Susan Morrison - Author of LORNE: The Man Who Invented Saturday Night Live

Summary

Podcast Summary: Fly on the Wall with Dana Carvey and David Spade – Featuring Susan Morrison

Episode Details:

• Title: Fly on the Wall with Dana Carvey and David Spade
• Guest: Susan Morrison, Author of LORNE: The Man Who Invented Saturday Night Live
• Release Date: February 19, 2025

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1. Introduction to Susan Morrison and Her Book

Dana Carvey and David Spade kick off the episode by introducing their guest, Susan Morrison, a writer with deep ties to Saturday Night Live (SNL). Morrison is the author of LORNE: The Man Who Invented Saturday Night Live, a comprehensive exploration of Lorne Michaels' pivotal role in shaping the iconic comedy show.

• Dana Carvey (00:51): "Today we have Susan Morrison, a writer... she wrote a big fat book about Lorne."
• David Spade (01:47): "It's the 50th anniversary of SNL. It's a good time to have it out."

2. Delving into Morrison’s Research and Insights

Morrison discusses her extensive research process, including interviewing numerous SNL alumni and Lorne Michaels himself. She emphasizes the depth and breadth of her work, covering Michaels' childhood, career highs and lows, and his enduring influence on comedy.

• Susan Morrison (03:06): "He's telling things to you listeners that even we don't know."
• David Spade (02:23): "Interviewed. Everyone got interviewed. Everyone talked. And it's just sort of a comprehensive look at Lorne Michaels through his childhood..."

3. Lorne Michaels: The Architect of SNL

The conversation shifts to Lorne Michaels' vision and the challenges he faced in launching SNL. Morrison highlights Michaels' desire to modernize variety television by infusing it with contemporary elements like drugs and relevant social commentary, setting SNL apart from its predecessors.

• Susan Morrison (06:16): "Lauren loved variety TV... His big idea was to take that format and bring it into the modern world."
• David Spade (07:20): "He was the first person who said, let's make variety TV something that has something to do with what people in their 20s are like."

4. The Struggles and Triumphs of Early SNL

Morrison recounts the initial struggles of SNL, including financial losses from unsuccessful shows like Public Spectacular and the challenges of transitioning SNL from live performances to taped episodes. These hurdles tested Michaels' resilience and commitment to his vision.

• Susan Morrison (04:50): "I met Lauren when he was perhaps at an even lower point... It was a big fat flop because it was packed with talent."
• Dana Carvey (08:55): "He just gets to do whatever the hell he felt like. And with no notes, you know, no interference."

5. The Essence of SNL: Live Chaos and Creative Freedom

The hosts and Morrison delve into the unique live environment of SNL, characterized by its controlled chaos and Michaels' hands-off approach. This atmosphere fostered creativity, allowing writers and performers to experiment and push boundaries without excessive oversight.

• Susan Morrison (08:37): "Lauren had trouble hiring people... He just gets to do whatever the hell he felt like."
• David Spade (09:06): "How did you end up writing this book? I'm just, that's popped in."

6. Personal Anecdotes and Behind-the-Scenes Stories

Morrison shares personal stories from her time working with Michaels, offering listeners intimate glimpses into his leadership style and the camaraderie among the SNL team. Highlights include interactions with legendary cast members like Dan Aykroyd and Chevy Chase, and the intricate dynamics within the writers' room.

• Susan Morrison (16:30): "I worked for him when he did the new show... I was 23 years old. My job chiefly consisted of ordering shitloads of food from the Carnegie Deli."
• Dana Carvey (55:12): "He'll give you the note, he'll say, maybe this, maybe that, but he isn't going to say, you have to change the ending."

7. Lorne Michaels' Leadership and Legacy

The discussion emphasizes Michaels' pivotal role as the linchpin of SNL, his ability to recognize and nurture talent, and his strategic decisions that have kept the show relevant for five decades. Morrison underscores his enigmatic yet approachable nature, which has earned him profound respect within the entertainment industry.

• Susan Morrison (26:46): "I really respect the hell out of him... he's completely essential."
• David Spade (31:54): "In terms of keeping the Show Consistent. Now 50 years. We have data now a half-century. Where did this guy come from?"

8. The Human Side of Lorne Michaels

Beyond his professional achievements, Morrison delves into Michaels' personal life, exploring the events that shaped his character and leadership style. She highlights his resilience in the face of personal setbacks, such as the loss of his father, and how these experiences influenced his approach to producing and managing SNL.

• Susan Morrison (50:11): "He was completely at sea and his father collapsed... gave him some indication of why you never see Lauren having a yelling match."
• Susan Morrison (51:59): "He always felt like if I do this, then I won't ever be able to do this."

9. The Future of SNL and Michaels' Enduring Influence

As the episode nears its conclusion, Morrison speculates on the future of SNL and Michaels' ongoing influence in the comedy world. She expresses confidence in his ability to sustain the show's success while adapting to changing cultural landscapes.

• Susan Morrison (73:35): "When she has clients going to audition for Lauren, she says, you got to remember, he is the star of the show."
• David Spade (73:43): "Extremely dry, droll wit. Yeah, that hits you pretty hard sometimes."

10. Closing Remarks

Dana Carvey and David Spade wrap up the conversation by congratulating Morrison on her book and reflecting on the enduring legacy of Lorne Michaels. They express appreciation for Morrison's insights and the rich history she has uncovered about one of comedy's greatest figures.

• David Spade (74:02): "Well, I don't know when this podcast airs, but I..."
• Susan Morrison (74:08): "Thank you so much. Really fun, you guys."

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Notable Quotes:

• Susan Morrison (02:07): "You're going to hear something that's a little shocking, a little surprising."
• Dana Carvey (18:04): "His whole world got smashed when he was 14 years old."
• Susan Morrison (55:42): "He is the linchpin. He's bigger than any cast member as far as the history of SNL. He is."

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This episode offers a deep dive into the life and legacy of Lorne Michaels through the lens of Susan Morrison's meticulously researched book. Listeners gain a nuanced understanding of the man behind SNL, his creative genius, leadership style, and the personal experiences that have shaped the show's enduring success.

Transcript

[Dana Carvey]

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[Dana Carvey]

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[David Spade]

Yes, yes.

[Dana Carvey]

He wrote a big fat book about Lorne.

[David Spade]

And it's the 50th anniversary of SNL. It's a good time to have it out. Lorne, the man who invented snl.

[Dana Carvey]

And she covers a lot. She's telling things to you listeners that even we don't know.

[David Spade]

You're going to hear something that's a little shocking, a little surprising. How's that for a tease? But if we do a deep dive, the man, the Moment, Lauren Michaels, based on the book and what she learned by interviewing I got interviewed. I don't, don't. My quotes are probably still.

[Dana Carvey]

I got interviewed.

[David Spade]

Yeah. Interviewed. Everyone got interviewed. Everyone talked. And it's just sort of a comprehensive look at Lorne Michaels through his childhood, all the way through his travails, seasons that were rougher than others, and on and on. So it's very interesting.

[Dana Carvey]

Oh, yeah, and they got, you know, Tina Fey And Steve Martin and John Mulaney. There's all these quotes up front and everywhere you turn, you know, they're talking about so very in depth. Took years to put this together.

[David Spade]

Years to put it together. And.

[Dana Carvey]

And it was very interesting talk. We went on and on. So, yeah, here she is. And you're going to learn a lot in Morrison.

[Susan Morrison]

And I sort of forgot, I had forgotten until recently, the. The wonderful accent thing that everybody says. The Eagles.

[Dana Carvey]

Oh, the Eagles. That's right. So you claim to have a book.

[Susan Morrison]

I do. I actually can even show it to you.

[David Spade]

It's coming out. Okay. I don't know when this airs, but it's February 18th. It's called. That's right, Lorne, the man who invented SNL.

[Susan Morrison]

That's right. In the Saturday Night Live, we decided that Lauren has monomial status, you know, like Fidel or Madonna. Madonna. You know, one name does it Lauren.

[Dana Carvey]

You know, you can tell the rookies because Lauren is such a name that comes up millions of times on our podcast and in life. But the people that call him Lauren and they spell it Lauren, like the female name is pretty interesting because, you know, they're an outsider and I don't listen to one thing they say.

[Susan Morrison]

It's like the people who say skits instead of sketches that always. Immediate.

[Dana Carvey]

Yep.

[Susan Morrison]

Disqualifier.

[Dana Carvey]

Right.

[David Spade]

Oh, boy. Don't even.

[Susan Morrison]

Men.

