Poking a Dead Frog: Conversations with Today's Top Comedy Writers (4 page)

Lorne Michaels has called you the best political humorist alive. In 2000, you coined the George W. Bush–ism “strategery,” which many people mistakenly came to believe was actually uttered by the president himself. But there’s been some criticism over the years that you lean more right than left. I think it goes without saying, of course, that this criticism tends to come from those on the left.

In the political sketches I write, I think I just go where the comedy takes me. I honestly never want a political agenda to be the leading edge of the piece. I want the piece to be funny, but only because it’s based on an observation that I think is fair to make and that no one else is making. I don’t think anyone could ever accuse me of going for clapter. And what’s sometimes even better than the laughter is making audiences laugh when they don’t particularly want to, or when they’re not sure that they should.

Can you give me a specific example?

Well, in 2007, I did a couple of debate pieces with Hillary Clinton and Obama that were generally perceived as being pro-Hillary. Our audience, meanwhile, was probably 95 percent pro-Obama.

One fellow
SNL
writer, who shall go unnamed, criticized you for that particular sketch. He thought that you were promoting Hillary over Obama.

To me, what was funny about that situation was that, for years, Hillary had been very much the official candidate of the media, even right up to the announcement of her candidacy. She was like the wife who put them through dental school, and suddenly they dumped her for the hot, young hygienist, Obama, the trophy wife. And the change in the media was so quick and so extreme. To me, what was funny was Hillary thinking, “What the
fuck
? Two months ago everyone loved me!” It was like the media was doing to Obama what Monica Lewinsky had done to Bill Clinton. And now Hillary was in the same spot all over again. When I write these sketches, I want them to be fresh in comedy terms but also something that resonates: “That’s true, that’s true.” As opposed to something I know damn well reflects the viewpoint of 90 percent of the audience but what would feel to me like cheating or ass kissing: “Well, about time someone took on Big Oil!”

I like to think that unless you’re making an observation, and that observation is true—and I hope fresh—it’s not worth writing a piece. I’m not saying that I always have a particularly original observation to make, which is why if I had my druthers, I’d write fewer political pieces. For me, this is more about the characters in politics than politics itself. It’s about the human aspect of these people we don’t usually get to see; the way a person would react in these situations if they were in any field but politics.

Can you give me some examples of sketches, political or otherwise, you’ve written over the years that you thought would kill with an audience but ended up bombing?

There was one [1985] piece I wrote with Jack [Handey] that absolutely destroyed at the table and then just played to exquisite silence from the audience. It was called “The Life of Vlad the Impaler.” And it was [fifteenth-century ruler] Vlad the Impaler’s wife, Madonna, gently trying to explain to Vlad why he was so unpopular with his subjects. This came as a terrible shock to him, and he was really stunned and hurt. He couldn’t understand why. And her theory was, “I really think it’s the impalings.” “What?!” “Yeah, they really hate them.” “Are you
sure
?” “You know, Vlad, they try to tell you. You don’t listen.”

God, it bombed. Absolute silence. We figured, Well, maybe they don’t know the story of Vlad the Impaler. [Laughs] Maybe they don’t know what
impaling
means. Anyway, Larry David called to say how much he liked the piece, which was enough for me.

Here’s another one: It was when Bob Newhart hosted in May 1980 and he loved the piece, which was also enough for me. The sketch began with one of those Civil War scenes you’ve seen a million times. I saw it as recently as
Black Hawk Down
. Officers are walking through the wounded tent, and there’s a boy soldier dying. “You’re going to be okay, son. You’ll be back with your regiment in no time.” “You don’t have to lie to me, Major. I’m gut shot. I know I’m a goner. But I want to ask you one thing. Will you write my mother and tell her that I did my duty, that I was a good soldier?”

