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Jon Hamm Mar 18, 2024

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This week on the pod we welcome back, Jamie Burwood! To kick off the show we get Matt's Minutia Minute before we get into a fantastic conversation between Thomas and Jamie. Thanks as always for listening. Rate and review the show!Transcript:Track 2:[0:42] Thank you so much, Doug DeNance. It is great to be here back in the SNL Hall of Fame.[0:50] Please, mind your feet, give them a wipe, use the map for what it's supposed to be for before you come into our hallowed halls.The SNL Hall of Fame podcast is a weekly affair where each episode we take a deep dive into the career of a former cast member, host, musical guest, or writer, and add them to the ballotfor your consideration.Once the nominees have been announced, we turn to you, the listener, to vote for the most deserving and help determine who will be enshrined for perpetuity inside the hall.That's how we play the game. It's really quite simple.You follow along, you vote, you celebrate or complain about who got in or who didn't get in.It's really quite a bit of fun for us.I am walking down the hallway now to talk to our good friend Matt Ardill, and we're going to get some information on who we're covering today and who will be nominating them.Wait and see. Well, you don't have to wait and see because you can read the title. And I guess the title sort of gives it away.That's right. We're talking about Jon Hamm today, and we're joined by Jamie Burwood. But before we do that, let's go to our friend Matt Ardill and get the skinny on Jon Hamm.Track 3:[2:13] Hello, Matt. Hello, JD.What's shaking, my brother? Not much, not much. I am really looking forward to today's trivia.Okay, who you got for us? John the Hamaconda Ham.He is six foot one, born March 10th, 1971 in St. Louis, Missouri.He is the son of a trucker and a secretary. He had a rough childhood growing up, which actually helped inform his backstory when he auditioned for his breakout role of Don Draper.But his first acting role was as Winnie the Pooh in a first grade production.[2:58] Oh, OK. OK, yeah, very early start.But he didn't follow that up until playing Judas on Godspell at the age of 16 at John Burroughs School, where he was the member of the football team, the baseball team and the swimteam, because, of course, he was.He actually dated actor Sarah Clark in high school.He went on to attend the University of Texas before transferring to the University of Missouri, where he answered a newspaper ad for someone to play in a production of MidsummerNight's Dream.[3:32] He's gone on to complete 118 acting credits, 10 producer credits, and he has one director credit.He almost didn't get the role of Don Draper, which I can't imagine anybody else in that role right now.But he was told by the showrunner that he was too handsome, which is not something I'm sure many people frequently hear in a like, I'm sorry, you're just too goddamn handsome for thisrole.Yeah, they reevaluated and decided that he was he was the right fit.[4:07] He rewarded he received an award nomination for Emmys for the show.Golden Globe SAG Awards, Annie Hall Awards, Critics Choice, MTV Movie and TV Awards, National Board of Review Awards, Satellite Awards, Teen Choice Awards and TelevisionCritics Association.Association um i'm guessing his teen choice was for something not mad men related there should be an acronym for all those awards like an egot you know yeah he should get some sortof uh preferential treatment in hollywood as a result of all those awards yeah they need to they need to broaden the awards like the mtv award teen choice award circuit that's right that'sright um the slimies I guess maybe I don't know that's good on television you know now before hitting it big he worked as a daycare worker and a high school teacher while teaching highschool he was actually Ellie Kemper's drama teacher and went on to help her break into the world of acting.[5:12] Um gee whiz yeah so he followed the uh harrison ford school of of acting he worked as a set dresser uh unfortunately it was in a much more risque type of cinema uh as a set dresseron adult films get out of here no yeah that is one of the many jobs he did in the valley just trying to pay the bills yeah when he moved to la he actually only had 150 in his pocket and didnot book a single gig for three years.He stretched that $150 then, didn't he? Yeah, well, he worked as a set dresser for adult films, so he was taking any job that came his way.He actually set a career sort of deadline that if he didn't book something big, a breakout role by 30, he was going to move home.Now, he did make that breakout role, and he's now gone on to star in all sorts of things.While filming a young doctor's diary with daniel radcliffe he became an ardent cricket fan he has been a comedy nerd from the go yeah he's often seen on set quoting anchorman and.[6:25] Amy poehler uh has recounted in her biography how when she was pregnant and he was coming on the show they were in makeup and she heard that her doctor had passed away shehad a freak out was was completely losing her mind because she was panicking he grabbed he took her by the shoulders looked her dead in the eye and said you know this is very sad.[6:48] This is a really important show for me, so I'm going to need you to get your shit together.At which point, she started laughing so hard, she almost, well, she says she peed herself.But this is one of those moments that she says, you know, when somebody is so funny, they make you go from crying to laughing in a heartbeat.And something that can only happen like five times in your life.