[David Spade]

Oh, skits. Gets him going. It's kind of interesting. Me, I'm just thinking out loud to myself, is that because of his hallowed place and his Mount Rushmore, you know, thing that's been going on for the 50th? He had left for five years. Did a lot of things left. SNL, 1980. None of them really landed. Comes back in 85, has a rough season, and then I meet him. So probably in this whole 50 years that was. Would it be a Nate. I went to state school. His Nader or something?

[Susan Morrison]

No, I think that's right. And Dana, I remember that when I interviewed you, you told me that when you showed up there, you thought you were probably going to be in the last cast of snl. You thought it was on its way out and it was kind of a Hail Mary pass. And, you know, it's interesting because I met Lauren when he was perhaps at an even lower point, you know, even lower for him. Well, I worked for him when he did the new show, which was.

[Dana Carvey]

New show, yeah.

[Susan Morrison]

I remember Public Spectacular Flop. And, you know, I don't think people thought he was going to be coming back from that. And he Also lost his own money in that show. It's strange it was such a flop because it was packed with talent. You know, the writers room was incredible. Jim Downey, Jack Handy, George Meyer.

[Dana Carvey]

Wow.

[Susan Morrison]

John. John Candy did amazing work on that show. It's worth looking up. Food repairman.

[David Spade]

No, I watched it. It was funny. It was just that besides In Living Color, which was a niche kind of prime time, and it was on Fox in the day primetime sketch, I did one that didn't make it. Martin Short. You'd have to line them all up. That's your next book. Why was there a bazillion sketch shows in prime time? The 50s, 60s and into the 70s, and then so many swing and a miss, you know, I don't know if you have. I've never totally figured that out.

[Susan Morrison]

I. I mean, I have a. I have a theory.

[David Spade]

I mean, Lauren, he loved.

[Dana Carvey]

Oh, sure, we've been recording. Don't worry.

[David Spade]

I'm kidding.

[Susan Morrison]

Lauren loved variety tv. You know, he grew up watching, you know, Sid Caesar and your show shows and all that stuff. And when he went to LA in the 60s and 70s, he just bounced around from one cruddy variety show to the next. You know, Perry Como, Burns and Schreiber. Phyllis.

[David Spade]

What about Burns and Schreiber, where he met his wife.

[Susan Morrison]

But. But the thing is, he liked the form, but he thought that it was like stuck in the 50s. The people writing those shows were guys who had written for radio. And his big idea was to take that format and bring it into the modern world. Movies were cool. You had Terrence Malick and Robert Altman. Music was cool, but television was a really weird backwater. So he was the first person who said, let's make variety TV something that has something to do with what people in their 20s are like. You know, let's put drugs on.

[Dana Carvey]

Yeah, yeah.

[David Spade]

And in my age group, you remember that when George Carlin was on Ed Sullivan in a suit and tie and a short haircut.

[Susan Morrison]

Yeah.

[David Spade]

And then he was like, so a symbol of this change in one one lane of it when he became the hippie. Long hair and all that. So there was a whole. I don't call it counterculture, but Laughing maybe was the last water cooler sketch show. That was so different, of course, than snl, but yeah, it was. It was in the ether. And then Lauren picked up the toys off the carpet and said, okay, we're going to play with these.

[Susan Morrison]

But, you know, I mean, the other thing that Lauren will say is that when he. He was pitching a show Like SNL for years and nobody wanted it. And what happened is that they needed something in late night on NBC to replace Carson's reruns. And Lauren had never thought of late night. But the thing it ended up being what made the show work. Because the way he put it, the network thought of late night as like a vacant lot on the edge of town. They weren't gonna pay attention to what was going on there. They weren't gonna meddle. He just got to do whatever the hell he felt like. And with no notes, you know, no interference.

[Dana Carvey]

Right. And you can be a little dirty. Like even TV shows on at 8 versus 9, when I was a sitcom, you can say a little more at 9 because kids are asleep. You can say way more at 10. And when you're way up there at 11:30, they don't worry so much about content as much.

[Susan Morrison]

Yeah, I think he thought they were probably not even watching.

[Dana Carvey]

Well, they didn't care.

[David Spade]

It was anti slick and, and late. So it right out of the bat. I'm just a little curious. Sorry, David, did you have something to say?

[Dana Carvey]

Not at all.

[David Spade]

I like to interrupt him. Did you see the movie Saturday Night? And what was your reaction to it? I mean, obviously it's trying to get a feeling rather than a linear story. Yeah, but did you, how did you feel about that?

[Susan Morrison]

Well, I had, I, I guess I had several simultaneous reactions. You know, the journalist in me was watching with my head exploding because there were so many things that were fictionalized or, you know, five years worth of events were kind of crammed into one night. But I, I did think that captured some of, as you guys know, you've lived this, you know, just some of the nail biting, knife edge chaos that I think gives the show its continues to fuel the show. It's funny, I talked to some of the current people, the people at the show now, some of the writers and cast, and they were indignant about it. They said that it was sort of like watching somebody, you know, screw up your song in a karaoke bar or something. You know, that someone, they were feeling proprietary about it. What did you guys think?

[David Spade]

Well, I went into it with a, you know, kind eyes because I knew it was an impossible thing to really capture. So we interviewed Jason, the director, and there were things that I really liked. We, you know, in real time, that there probably wasn't a, a bulletin board on 8H with like 80 sketches on it right before air or that Lorne Michaels was the update guy until right before air. So you have to kind of Give into it and see did it capture the essence. I wasn't there then. They weren't famous. The show wasn't famous because as it evolved it would never. No one would go ice skating right before the show. And most of the show is disappointment. Even in the best seasons and the best shows, I'd say maybe if you can get one out of five, great sketch. Pretty good. Most time I was just there for 10 weeks. Most of the time we all went, well, I guess that's it and just walk off stage. So go ahead.

[Susan Morrison]

I mean I found it enjoyable to watch. It kind of know it felt like the Poseidon Adventure or something. You know, it was almost like an adventure flick.

[David Spade]

I love that, that reference.

[Dana Carvey]

I love hysterical.

[David Spade]

Yeah, there's got to be a morning after. Has to be a party after the show.

[Susan Morrison]

Other people I know told me they had similar reaction to, to mine at the very end when it comes off and they do the Wolverine sketch and Chevy comes out and says, live from New York, it's Saturday night. I mean, I kind of teared up a little bit because it made you realize how improbable the whole show was and how close it came to not happening. You know, it could easily have not happened.

[Dana Carvey]

I did like little things I didn't know. Now Dana, I was going to ask Jason about that. Lauren one for Update. Because I did like the chaos. I did like, it was almost obviously too chaotic, but definitely knowing no fame. It just shows people. It's like sort of here's what it was. If you don't know how it started, this is. They weren't famous. No one thinks of Dan Aykroyd or Belushi as not famous, you know, so you have to go back and say, hey, they all get a job. It's a cruddy place. They're just throwing shit together. And then it, there's, you know, Billy Crystal leaving. Those are cool moments where you go, oh my God. There's just so many things that happen where everything there was life changing. You get me the first sketch Chevy's on Update. Like this, this. He's a big, good looking dude. I thought there was a lot of parts about. I really did. Like, and you're right. When it all came together, like what are the bricks on the stage? I don't even know. Like, I don't know what part was real, what wasn't, you know, fictionalized. That was real.

[Susan Morrison]

They were hammering those bricks in the day of the first show. And of course the old timers on the crew looked at Eugene Lee, the designer, you know, who wanted brought in old oak doors and bricks. And they said, what the fuck are you doing? You know, we just use cyclorama walls and you know, the way it used to be in old variety shows where instead of a set, you'd have like you know, a window frame or a tree in a pot, suggest park. But Lauren's idea was that you wanted this hardwall reality and it looked counterculture.

[David Spade]

And I did love. When was it J.K. simmons who play. He played Milton Berle and he's doing a song and dance number. And that was a really interesting juxtaposition because the variety shows, everything was shiny and clean and 8H still looks the same. It's kind of beat up. And if you walk in there without an audience, you're like, it's kind of a shithole.

[Dana Carvey]

Everyone thinks it's tiny. People go, this isn't where you. Because I went back to do 100 Biden. And it was just again, like when Dana going back, you go, oh, so here's Tom and wardrobe. You know, there's a lot of the same people and a lot of. It's obviously bigger and a little fancier in places, but you get out there, it's the same tiny stools. Even people I was with were like, this isn't where the audience. This is it. This is. This is where every sketch is. This tiny room.

[David Spade]

Yeah, I know.

[Susan Morrison]

Wow.

[David Spade]

It is true.

[Dana Carvey]

That's the fun of it.