Everyone’s tearing up. The music is somber, and the officer, played by Newhart, says, “I’ll do that, son. Don’t you worry.” And then the kid dies and you dissolve to a series of Civil War–era photographs and music, with the graphic “Three Weeks Later.” When we come back, we’re in Newhart’s tent, which he shares with Bill Murray, a fellow officer. And Murray asks, “Hey, did you ever write that kid’s mother?” And Newhart sheepishly says, “Not yet, but I’m going to.” “Geez, it’s been like a month!” “I’ll get to it, I’ll get to it!” And the rest of the piece was more dissolves to “Three Weeks Later,” “Six Weeks Later,” and so on, and Newhart still hadn’t written the letter. By now, Bob is suffering from writer’s block. “See the problem is, I’ve waited so long that now I can’t just write ‘Your son was a great soldier. He died a hero.’ It’s got to be
better
than that.” He was trying to come up with good ideas. It was like someone putting off a term paper.

I think the opening of the sketch with someone dying, particularly a young person, chilled the audience from the start.

One thing I’ve noticed over the years is that when
SNL
airs sketches with graphics—particularly graphics that express the passage of time, such as “Three Weeks Later,” “One Day Later,” whatever it may be—these sketches tend to confuse the audience. At least, the audience in the studio.

It does take the audience out of the sketch. The only way the studio audience for the Civil War piece could know about the passage of time would be to see the graphics on the monitors. But there was nothing about that piece that suggested to the audience they had to watch the monitors and not the stage. There were no special effects, so most watched the live action.

Do you think the home audience responded differently to that sketch?

I think the home audience would have liked that piece a lot more. But I still think the biggest factor was that the audience felt, Ooooh, a sixteen-year-old kid died.

Is it true that you discovered the legendary and reclusive comedy writer John Swartzwelder, who later wrote more episodes of
The Simpsons
—fifty-nine—than anyone else? He’s the Thomas Pynchon of the comedy world. I think there are only a few known photographs of him.

I was head writer for
Letterman
at the time [1983], and we would read unsolicited joke submissions. [Producer] Merrill Markoe showed me this small postcard and it was from Swartzwelder. It had just a single joke on it. It went something like: “Mike Flynn’s much-publicized attempt to break every record in the
Guinness Book of Records
got off to a rocky start this week when his recording of ‘White Christmas’ sold only five copies.”

I just loved the shape of that joke. I became obsessed with it. John had signed the card but had left no address. Nothing, just his name and a Chicago postmark. So I began a desperate attempt to track him down. He wasn’t in the Chicago directory, and this was way before the Internet. So I went to the New York Public Library and looked up big-city phone books for Swartzwelders, figuring that there couldn’t be that many. I found his mother’s number in Seattle. She said, “Yes, that’s my son, John. He’s at an ad agency in Chicago.”

I got in touch with John and set up a meeting with him and Letterman, and it was one of the most spectacularly awful interviews in history.

What happened?

Swartzwelder shows up just as we finished taping for the day. Chris Elliott says to me, “Hey, this guy is here to see you.” I went to say hi to John—I had never seen him before—and he’s a really imposing figure, about six foot eight, standing there in a navy peacoat, like Randy Quaid in
The Last Detail
. At the time he looked like a combination mountain man/biker/Edmund Kemper [1960s and ’70s necrophiliac serial killer]. He had a droopy mustache and long, greasy hair, and he was just a real presence. He was carrying a little 1930s-style hip flask. And he asks, “Is there a kitchen here?” “Yeah, down the hall. I gotta run and do something, but I’ll be right back.” I took longer than I thought, and when I come back Swartzwelder is gone. Chris tells me, “I think he’s in with Dave.” “Oh, no, no, no, no, no. No, I needed to talk to him first!” Dave is a wonderful guy, but he’s a very private person, and it’s important that people be warned not to come on too strong when meeting him.

So I ask Chris, “How long has he been in there?” “I don’t know, about five minutes.” I run back to Dave’s office and Swartzwelder is sitting there, making himself completely at home. I want to say he had his feet up on Dave’s desk, but I’m not sure. I
am
sure, however, that he was both smoking and drinking, a move not recommended in the Dress for Success guidebooks. Meanwhile, Dave is sitting there stiffly, like an orderly at a mental institution trapped alone with a patient. Swartzwelder is holding forth, as I recall, about his views on television, which amounted to everything on television was shit—including, I think, much of what we had done on our show. Dave looks over at me and his eyes tell me “no way.”