[7:12] He's so good. Have you ever listened to him on Comedy Bang Bang? Yes. Yeah.He's just got perfect, that perfect sense of timing and the counterpoint to like going dark and going light and how to break that tension. Yeah.So he's just, I think he's severely underrated as a comedic talent.Well, I mean, less so now. I mean, he's kind of embraced it.I mean, his Skip the Dishes ads are actually like super funny, which is like.Great. you think a big star but like taking a gig doing ads for a food delivery service in canada not even uber eats but specifically a canadian one so it's like like people aren't gonna see itin the states i don't know but uh yeah he's just a super funny dude and i'm really looking forward to hearing um what what we have to have to hear today yeah me too we're fortunate to bebe joined by a friend of the show, Jamie Burwood.[8:09] And gosh, I don't know how many times she's been on at this point, but she should be wearing a full robe and, I don't know, boots or something like that at this point.I have to get like scepters for... Oh, that's good.Scepters. I love it. Well, Thomas, take it away, buddy.Track 4:[8:56] All right, Matthew R. Dill and Jamie Du, thank you so much for that introduction.Informative, as always. You guys do such a great job with Matt's Minutia Minute.This has been a really great season of the SNL Hall of Fame in general.Matt's Minutia Minute is going great. I feel like we've had a lot of great discussions this season.So I think we're off and running. We're humming in this season.And it's going to continue that way in this episode because we are welcoming a guest who I told her before we hit record, you're part of the fabric of the show at this point.You're like a really special guest, like one of our VIPs at this point.So Jamie Burwood, thank you so much for coming back here in Season 5 of the SNL Hall of Fame.TV show graphs herself, Jamie Burwood, how are you?I am doing great. It is good to be here again. Season 5, that's wild.[9:54] Yeah, always love, love talking to you guys. I feel like we have a good one on deck for today.So yeah, no, it's great to see you. Yeah, we've really done some fun ones in the past. Will Ferrell, Christopher Walken.We've really just had really fun and very, very, very entertaining nominees.And I would classify our nominee today just that a really interesting nominee.Nominee and you're like the one of the perfect people to cover this nominee before we get actually before we get to the nominee who's TV related what have you been up to JamieBurwood just, Just in general, are you doing, I know you had the TV show Graphs.How's that been going? What have you been up to?Yeah, I know. Things have been going good here. I've been, I'll be honest, I've been a little slower on the actual graphing side lately.I still have a few things I've been working on, but I have been catching up on a lot of television.I feel like I go through like twigs of either like TV watching and then actually like working on projects.And I have been, yeah, knee deep in lots of TV watching, catching up on some like anthology type stuff, a little True Detective, Fargo, that type of genre at the moment.[11:14] And just, I mean, it's winter in Boston, so there's really not a lot to do other than watch TV, occasionally sneak away for like some weekend trips here, trying to get to places that areslightly less cold.Um but yeah otherwise just just live in life here in the very cold city of boston.[11:35] Yeah catching up on tv that's i think that's a great way to spend time and uh our so our nominee today made his bones essentially in a prestige television show i would call it it's amadman arguably by a lot of tv show experts and viewers one of the handful one of the four or five possibly greatest television shows of all time.So Jon Hamm is our nominee for today. A really interesting one, again, to me.[12:06] Jamie, were you a Mad Men watcher? I was.I wasn't watching it live as it was airing.It was probably like right as it was wrapping up that I started watching it from the start.So it's not one where I can say like, oh, I was so ahead of the curve on this one or I was watching before everyone else. Sadly, I was not, but as soon as I watched it, I absolutely loved it.It is probably a top 10 all-time show for me.It's one that I think just you can watch it and re-watch it and still catch new things.I feel like the caliber of performances, the caliber of storytelling, it is an all-time great show, and I know sometimes there can be a little bit of backlash from prestige prestige TV or like, Ifeel like Mad Men is one of those shows that always is on high on some of those lists. But for me, it's, it's deserving.And I think Jon Hamm in particular made that show what it was.[13:07] Yeah, amazing show. I know some people and I include myself in this.It took me Mad Men took me probably four different tries to get going.So I would watch the pilot, maybe watch the second episode, then I would almost sort of lose interest.But the fourth time that I tried to get into Mad Men, it worked.And I finished Mad Men in like two months, I just could not stop watching.Every time I had some downtime, I would throw on another episode of Mad Men.I just got completely hooked, and you're right. Jon Hamm's performance as Don Draper was one of the huge reasons.Can you describe what Jon had to do on screen as Don Draper?What kind of character was Don Draper?What did Jon Hamm have to be on screen for that?[13:56] Absolutely, yeah. I feel like with Don Draper, he definitely fits the mold of those anti-hero. You feel like there's a lot behind the surface with the character.I mean, at face value, he's this 1960s ad-exact kind of the smooth talker, has the wife and family at home.And then as the show goes on, you kind of see all that's behind the surface here in terms of, I mean, the very obvious things around the affairs, the drinking, just the whole culture.But also in terms of his family history, I won't give any spoilers, but you just kind kind of learn that there are so many different layers to who he is and why he does the things that he doesand one of those characters that you really have a kind of complex relationship with in terms of how you feel about you can go from being like oh my gosh I feel so bad for this person Ihave sympathy based on situations in their past to feeling like oh my gosh this person is unjustified in their actions, and I absolutely hate this character.He does it in a way where you really get some of those subtle nuances coming out in his performance, and I just think it's a top-tier performance.