[David Spade]

You know, can I just. Unless you have something you need to say.

[Susan Morrison]

Well, one thing I was just going to say to, you know, we were talking about the improbability of it and how those people weren't famous. It's one of the things that was fascinating for me to learn is Lauren had trouble hiring people like, who wanted to be on this late night show with this weird Canadian guy no one had never heard of, had ever heard of. And you know, Chevy almost didn't come on because he was doing a play like a dinner theater with Paul Lind, you know, didn't take the job.

[David Spade]

I didn't like Broadway. Yeah.

[Susan Morrison]

And I love that Paul Lind stood in the way of another hire. Alan Swell almost didn't come to her because he had been offered a job in prime time writing the questions for Paul Lind in the center square with squares.

[Dana Carvey]

I have. I have a dirty joke about falling. You want to hear it? Anything about Pauline walked into a party and he goes, it smells like in here. I think. Anyway, Dana, back to you. No, I will.

[David Spade]

I don't know, I don't get the reference. I just thought he was a funny guy. I mean, I don't understand.

[Dana Carvey]

Paul Lynn was a hero, by the way with Hollywood Squares. Unreal. When I was a kid, I laughed everything that dude said.

[David Spade]

Oh, he was always hilarious.

[Susan Morrison]

And I Bewitched.

[David Spade]

Oh my God, Bewitched and wherever. He was a great kind of rhythm, you know, just naturally funny. I was curious. So you knew Lauren during the new show. Is that when you met him?

[Susan Morrison]

Yeah, I, I, I was brought into the brill Building in 83 by Tom Gammell. Gammell and Pross, who I'd gone to college with. And I met Jim Downey for the first time. And Jim hired me.

[David Spade]

Just one second. I can talk to you in a little bit. I'll just be right back. I'll be right back. No, I want to, I want to talk to you. I really do, but I got to go. Sorry. Go ahead.

[Susan Morrison]

Stay right there.

[David Spade]

Yeah, stay right here.

[Susan Morrison]

So, but yeah. So Jim, in a rare act of decisiveness, Right. Hired me that day.

[Dana Carvey]

Rare act. That's funny.

[Susan Morrison]

To be his, his assistant.

[Dana Carvey]

I was 23.

[Susan Morrison]

I was 23 years old. My job chiefly consisted of ordering shitloads of food from the Carnegie Deli. I mean, you know, if I didn't know what chicken in the pot was, you know, then I, I.

[David Spade]

Writers eat, they have to eat, just feed their brains and you know, it.

[Susan Morrison]

Was a great thing for me. I was really young, my mom had just died suddenly and, and I was kind of at sea and so I got to go to this place with all these funny people every day and they were so kind to me, you know, and think about it. I mean, what a. And Christina McGinnis and Lauren and George Meyer and Jack Handy. You know, Zweibel, it was really, it was fun. So I didn't have a lot of one on one time with Lauren, but it was a pretty small operation and we were all just in this, the little. On the ninth floor of the, of the Brill Building. So yeah, I mean I, I knew him a little bit and again, I didn't realize that what I was witnessing was this soul crushing failure on his part.

[David Spade]

How did he take that failure, if you could even remember or all of you? Because I did a real, I did a variety show that lasted eight episodes and kind of blew up the network. So was this, did you get a full season?

[Susan Morrison]

I don't know. It wasn't there. Were, we were, I think we did like eight shows and then, and this is the Thing that was really weird about it, you know, Lauren had been used to working live, but the new show was taped on Thursday to air on Friday. So it brought out all of Lauren's, you know, less genius impulses. I mean, people always say that. Lauren always says that the show doesn't go on because it's ready. It goes on because it's 11:30. And, you know, he needs that deadline. He needs the deadline. And that's when he gets into his kind of superpower mode. You know, the meeting between the dress rehearsal and air. But if you think about it. So the new show we would be taping, and he would yell, cut. And then they'd start a sketch over. And sometimes these tapings would last for five hours. And, you know, because you get perfectionist.

[Dana Carvey]

And you can't stop fixing. Yeah, yeah.

[Susan Morrison]

And I remember the audience trying to leave in droves and Tom Gammell coming out and going like, you quitters, you know.

[Dana Carvey]

Sure.

[David Spade]

So they're watching the same sketch over and over.

[Dana Carvey]

Well, it's like a sitcom, you know, you're trying to get it right.

[David Spade]

Yeah.

[Dana Carvey]

When you're on a movie and it's a big budget, that happens where you just do take after take. Someone's got to go, hey, are we any good? Like, can we just move on? Like, this? Is it the best we can do?

[Susan Morrison]

And then they'd be up all night in the editing room, like, splicing the takes together so that it leached all of the, you know, the magic out of it. I mean, you guys know, because you've done it, the live, the adrenaline of live, really add something. But imagine these comedy sketches pieced together. They had to add laugh tracks.

[Dana Carvey]

Right. So it's all different.

[Susan Morrison]

I remember knowing that it wasn't going well. And then I guess Brandon Tartikoff said to Lauren after, I can't remember, maybe eight shows, like, why don't you just not make the rest of them? And instead, and here's the novel idea, let's make best of the new show ours.

[David Spade]

Best of all, after only eight episodes, we're going to do best stuffs finished.

[Susan Morrison]

Out.

[Dana Carvey]

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[Susan Morrison]

So you know, I, I, I was only, that was my only time in television. You got switched to journalism after that. But I stayed, you know, I stayed friends with all those writers and a lot of them including Steve Martin and Jack and you know, have written for me at the New Yorker and other places I've worked. So I was always kind of in the, you know, I would see run into Lauren every five years and say hi. I think our daughters knew each other in school and, but after the 40th anniversary I just, well, I was an empty nester. I had this crazy idea I was going to have a lot of time and I just realized it really hit me how Lauren is like single handedly responsible for what America thinks is funny, you know, across so many generations. And I thought he'd be a great subject for a book. So I, I did a, I sold, I sold the book first. I did a proposal. There was a bidding war. I chose Random House. And then I went to see him in his office and I said because I know, you know, you guys know Lauren. He likes to be out of the frame. He likes to be behind the curtain. He's, he's not a very public facing guy. So I said Lauren, I, I just sold signed a contract to write a book about you and the show. I don't need anything from you. You know, I know your people and I kind of around but if you wanted to talk to me and participate in It. It'll be a better and a richer book, and, you know, your legacy deserves that. And at first, he looked like he was gonna have a heart attack. You know, he just was like, yeah. And then, you know, he said, you think about it. And we had a drink a couple of days later, and. And he just started telling those stories. He just started talking. And so he. He was in. We didn't have any kind of agreement. You know, it's. He. He liked the fact that it was my book. It's not a vanity project that he had any approval over or anything, but he's smart enough to know that that's better, to have a real work of journalism about you and not some silly sort of puffbook.

[David Spade]

He had always told me I would never write a book because I couldn't tell the truth. So in terms of. You're writing this, and what do I include you, Susan? What. What do I not include? Is this unflattering to Lauren, who I have affection for and I think seminal. And though. So when he was sharing with you, it was stories that you felt were benign. I mean, the book's coming out. Did he bury people? What do you say about me?

[Susan Morrison]

Oh, Dana, you know, what he said about you is, it's a fucking show pony. I mean, you. Both of you. Both of you are really, really up there in his pantheon. No, I think that he. I think one of his reservations in the beginning, and this is very smart of him, he knows that people have very selective memory. You know, I. I don't know that he read deeply in those, like the oral history by Tom Shales and Jim Miller, but he certainly knew that over the years, people had put out versions of things that were wildly exaggerated, you know. And he also know that comedians like to kind of embellish a story to make it funnier. Right? That's a human thing. So I think he. He was a little worried about that, but he, you know, he. I asked him lots of questions. He told me lots of stories. I'd say in the final two years of the reporting, what I was doing was I'd go over there on a Friday night, and I'd say, okay, now what we're going to do is try to do some, like, fact checking, because a lot of times I'd have three or four different versions of an event, and I wanted him to try to be a tiebreaker, like, what do you think actually happened here? And, you know, he was very honest. A lot of times he just said, God, I don't know. It was the seventies. But I, but again, because I, you know, work at the New Yorker and we're fact checking and accuracy are important. I worked really hard to try to get, get it, get to the bright things. And there were definitely things. And I brought all these things to him. There were definitely things that maybe stung a little bit or that he would have preferred not be in the book, but he never said, like, oh, God, don't put that in the book. You know, he, he, he understood that. Yeah. And I got, I really respect the hell out of him for that. You know, I mean, he knew I was going to write a real book. And. But the response among, you know, his world and his publicist and the people around him has been really, has been really positive. People think that I've really got him. But, you know, I mean, going into something like this with a character as mysterious and feared as Lauren is, I, I always knew that there would be a contingent of people who said, like, oh, God, this is just a blowjob. And then there'd be other people who would say, this is a hatchet job, you know?