He wasn’t hired at
Letterman
, but we did bring him to
SNL
for a year [in 1985], and then he went on to do legendary work at
The Simpsons
. I’m sure that he preferred the freedom of writing for animation over writing for live action. He’s a brilliant guy, although I haven’t seen him in twenty years.

Have you ever felt constrained within the parameters of the sketch form? Have you ever had the desire to write for the big screen or, perhaps, long-form television?

No, not really. I kept retooling myself and changing the kinds of things I did. I wrote
SNL
sketches and then I did
Letterman
for a few years, which is a totally different thing, and then I returned to
SNL
and was writing new types of pieces. Then Update was something different all together. More recently, I was just writing political material and it was a change because I had the freedom to do whatever I wanted. Within that, I also had the chance to write filmed pieces or live performance or whatever.

I really am conscious of the fact that I have been very fortunate. There are certain moments when I felt that better decisions could have been made on the show, but in the big picture I feel I have been treated very well, a couple of firings aside. Because
SNL
is a variety show and because it’s ninety minutes long, there is always plenty of room to maneuver. I never got bored with doing the same thing or getting stuck in a rut. I could always go back and retool. Like certain bands do when they just emerge with a totally new kind of sound.

Your attitude seems to be a rarity. It seems that most TV comedy writers constantly yearn to write for the movies. It’s almost as if they have a chip on their shoulder, that television is too small.

Actually, I’m glad you said that because I honestly feel that TV is a better form for being funny, generally speaking, than movies. I have never really seen what it is that movies give you that makes things funnier. I think that the smallness and the immediacy of TV—where you can do something on Saturday based on an event that happened on Wednesday, and where the important elements aren’t overwhelmed by the scale and production—is great. There are limitations that TV has compared with movies—especially live TV—but I don’t think they’re the important ones in the scheme of things.

If you look at movies many
SNL
performers have participated in over the years, you can’t help but wonder why there’s any appeal at all. Is it purely the money?

I guess it’s just that for their whole lives some people think you do TV in order to
get to
movies, and that therefore
any
movie is better than
every
television show.

I think it’s fair to say—as a general matter—that most of the people who have been in the cast of
SNL
did their best work
on
SNL
. Or they do good movies, but it isn’t any better than what they did on the show. For example, I think Will Ferrell is brilliant, and I love him in his movies, but I don’t think he is any funnier than he was on the show. Same with Kristen Wiig in
Bridesmaids
, or Eddie Murphy. And, of course, some people have done much worse than they did on the show.

I think you’re always going to see more odd, original comedy on TV than you will in a movie. I love the
Hangover
films, but weird, eccentrically funny stuff is usually going to appear on TV or online.
Tim and Eric
.
Portlandia
.
Reno 911!
[Stephen Merchant’s HBO series]
Hello Ladies.
Brilliant.

When have you laughed the hardest over the years at
SNL
?

Um, let’s see. . . . Damon Wayan’s audition in the fall of 1985. He was doing two kids on a playground. “Your mother is so fat you have to grease her up to get her through the front door.” And the other kid’s responses keep getting more and more deadly serious: “Yeah, well, your sister had a baby when she was only eleven!” . . . Ben Stiller pitching me a sketch idea in the spring of 1989. I was laughing so hard I fell on the floor. He was improvising a character, a college kid on spring break in Florida—his name was Jordo—being interviewed on MTV, asking his parents for money. . . . Phil Hartman at a table read doing Mace, his psychotic ex-con character with a hair-trigger temper. I couldn’t breathe I was laughing so hard.

All of those examples took place
off
the air.

Funny, I never thought of that. There’s something about being right there, seeing it fresh before makeup and wardrobe. And seeing it for the first time. After that it’s only the audience that gets to see it that way.

As for moments on the show, I’d say Dan Aykroyd doing Julia Child. Bill Murray doing Nick Rails, the entertainer on the auto train to Orlando, Florida. Eddie Murphy doing James Brown’s Celebrity Hot Tub Party. Fred Armisen’s character, Nicholas Fehn, the political comedian with no material. Maya Rudolph doing the national anthem at the World Series with every conceivable grace note and gimmick. And Will Ferrell doing his “Get off the shed!” guy.