerous series, but the jokes went on and on. My own attitude began to lighten up when I realized he had a strong sense of self-awareness about Captain Kirk. His own parody of the character in the movie Airplane: The Very Stupid Sequel (I think I’ve got the title right, but iMDB doesn’t list it as such) was brilliantly self-effacing. I figured somebody else wrote that part. But his performance as William Shatner at a Star Trek convention on Saturday Night Live – the famous “get a life” moment – well, even if somebody else wrote it, Shatner wasn’t playing a character. He was playing himself with a truth and honesty essential to successful comedy.
Damn. That was good.
Since then, Shatner showed his comedic prowess in a variety of television commercials, most notably those for Priceline.com. But the world moved and changed when David E. Kelley hired him to play the part of Denny Crane for a run on The Practice, knowing the show was to spin-off into Boston Legal, unless ABC changed its mind (ask our friends – off the record – at DC Comics about Lois and Clark).
Have you ever seen a Venn diagram? Here’s an example:
John Venn first published these diagrams in 1880, although similar diagrams were used up to a century earlier. In the above example, the adjectives "happy," "short" and "male" all intersect in the middle, with overlaps also occurring between happy short females and sad short males and so on.
I’ve long thought of my life as a series of intersecting Venn diagrams, overlapping and looping back across time and friendships. For as long as I’ve been socialized I’ve been a joiner, but once I discovered pop culture I both narrowed and widened my spheres of comradery. David Cassidy fandom was probably first; although he was a major media star in the early ’70s, it was the age before personal computers, when paper ruled in the form of fan magazines and newsletters and penpals. At one point I had about 150 penpals (it was okay, stamps were only about 6¢ each in those days), about half of whom were Cassidy fans. We considered ourselves part of a secret cult, sharing a special bond that nobody else could understand.
Because connections in those days were much slower and lower-key than today (and entertainment choices considerably fewer), they were sustained longer. Where today someone could be branded a pariah within the space of a few hours for committing a faux pas an in online fan group, it took months for me to be kicked out of David Cassidy fan clubs for daring to suggest we were all gaga over a fictional media creation and that was still okay. Or maybe these leisure activities just seem more leisurely in nostalgic retrospect. Perhaps everyone thinks the hobby or media crush they were into as kids is more intense than the same interests seem to them later in life.
Columns / Glenn Hauman / News
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