[David Spade]

Right.

[Susan Morrison]

So I think, I mean, I'm, I really, I, I, I'm in awe of Lauren, and I really admire him, and I admire and like him even more at the end of this process than I did at the beginning. I, I think what he's done is incredible. But you guys work there when people would be bitching about this or that or, you know, it's a tough place. Right.

[Dana Carvey]

Do you, do, did you talk to any cast that said anything that.

[Susan Morrison]

Or Ernie.

[Dana Carvey]

Any personalities just very different than what you thought once you get them on the phone?

[David Spade]

Huh.

[Susan Morrison]

Let's see.

[Dana Carvey]

Or is everyone kind of.

[Susan Morrison]

That's, that's such a good.

[Dana Carvey]

Did you hang up with someone and go, wow? I, they were very.

[Susan Morrison]

One person who blew my mind was Dan Aykroyd, because he talks in these.

[David Spade]

Yeah.

[Susan Morrison]

Sentences. Have you guys ever talked to him?

[David Spade]

We did a live podcast with him at David's house.

[Susan Morrison]

You know what I mean? Like, he talks in perfect paragraphs, and he's so. I just would never have thought that he, you know, he's somebody who, and, and he's so thoughtful and uses such interesting words. Let's see.

[David Spade]

You know, you know, they didn't, they didn't know what to do with the lumber back in Canada in 1954.

[Dana Carvey]

He has a lot of backs.

[David Spade]

The steel, the steel manufacturer. Yeah. He is like this. And, and he made it. Comedy rhythms. He did it as Coneheads.

[Dana Carvey]

He did Coneheads has a Lot of talk in it.

[David Spade]

Long free, free consciousness kind of speeches. So it's, it's part of his.

[Susan Morrison]

Well, it makes you realize that, you know, Beldar, Conehead, Van Aykroyd are very similar, aren't they?

[Dana Carvey]

Parental units. I told someone, are you with your parental units tonight? And then I said, after I've said this a million times, I go, you know, that's from Coneheads. They're like, what is that term? I go, I think so. Isn't it memory goes parental units and no one knew that. I go, oh, that's so funny. It just gets in the ether. And people, you had some good quotes here from a lot of the stars. I think some are funny, some are just straight ahead interesting. And I like Steve Martin says Dave Letterman is genuinely self deprecating. He genuinely doesn't think he's any good. Those issues don't come up for Lorne. And also, go ahead. Oh Jane Curtin saying he spent a lot of time talking about where he's going to eat or so tonight at.

[David Spade]

9:00, Chevy will be there. Chevy Chase. No, no, no.

[Dana Carvey]

Chevy Wilson, one of the Pauls.

[David Spade]

You'll find with Susan, she's that thing of like, you know, she wants to please and yet she has an eagle eye and she sees what others don't.

[Dana Carvey]

Bill Haters is funny too.

[David Spade]

Bill Hader.

[Dana Carvey]

Yeah.

[David Spade]

Bill has a great Lauren. You have different, you just are very much.

[Dana Carvey]

He says, dana, if you start drowning, he's not like, hey, here's a life jacket. He's like, oh, that guy's drowning in my pool. Let's go here and let's go hang with Alec Baldwin.

[Susan Morrison]

Well, you know, it is funny. One of the things that is so interesting about Lauren is that even though people early in the show, as the show started getting successful and Lauren started getting richer with fancier friends, you know, people would bitch and moan about that. You know, Belushi referred to Lauren's fancy friends as the dead. You know, all those socialites and everything. But I think that it was kind of interesting the way Lauren managed to parlay that into kind of a comic character on the show. You know, like the Lauren that you see in the Smiggles TV funhouse. Get back my show.

[David Spade]

You know, come back with my show.

[Susan Morrison]

You know, he kind of, I feel like he almost, you know, the Lauren Pasha, like producer character became a character on the show as much as like church ladies.

[Dana Carvey]

You know, the aloof producer that just stands there with a beer or something or a glass of wine.

[Susan Morrison]

And I remember you know, I actually, I mean, I hope we hear more of your Lauren data today. But I remember asking Alec Baldwin at one point, who do you think does the best Lauren impersonation? And Alec just said, lauren.

[David Spade]

All right, telling, right? It's that thing of like, I never met anyone who talked like that, you know. But I do believe that that's what I'm kind of curious about. And yeah, so you went on this journey and it's not so much just like what makes Lauren tick, but it's sort of like, where's the, where's the marshmallow inside this, this veneer? You know, because I think he wants to be one of the guys and he, I think he is very observant and wonders what people are thinking of him and gets easily wounded in a way. But he's also so resilient. I mean, he's Trumpian.

[Susan Morrison]

Yeah.

[David Spade]

In just that way to which we probably talked about just keeping the Show Consistent. Now 50 years. We have data now a half century. Where did this guy come from? Yeah, who is he? Will that be answered when I buy the book?

[Susan Morrison]

I think you're gonna get your $38 worth. But no, everyone I talk to about Lauren, it's the same. They're all kind of trying to unriddle him. You know, Conan, Conan says everybody thinks that Lauren has the secret. You know, part of that is that he isn't like, unlike a lot of guys who got Richard famous in the 80s, you know, like Barry Diller, Michael Milken or people like that. Yeah, he's never been like a show off workaholic. You know, he, he's not one of those people who says, I get up at 4am and work out with a trainer. And then I, you know, he, he, he does seem to know how to live. You know, he is a, he kind of invented work, life, balance, you know, but, yeah, but then in terms of you say the marshmallow inside. I don't want to be too psychobabbly or, you know, too much of an easy answer, but go ahead. A lot really does take you back to Lorne suddenly losing his father. When he's 14 years old, he was completely at sea and his father collapsed one night after having a big argument with Lauren, had a big fight, father collapses, disappears into the hospital. Lauren never sees him again. This gives you some indication of why, you know, you never see Lauren having a yelling match with anybody. You know, he's very, he keeps it very low. You know, he, I think at one point I say in the book that he Speaks in the register of a man announcing a golf tournament. You know, but he. I think that his whole world got smashed when he was 14. You know, his. Then he had a bad year. His mother thought he was going to be a juvenile delinquent, to use the term juvie, popular in the juvia. And he had to kind of rebuild. He had to put it all together. I think it gave him a kind of resilience that. A kind of resilience that helped him throughout his whole career. You know, just when I was starting the book, I interviewed Judd Apatow for the New Yorker Radio Hour, and he said something that really resonated with me. When Judd was 14, his parents had a really bad divorce. And I think he, you know, there were financial problems. His whole world kind of fell apart. And he told me that he definitely, because of that, like, that's why he kind of early in his life, abandoned his dreams of being a performer and instead became a director and producer. Because, you know, when you're that guy, you've got the clipboard, you got the call sheet, you're making sure that everything works. You're making sure that it's not going to be chaos. You're taking care of everything, as opposed to, you know, if you're a performer, you're just kind of looking. You're doing. Strutting your own stuff. And I thought that that reminded me so much of Lorne, you know, because he also was a performer early in his life. But, you know, he is. He's determined to not let anything fall apart because his own world fell apart when he was 14. That'll be $350 for that.

[David Spade]

I always thought it was people who started out in comedy and just saw that it wasn't going to happen for him. And then they became a writer.

[Dana Carvey]

A writer or a more consistent job.

[David Spade]

I did not realize when I was on Saturday Night Live that every single writer essentially wanted to be in front of the camera, you know. Yeah, I didn't realize that.

[Susan Morrison]

So I didn't know that until I started reporting this book. So every, you know, think about all the people who were just writers. Mulaney Odenkirk, you know. Yeah, those guys never got on stage.

[David Spade]

Robert sm. They all want to be. They all want to trust me.

[Dana Carvey]

Conan.

[David Spade]

I love that kind of Lauren, you know. Well, do you think Michael B. Here, he's visit. It's not very far from, you know, the bleachers to where the cameras are. You know, he. He has so many things. It's a little short walk Ye.

[Dana Carvey]

Yeah, that's funny. Yeah.

[David Spade]

But when you do Lauren, you get to kind of inhabit Lauren. And I do think, because the show is magnificent chaos. That's also part of his. His methodology is he'll. He'll be the calm when people.

[Dana Carvey]

Was anybody angry?

[Susan Morrison]

Oh, well, yeah, there's definitely some people who are angry because, you know, it's one of the things. I would say that maybe Lauren's biggest achievement was just creating this kind of culture with walls around it. You know, it's a tribe and you're in it or you're out of it. You know, it's like the Godfather kind of. And, you know, there are a couple of people.

[Dana Carvey]

No, no.

[Susan Morrison]

Who, you know, I mean, I think that's one of the reasons it was so painful for Conan when he lost the Tonight show and went to tbs. He was. He was kind of, you know, he had spent his whole career at NBC and I. And for a while he had, you know, a little bit of a frosty rupture with Lauren. I think, you know, he was off the guest. Off the T shirt list. You know, stopped getting the Broadway video. You guys still get those. The Broadway video T shirts?

[Dana Carvey]

I don't know if I still do.

[David Spade]

I think so, Yeah, I do. Yeah. Lauren, he wants to be in the loop. I. He did not produce the Conan Tonight Show. Right. For some reason.

[Susan Morrison]

That's right. He produced Late Night.

[David Spade]

Yeah.

[Susan Morrison]

Conan. And then when Conan went to la, NBC, I mean, it was kind of a drama. NBC told Conan and his producer, Jeff Ross, oh, you don't need Lauren to be your ep, you know, but I think that was a misstep. I think. I think it probably would have been a good.

[David Spade]

Yeah, I think in the end of the day and this. There's been even current things that I won't mention with different people is just shows that's important to Lauren, and maybe it's how he reacts to other people in his life. You show respect, you know, you want to. You want to give Lauren the chance to say, I think you should do it without me. You know?

[Dana Carvey]

Right.

[David Spade]

If you started with him and he gave you your break, then you do kind of have that. That feeling.

[Dana Carvey]

But. But it's a hard back and forth to say, lauren, do you want to produce this movie? Because now you're putting him on the spot sometimes if he doesn't. But if you don't and it's success, he's like, why wouldn't you bring that to me? It's very touchy because you don't want to go, I want a new favor.

[Susan Morrison]

That's hard.

[Dana Carvey]

Yeah, I want a favor from you also. This thing about networks is tough because let's say I did a show for network, like, I've done sitcoms, and they're always wining and dining you for a sitcom the whole run. And the second it's over, let's say you do a pilot or something, or even just they cancel your show. There's always part of you that thinks mistakenly. But this network, we were friends. How could they do. That's the weirdest thing that you realize it's all just for the moment. Things are going good, everything's great. But don't get too chummy because you're just a card on a board where they say, we don't need that anymore. We're putting this here. They don't think like that. They don't go, oh, is someone's feelings going to get hurt? They're just like, this does better than that. That. We got to put that there. It's very hard. It's very rare. They go, hey. I mean, they might say it, but they're not just saying, hey, just because we're all buds, we should keep this on forever.

[Susan Morrison]

Yeah. I think that for Lauren, it's these. It's a relationship business, you know, and he really does for that.

[Dana Carvey]

Yes.

[Susan Morrison]

One of one of his old Canadian friends told me that even from the very beginning, you could tell he likes rabbit's feet. You know, he likes to have these familiar people around. And I think, you know, one time he was kind of half joking, but he compared himself to. He said, I'm like Prometheus, you know, I brought. I brought on the bringer of fire to these young people, you know, the people he hires and whose life he changes. And he is aware that, you know, he's very aware that you want to stay tight with the people who were there for you at the beginning.

[Dana Carvey]

Sure.

[Susan Morrison]

You know, it's why he kept Bernie. I'm sure he was paying Bernie Brillstein 15%, you know, up to the very end when. When was the last thing Bernie did for Lauren?

[Dana Carvey]

You know, even when it went to 10%, he's probably still playing him 15. Yeah. Yeah. By the way, Prometheus, for all the kids listening, is a rapper.

[Susan Morrison]

Little Prometheus.

[Dana Carvey]

Yeah. Little Prometheus. Life's biggest questions. There's a few of them, Dana, in your life.

[David Spade]

Yeah.

[Dana Carvey]

What house do I buy? What college should I go to, and will you marry me? That's a big one, right?

[David Spade]

Would you like to marry me.

[Dana Carvey]

And therefore, would you be cool with marrying me?

[David Spade]

Would you be okay? Okay with committing 247 of your life for multiple decades? To me.

[Dana Carvey]

To me.

[David Spade]

And that's what the what where blue now comes in. Because they're the. They're the ultimate for choosing the perfect engagement ring. Shape, size, style, setting, cut, color, clarity, carrot.

[Dana Carvey]

That's just off the top of your head. And if you. If you're like most people, you may have no idea, but she knows the girls, the women, they know this stuff. So it's time to learn. And you go toNew Blue Nile dot com. That's where you learn dot com.

[David Spade]

This is going to make your life a lot easier, create you a bigger.

[Dana Carvey]

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[David Spade]

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[Dana Carvey]

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[David Spade]

Yes. And you've got free shipping and returns. So it's kind of like what I would call foolproof. Blue Nile has 100% satisfaction guarantee. So that way you can make sure you pick the right one for that someone who's special.

[Dana Carvey]

Right. Now go get 50 bucks off your purchase of $500 or more with code fly [e-mail] that's $50 off with code.

[David Spade]

[e-mail] Blue Nile.com I if something happened.

[Dana Carvey]

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[David Spade]

Ethos life insurance. Life insurance? Yeah. Ethos Life insurance.

[Dana Carvey]

Yeah. It can protect your family, those you care about, keeping up with mortgages, tuition bills, like the list goes on. You don't even know what would happen if you didn't have someone around. And there's so many things you need to take care of.

[David Spade]

Yeah. It's a very nice thing to do for your loved ones. And by the way, David, if you've applied for life insurance before, you know, it can. It can be a pain. And like a lot of usually, it's Ethos has made securing life Insurance policies up to $3 million. Smooth and fast as possible. So come on.

[Dana Carvey]

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[David Spade]

Wow.

[Dana Carvey]

Get your free [e-mail] fly that's E.

[David Spade]

T H O S.com fly.

[Dana Carvey]

By the way, I have it off the. Off the grid here. The new show. Is it possible you would remember this? I think this is a dumb joke for the new show. A Whitney Brown and Louis. Were they both on it? Possibly.

[Susan Morrison]

I don't think they were. Weren't they?

[Dana Carvey]

But on camera.

[Susan Morrison]

No, they weren't on it.

[Dana Carvey]

They weren't on the new show.

[Susan Morrison]

No, they weren't. They weren't.

[Dana Carvey]

Okay. Because this joke is from something else. It could have been, but weren't they?

[Susan Morrison]

Weren't they on Dana's show?

[David Spade]

Louis CK I hired as my head writer? No, Louie, Whitney Brown was not right for it.

[Dana Carvey]

I remember with Louis Anderson and Whitney Brown. But what.

[Susan Morrison]

It could have been on. On a. On a bad episode of snl, on.

[Dana Carvey]

A figment of my imagination might have.

[David Spade]

Been in the 85 season. I think that's when a Whitney got hired.

[Dana Carvey]

Here's the joke.

[Susan Morrison]

Yeah. Okay.

[Dana Carvey]

They're in row. It's like a. Just quick cutaway, like I'm laughing. They walk out in Roman togas. One's ripped and one isn't. And Whitney goes. No, yeah. Whitney goes to Louise that's ripped and says Euripides. And he goes, eumenides. And that was it.

[Susan Morrison]

That's right out of Ed Sullivan.

[Dana Carvey]

Isn't that a weird.

[David Spade]

That's. That's Topo Gigio right there. I mean.

[Dana Carvey]

I'm pretty sure I'm lying, but why would I even think of this when you were talking about the show?

[Susan Morrison]

But you know, that reminds me of when Lauren directed his show in college. UC Follies, which was very much like a proto SNL thing. There was a Shakespeare take parody in it that Lauren wrote. This is actually one of the first funny joke that I've ever. That Lorne Michaels wrote, to my mind. There was a character in it named Hand and Bra. Get it?

[David Spade]

Okay. Got it.

[Susan Morrison]

Instead of Fort and bra. Yeah, Hand and Bra. You got it?

[Dana Carvey]

I like it.

[David Spade]

I got it.

[Susan Morrison]

It's pretty good.

[David Spade]

I like.

[Dana Carvey]

That's the beginning, middle, end. It's very economical. 50s people listen. I laughed harder at Hee Haw. I don't know what. You know, I can't. Any reference. I laughed at Donnie Marie.

[David Spade]

Bernie Brillstein told me, they take your Hee Haw money in London, you know, because he was producing. You didn't like. Yeah, I don't like fake art. He just thought the art scene was ridiculous.

[Dana Carvey]

You know, it's funny when people say, like, you know, belushi only made 400 a week on SNL and he made 10 grand for animal House, which is not bad money. Especially when you're an unknown. They forget that they weren't a huge star on the COVID of Time magazine. Did Belushi get on the COVID of Time? I heard Chevy did. Did Belushi.

[Susan Morrison]

Belushi was on Newsweek. Oh, Newsweek for Animal House. And Chevy was on New York magazine at the end of season one. They called him the heir apparent to Johnny Carson. And that's basically what started all kinds of splintering in that first cast. Because, you know, the idea wasn't for one person to emerge as a star. That kind of screwed everything up.

[Dana Carvey]

Immediate problems. That's always been there since then.

[Susan Morrison]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, you were talking about the. Asking about the new show. I just remembered one funny little conflict that happened there. I remember Gamlin Pross wrote a sketch called Time Truck. It was a time traveling truck. And it was for a show with Kevin Klein. Kevin Klein was hosting. And the idea was Kevin Klein was supposed to play Abe Lincoln and they were supposed to go back in time to prevent Lincoln from getting shot. But Lorne thought that it would be much funnier to have his close personal friend Paul Simon play Lincoln. Just as a side gag.

[Dana Carvey]

Right.

[Susan Morrison]

The writers are like, Paul Simon, not a comic actor.

[Dana Carvey]

Yeah. And he's very quiet.

[Susan Morrison]

Yeah. Anyway.

[Dana Carvey]

Yeah. Reason number 800 why the new show didn't fly off the shelves.

[David Spade]

Did we. Did we talk about just. Well, obviously you mentioned Lauren hacked Life. That's the new phrase. Like, you go to Buttermilk and you ski, you know, and then you're in St. Barts and you go to Wimbledon and Paul and I would often go out and just buy socks. You go downtown, so. And he did pace himself. That's part of the half Century is he does pace himself. He knows when it's important for him to lock in. And that's the, especially this Saturday. That 30 minutes is where everything's made and the whole show is based on add and procrastination. So at Lorne's core, does he have both those elements? Because I do.

[Susan Morrison]

Yeah. Well, you know, Jim Downey had a really smart way of describing this. He said, Lauren is a guy bad at term papers, great at tests. You know, so if you give him an open ended thing that he has to sit down and fiddle with, he's just never going to finish it. But when there's a deadline, when there's an alarm bell that goes off, that's, you know, I think someone said the deadline is Lawrence Cocaine. You know, it's the thing that gets him galvanized. And can you imagine if that show was taped? You would never have that moment, you know, at 10:30 where he's saying, you know. But yeah, I think that he, he definitely, he definitely has said to me a bunch of different times that he, he was always his whole life reluctant to burn a bridge or to close a door. You know, he always felt like if I do this, then I won't ever be able to do this. I mean, he's, he. And he also told me a story this kind of related. He told me it's a real memory of once his father taking him to a diner when he was a little boy and saying, just order anything you want off the menu. So he ordered a hot dog and a hamburger and a grilled cheese and onion rings and french fries and, you know, couldn't eat it all. And then his father said, let this be a lesson to you. You know, your eyes are bigger than your stomach now. I don't know how Lauren converted that into a lesson about comedy, but he did. And, and I think that if you think about that plate full of junk food at the diner, it's not unlike what the show is like Saturday going into. You know, they still have way more than they can use.

[Dana Carvey]

Sure.

[Susan Morrison]

And it's chopping it down.

[Dana Carvey]

And you don't need everything you don't, you think you don't need. Everything you think you need in life also is a bigger way. It's true.

[Susan Morrison]

Right, right, right, right.

[Dana Carvey]

I want to go lunch with his dad. Yeah, I need to learn things. That's a good one. Buy me a hot dog.

[David Spade]

Yeah, we both have dad stuff. I mean, do all comedians have mom or dad stuff?

[Susan Morrison]

Right.

[David Spade]

I don't know.

[Susan Morrison]

Well, I thought it was you know, a lot of people talk about these different rules Lauren has about comedy, these Laurenisms. And I think all the comedy ones are interesting. But it was also really interesting for me to hear how many of them were just about, like, how to live your life. You know, so many people talked about how Lauren would say, buy yourself an apartment that you think you can't afford because, you know, then you'll come home after a hard day at work and you'll go, wow, who lives here? And you go, wow, I live here.

[Dana Carvey]

You know, and he told me that. He said, buy. He said, get. Yeah, it matters where you live. So if you're torn, get the nicer one.

[David Spade]

He does his Lauren. And a lot of it is just good old fashioned wisdom.

[Susan Morrison]

Yeah.

[David Spade]

Well, well crafted. We talk about the one that was sort of took me by surprise, you know, about this generation or whatever. Snowflakes or anxiety or whatever. You know, we were raised in the wilderness and got like, civilized. They're raised civilized, and then we want them to go out into the wilderness, which is, yes, sort of brilliant. I said that Howard Stern and go, what does that mean?

[Susan Morrison]

He said. He said that to me too. And I totally get it. I like it. Yeah.

[David Spade]

Yeah.

[Susan Morrison]

But, you know, it was also, I spent so much time hanging out there that it was really interesting for me to see. He's so patient kind of with the millennials and some of the snowflakey, you know, sensibilities. But one day he said something that really cracked me up. This is in the book. We were walking in the theater district and we walked past the Mean Girls marquee, and he had just got tickets for his friend Margaret Trudeau to go. But he was really mad because one of the leads had called in sick because she had to take her dog to the vet. The dog had eaten glue or something. And he just said, if it was Patti lupone, the dog would be dead. Couldn't believe that this person's pet was.

[Dana Carvey]

I think in the new days, there's just options you didn't have. Like, you can just not do things anymore. In the old days, it's like, no, you go, no matter what, you go to work, you go to school, you do this. And now it's like, if you feel like it, unless you want to call in a day you're not mentally feeling like it, it's like. Or you have anxiety. If I had the word anxiety back then, I would have used it all day.

[David Spade]

I think Lauren has a classic characteristic of somebody who is. Has power in a meeting and that is, if things are going around the room and then Lauren will sort of sum up something or say something that's not exactly on topic, but related to the topic in very few words, you know, and it's like, I just think I. You know, I don't know, this is a Hackney one, but it just needs to breathe or whatever, you know, make sure that the audience knows you're actually performing. You know, sort of, you know, don't just do it to each other. So that's kind of one of his superpowers, and that's really important with the suits and Universal and stuff. I. I had. I was at parties with the. The suits and Lauren. He doesn't talk a lot, but when he does, it's usually it's pretty hard or it's interesting, you know.

[Susan Morrison]

Yeah, no, he has a lot of things like that that can kind of close off discussion. Like, he'll say, it'll get there.

[Dana Carvey]

Yeah.

[Susan Morrison]

You know, or it'll say it knows what it is.

[David Spade]

Stuff like that.

[Susan Morrison]

Yeah, really good, good things.

[David Spade]

Yeah. All I'm saying, you know, he never really says, do this. All I'm saying is like, do we really have to go there with that right now?

[Susan Morrison]

I thought it was also interesting that even though, you know, in that meeting between Dress and air, he really is like a general, you know, and that's. That's the time at which he famously yelled at Bob Odenkirk once. Odenkirk, if you talk again, I'll break your fucking legs. You know?

[David Spade]

But mostly that's when he's most confrontational, because there's no time left, no time.

[Dana Carvey]

For any fun bullshit. It's like, go, go, go.

[Susan Morrison]

Right? But. But even. Even though he is, you know, that is his moment, he rarely forces somebody to change something. I mean, writers are always telling me, that's true. Yes. He'll give you the note, he'll say, maybe this, maybe that, but he isn't going to say, you have to change the ending. You know, he lets it belong to the writers, which is so unusual.

[Dana Carvey]

Some, you know, some of mine got dirty. And he would say, to interrupt you, he would say, I don't know if you need that. Yeah, yeah, put it if you want, but I don't know if you need it. And that's a good way of saying, oh, you feel like it's a little dirty. It's kind of smart the way it is. I don't know if you need that. And you go, yeah, okay. Like, okay, well, if you say it, I'm obviously Younger and just new on the show. I think I would take your gut feeling over mine.

[David Spade]

I know because I said to Lauren just in the fall when I was there, I said, you're like an AI. Like you have downloaded the show and your brain.

[Dana Carvey]

That's a good.

[David Spade]

So Lauren's blink is the best blink. Because he can't even, he's, he's, he's going back to, you know, Danny did that in my early days. Similar to a Chevy idea. You know, it's like. So he, that's why his blink is really good. He kind of knows. He can't even totally describe what's wrong in a way. But his spider sense, because he's.

[Susan Morrison]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[David Spade]

He's downloaded the show.

[Susan Morrison]

But he might say, as David was just saying, he might say, well, do you think it's working?

[Dana Carvey]

You know, yeah, stuff like that.

[Susan Morrison]

Do you think it's working? But Dana, this is reminding me what David just said is the story you told me about the time he thought Church lady got too dirty with the football players.

[David Spade]

Yeah. Yeah. And he was, he was really kind of right. It was just, you know, it was Joe Montana and Walter Payton, and I'm doing a church chat. And so it was just became vaudevillian sexual innuendos, like, we're playing football. Squeeze the between your legs and let me, you know, it was just a lot of that. And Lauren was like, you know, does it really. It was like a little, you know, and he didn't want Church lady for a while. I think she needs a name, you know, and stuff like that. And he didn't really like the superior dance. He wanted to be more grounded in reality. But, like, he never told me yay or nay. But he the, the mon. Joe Montana one, because maybe it was lowbrow or something. It was later in the show, but it killed so hard that the old timer sound man said, I've been here for 20 years. I've never seen the needles go that high. So I, you know, anyway, you know.

[Susan Morrison]

That superior dance thing, I mean, I didn't know he didn't like that because, boy, I think that's so funny.

[David Spade]

But, Well, I, I, I think he wasn't a fan of it, but maybe he probably accepted it as the, as the character grew, got bigger.

[Susan Morrison]

Yes. Like she became a signature.

[David Spade]

Yeah.

[Susan Morrison]

Because I know Conan told me that. Or maybe Lauren told me. Maybe they both told me. Rare instance of everybody agreeing that Lauren was always telling Conan to get rid of that string dance thing that he did. You know, where he would Touch his nipples and go. Oh yeah, Warren hated that, you know, But Conan stuck with it and it worked. You know, there are people.

[Dana Carvey]

Yeah.

[Susan Morrison]

You know, people, I guess.

[David Spade]

Well, that is the thing about catchphrases and, or repetitive physical things. Your signature Johnny Carson does the golf swing. I don't know if there's something homey to your brain, you know, oh, Conan's doing that again. You know, we all do it.

[Susan Morrison]

Right, right. Well, Mark McKinney told me that at the original, at the initial read through of the Kids in the hall series, the one thing that Lauren just didn't like, didn't understand was the I'm crushing your head guy. And, and that when Mark. And you know that sketch.

[David Spade]

Yeah, yeah. The camera set up so it looks like you're crushed. Yeah. As a little kid, when I first.

[Susan Morrison]

Read it, Lauren said like, oh, so it's a funny voice thing, you know.

[Dana Carvey]

But he didn't, it wasn't.

[Susan Morrison]

Dana, you could say that better than me. But, but then when he saw it, when he saw that it was a visual, you know, like that.

[David Spade]

Right.

[Susan Morrison]

Then he, then he got it and he liked it. So again, you have to have, you really have to have a sense of yourself, I guess. Right. Because a, a more of a fading violet kind of performer would have just said, okay, we'll cut that sketch.

[Dana Carvey]

Right? Sure.

[David Spade]

Right. And Lauren is, he's, he's open too. If it works, it works. I mean, he just loves a laugh. So if you know that that makes him so high.

[Susan Morrison]

Yeah.

[David Spade]

You know, and, and you see the, how he still just suffers if the show's going a little flat. You see it in his body language, his attitude. If the show is lifted, it's just, you know, from across the way. If your sketch destroys, it'd be like, you know, and that's like a really good coach that never over praises, but when he does, it means a hell of a lot. So that's.

[Susan Morrison]

Yeah. So many people told me about how they would come off stage and just feeling like they really killed. And you know, then in the Monday meeting, he wouldn't talk about that, but he would say, you know, like, no, Nora, you were breathtaking as the fourth waitress. That kind of thing.

[David Spade]

Yes. I thought Jan's accent was breathtaking.

[Dana Carvey]

Exit. We know all about LinkedIn.

[David Spade]

Oh, we know LinkedIn.

[Dana Carvey]

I know LinkedIn. It's a very well known brand. I think that's one of the few that you just say and people know, you know, and as a small business owner, you don't always have the luxury of clocking out early. It's very busy. You know, your business is on your mind all day, all night. When you're hiring, you need a partner that grinds as hard as you do. And the hiring partner is LinkedIn jobs for when you clock out, LinkedIn clocks in. LinkedIn makes it easy to post your jobs for free. Share it with your network, and get qualified candidates that you can manage all in one place. You know, this is exactly what you need because you want it easy. No one in a small business has time. They're always busy. There's always something else to do. So you get these. This team on your side and they're working for you. They do their job well. You know, they got. Even got a new feature where they can help you write job descriptions, and they get your job in front of the right people with deep candidate insights.

[David Spade]

It's also true. You either post your job for free or pay to promote promoted jobs. Get three times more qualified applicants.

[Dana Carvey]

Get qualified candidates. At the end of the day, the most important thing to your small businesses, that quality of candidates. And with LinkedIn, you can feel confident that you're getting the best. You know, you can let your network know you're hiring. You can even add a hiring frame to your profile picture, hashtag hiring. And then it gets two times more qualified candidates. They got all the tricks.

[David Spade]

Yeah. Find out why more than 2.5 million small businesses use LinkedIn for hiring today. Find your next great hire on LinkedIn.

[Dana Carvey]

Post your job for [e-mail] candidates. That's LinkedIn.com candidates to post your job for free. Terms and conditions apply. You know, when I'm on the road, Dana, I'm always. I'm always pretty much staying in hotels. But there's been a shift to Airbnb and you hear about it all the time.

[David Spade]

Hotels are fine. There can be great. But Airbnb is a great alternative, you know, because you get a lot of choices of where you can stay. Oh, yeah, it's very practical.

[Dana Carvey]

I mean, hotel can be like, oh, like when I go on the road, I go, that one's the closest hotel is a half hour from the gig or something. But you say, oh, Airbnb just go, oh, I want to go a little closer. I want to be in this area. I want a swimming pool and I want this.

[David Spade]

Yes. And I famously have said many times, a place we used to go, my wife and I, to get away, and we stayed at some really nice hotels. But then we found this Airbnb, which we used, I Think three times. There's always spotless. The keys are outside in a little padlock. And they used to have a bottle of wine and a note. And you have a kitchen. And it was very, very nice. The benefits of Airbnb is that space, privacy, better locations compared to hotels. You get to pick how close you want to be to wherever you want to go.

[Dana Carvey]

You're traveling with family, your friends, you're on your own. It's great. Well, Susan, Dana, anything else for this young lady who's writing. Written. Great book.

[David Spade]

So now your book is emerging.

[Susan Morrison]

Yeah.

[David Spade]

Within this gigantic SNL 50th. Yeah, whatever you want. Extravaganza. You know, and I can't keep track of all the documentaries, people. I. I don't, you know. Were you in that?

[Susan Morrison]

The cowbell one is great. We gotta watch that.

[Dana Carvey]

It's a. I just went to a.

[David Spade]

Little house they rented for me and said, will you talk about cowbell? Okay. So I'm doing it. And then they were talking about. I don't even remember what I said, but it's such an extravaganza. And then your book's coming out. I guess that's a good thing, rather than if the book had come out during just a regular year.

[Susan Morrison]

Well, it took me so long to write it that only 10 years. This wasn't part of the plan.

[Dana Carvey]

Yeah, I love that.

[Susan Morrison]

Come out five years ago.

[Dana Carvey]

Fell into Right now is good.

[Susan Morrison]

It really. Yeah, it really worked. And I'd say, I mean, it definitely works. And especially because so much of the hoopla, so much of the other stuff, you know, it's like snippets of sketches. But my hope is that, you know, people really don't know that much about Lauren. You know, the comedy cognoscenti know that he's Obi Wan Kenobi and everything else. But I think that the greater world doesn't know how complicated and fascinating and strange and brilliant he is. And I, you know, I hope. As you were saying, Dan, I hope I'm kind of able to explain that a little bit.

[David Spade]

So the one thing people ask me today about the show that I don't have an answer for, just a basic answer, I guess, but how the. Numerologically, the cast has started to expand and then become an expansionist cast. So, like, 20 cast members. So people will ask me, why do they have all those cast members? And I go, well, I guess a safety net. Or did he. Did he ever talk about that?

[Susan Morrison]

I think that's a really good question because I know there was a time in the 90s when the. When he was trying to do the changeover, like between the Hartman cast to the Sandler cast, he was hiring a lot of people. I thought it was maybe just to ease the. Create a buffer. And then there was some big budget cutback and he had to get rid of a bunch of them. But, yeah, I don't know the answer to that. Unless. And I'm speculating here, unless it's a diversity effort, you know, to just try to get a more diverse cast. But I don't think it serves the show because I think that there's so many people you're kind of. Who's that one?

[Dana Carvey]

You don't know. Sure. You don't know for sure.

[Susan Morrison]

It's too hard.

[David Spade]

It's very hard. I talk to some of the young cast members because if you're not in it a lot and then you get in there and then you maybe flub a line or don't totally score, then you go back again where. I think I was part of the last small cast. And then when David and Sandler and Farley all. You know, we got some really great people to add to us and some left. But me and Phil and John, I think, were just the three major male sketch players. So I was in four things, the first show or five things. And I. I have a lot of empathy for the cast members that are. They're in the dugout, they're on the bench. They're not playing.

[Dana Carvey]

Do you quit or do you stay and you go. I quit snl. I didn't get anything out of it. Like, it's so hard to sit there and rotate going, am I going to ever score? It really takes one good sketch. Then you're on the map.

[Susan Morrison]

What was yours, David? What was the thing that made you feel good?

[Dana Carvey]

It took a long time. I think it was one where I played a receptionist. Was the first time I got any. Any sort of.

[David Spade]

And you had a catchphrase.

[Dana Carvey]

Did it at. It was in dress. The last sketch in the air. It was the first sketch. And so.

[David Spade]

Oh, that's. That's a good. And you are. Was the guest.

[Susan Morrison]

You are so good.

[Dana Carvey]

Just a dry bit based on kind of Lauren going to see.

[Susan Morrison]

And the assistants.

[Dana Carvey]

Yeah. And all that.

[Susan Morrison]

You know, the thing. The thing about the huge cast. That's even harder now, Dana. And when I was hanging around there a few years back, you know, the cast would also. They would let you know. I mean, of course, it's thrilling for them when geniuses like you and, you know Alec and everybody come in to play these cameos. But during the first Trump administration, you know, so many, you know, you have all these stars coming in.

[Dana Carvey]

Yeah.

[David Spade]

And that also squeezes Matt Damon and so forth. All great people doing great parts.

[Susan Morrison]

And if you were in the cast, you might be pissed, of course.

[David Spade]

Well, I did and I was, I was sincere about it. When they asked me to do Biden, I said, does Mikey still want to do it? Does anybody want to do it? And you know, and they said no because Biden was sort of a thankless task. It was a difficult one. And there was the whole energy around should you make fun of his mental acuity or not? And threading that needle. So I was totally aware of that. And they're all incredibly sweet. They seem sweeter than we were, but they're very nice people. But we never, we had Dan Aykroyd come in and do Bob Dole. That was it once.

[Susan Morrison]

Yeah, yeah.

[David Spade]

And then it was all us playing it. So I don't know, I, I mean, Lauren has his thing. I don't think he likes when people leave. I think when Belushi and Ackroyd left it kind of left him flat footed. And so he, he lights up. I get it. He likes a bench that can come in and you know, so.

[Susan Morrison]

Right.

[David Spade]

50 years. Now a final question.

[Susan Morrison]

Okay.

[David Spade]

How much longer since you've been inside this Lauren brain, will he go?

[Susan Morrison]

Well, I firmly believe, I don't think he's going to just say over and out. You know, he's never missed, he's never missed the show. Yeah, I think, I think, I think they'd have to carry him out of there in a stretcher. But I don't think that any, any of them, I don't buy any of the replacement theories. I don't think Tina or Seth or I, I can't see any of them doing it. What I think is the likelier idea, and I hope this doesn't sound too McKinsey, you know, but the way I see it, Lauren is completely essential. Two days of the week he has to be there during read through because he really pays attention to the room. And then he, you know, picks the show after that with his deputy's help. And then Saturday, you know, when he's sitting there under the bleachers, it's a good theory, you know, and, you know, so I think he has this great team of people who could do the other stuff. And if he came in, you know, was wheeled in on Wednesday afternoon and on Friday and on Saturday evening, Stretcher.

[David Spade]

Well, there's an element. There's a. There's like a soft element of that now, you know.

[Susan Morrison]

Yeah.

[David Spade]

Because I would want an answer. And they said, well, we'll let you know when Lauren gets here. It's 4:00. Lauren knows how to pace himself and when to lock in.

[Dana Carvey]

Yeah.

[David Spade]

So he's doing a soft version of that, you know.

[Susan Morrison]

Yeah, I think that's right. And. And all those people, you know, Doyle and. And Kenward and Higgins, they really know him, you know, so they can give a pretty good approximation.

[David Spade]

Yeah. When he'll come in.

[Susan Morrison]

Yeah.

[David Spade]

What he might say. Yeah.

[Susan Morrison]

But, you know, there's no. There's no one could do what he does under the bleachers. I mean, when I'm sitting there under the bleachers with him and you guys, I'm sure you've done this right? And he's. I mean, the funniest one, when we got. I was there for the Jonah Hill show, and Maggie Rogers, who was then just starting out as a singer, she comes out on stage at dress wearing this big red caftan and no shoes, and Lauren just goes barefoot. Where's she from? A place with roads. You know, he was so mad.

[David Spade]

I know. Well, the funniest one is just that he watched the dress show and the chardonnay should be more pale. You know, stuff like that. It's like. But he notices things. You're not even aware. But, yeah, I think he's going to go a while.

[Susan Morrison]

He seems very, you know, he's very with it and alert and. And I've never seen him sick. You know, he. He's taking good care of himself.

[Dana Carvey]

I don't hear that. I've never. I never. It doesn't look like even I was there briefly. It doesn't seem like he's, you know, barely getting to this 50th. It's like 50th. Then they got the rest of the season after the big show, and then they start working on next season. I don't.

[David Spade]

I don't know when this podcast airs, but I. I bet you, Lauren, he is. He's only human. I mean, he will be kind of a little bit relieved when this whole hoopla's over, because we can't. Unless it was the mic drop. The show ends. He knows that pretty soon. Okay, we have 10 more shows to do.

[Susan Morrison]

Well, one thing he did tell me when the Reitman movie came out, you know, that was sort of the beginning of, you know, like, his anonymity being blown in a way. I mean, he. He told me he didn't see it. I mean, who knows? Who knows if he did?

[David Spade]

I said, I saw. I saw it for you, and you come off great. You. I. So I said, you don't have to see it.

[Susan Morrison]

But he said, he said, I just feel like I've lost control of my life. You know, it's like he. It as the 50th approach. I think he's really excited about the show, and he's excited about seeing everybody. You know, he loves everybody. But he. He does feel, I mean, even to some extent with a book, it's just like he's. He's kind of stepping out. You know, the Reitman movie put him center stage. This book puts him center stage. It's, it's. It's a, it's a. It's a shift for him.

[David Spade]

Right. In the end of the day, he. He is the linchpin. He's bigger than any cast member as far as the history of snl. He is.

[Dana Carvey]

Sure.

[Susan Morrison]

You know, well, he is, as I think I quote some agent in the book saying that when her. She has clients going to audition for Lauren, she says, you got to remember, he is the star of the show. It's Lauren, you know, which is interesting.

[David Spade]

Interesting. But he loves funny people and.

[Susan Morrison]

Yeah, he really does.

[David Spade]

He does.

[Susan Morrison]

And. And he's funny. He's a funny person, which a lot of people.

[David Spade]

Extremely dry, droll wit. Yeah, that hits you pretty hard sometimes. Wow. Well, congratulations. It's hard to write a book, and I'm sure it's going to do really well. And what was your advance? How much did you got so far?

[Dana Carvey]

February 18th.

[Susan Morrison]

Thank you so much. Really fun, you guys.

[David Spade]

This flew by. It was easy. We love talking about our old boss.

[Susan Morrison]

Call back anytime. Okay.

[Dana Carvey]

All right. Bye.

[David Spade]

Thanks. Have a good day. Bye.

[Dana Carvey]

Bye.

[Susan Morrison]

You too. Bye.

[David Spade]

Bye.

[Dana Carvey]

This has been a presentation of Odyssey. Please follow subscribe Leave a Like a review all the stuff. Smash that button, whatever it is. Wherever you get your podcasts, Fly on the Wall is executive produced by Dana Carvey and David Spade, Jenna Weiss Berman of Odyssey, and Heather Santoro. The show's lead producer is Greg Holtzman.