[15:12] Yeah, and he had to be really subtle, too, like you said. Especially he had to use facial expressions, but really subtle facial expressions.His tone of voice had to be a certain way.Especially in the earlier seasons, he had to play it a lot more stoic. Yeah.And as the series progressed, he was a little more animated.But especially at the beginning of the series, there was almost like this enigma.I mean, that was probably part of the point. But this enigma, and Jon Hamm had to play it like that. So there wasn't really a lot of time for slapstick comedy in his performance, right?And so what makes him a really compelling SNL host is that he came from that dramatic background with Mad Men that really got Jon Hamm on the scene.And I'm wondering, because as an SNL viewer, Jamie, I mean, how fun is it to feel surprised by a host? because I feel a lot of people were surprised by Jon Hamm.So as an SNL viewer, how fun is that when you see a host and they surprise you?Like to me, it's one of the things that makes following the show so rewarding.[16:22] Agreed. Yeah, I think it's one of the best things, right?Like it's there are times when you go into a host and you know what to expect.And that's great. And that's solid.But I feel like those like really special moments come when you go in, you're not sure what to expect.Or maybe you see a host known for one genre and you're not sure are they going to be able to deliver on the comedy side and I feel like with with John John Hamm in particular like hewas somebody who was known dramatic actor at that point and maybe a question of how will this go how will he hack it in in a true kind of live sketch comedy atmosphere and.[17:02] And that is one of the most fun things about this show.I always have to learn my lesson time and time again, that a lot of times the really good dramatic actors are some of the best SNL hosts.For sure. Like, yeah, I can totally see an alternate universe where Jon Hamm was a comedic actor.I mean, maybe his looks might be a little bit of a detriment.I feel like figuring out the right way to, like, cast him in comedic roles.Roles but i mean i think it it happened that mad men became a very successful tv show and that's how people were introduced to him but in an alternate universe maybe a comedic rolewould have been his breakout and then we would have been surprised to see him do a show like mad men 10 years into his career and be like oh my gosh this hilarious guy is also anincredible actor so it's just kind of funny how it how it works out yeah i agree with you the tape it could have been been total reverse we found out over the years that John really enjoyscomedy I mean he's been he had a role in Bridesmaids that was really funny like while he was playing Don Draper he was he was uh Kristen Wiig's uh jerk boyfriend yeah in Bridesmaidshe's been on comedy podcasts he's really good at comedy improv that's like something that John's expressed over the years and.[18:18] About how he really enjoys comedy. He almost just sort of, the Don Draper thing is almost like the thing that took off.But you're right. He could have very easily taken off as a comedic actor.For sure. You see a spark in him, I feel like, whenever he…

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Anne Hathaway Mar 11, 2024

Show notes

This week on the SNL Hall of Fame podcast we're joined by first time guest Kaleena Steakle to discuss the merits of Anne Hathaway in the Hosts Category. Please rate and review the show wherever you get your podcasts. Transcript:[0:42] Thank you so much, Doug DeNance. It is a thrill for me to be here with you all this week inside the SNL Hall of Fame.Before you walk inside, though, if you could just do me the simple favor and wipe your feet, honey child.That's what I'm looking for. So, clean shoes, clean souls, Clean eating Clean living Clean SNL Hall of Fame.[1:16] The SNL Hall of Fame podcast is a weekly affair where each episode we take a deep dive into the career of a former cast member, host musical guest, or writer and add them to theballot for your consideration, Once the nominees have been announced, we turn to you, the listener to vote for the most deserving and help determine who will be enshrined for perpetuityin the hall.That's how we play this game. It's just that simple.So I'm pleased that you're here with us this week. I'm here that you're pleased with us every week.But we have one heck of a show this week for you.I hope you have battened down the hatches, as it were, because business is about to pick up.Now, I am a little out of breath here as I walk down the corridor past the weekend update exhibit and oh there's the uh unfrozen caveman lawyer exhibit uh a real a real great one if you getthe chance to see it here, but where i'm actually headed is the intersection of two walls meeting and forming a corner and we We call that Matt's Minutia Minute Corner.And, you know, let me go get them.Track 3:[2:36] Matthew, my young boy, how are you doing today? I am good, thanks.And I'm good. And you, my good man?Uh, you know, I got a little case of the gout, but it doesn't stop me from wiping my feet.So I'm, you know, I'm relatively happy with that. That's good.Hopefully I'll be able to cheer you up a little bit with some trivia.I would love to hear about Anne Hathaway.Terrific. Well, she is five foot eight, born November 12th, 1982. 82.She was named after William Shakespeare's wife.Her family are theater fans.She is a native New Yorker and was a theater nerd growing up.She attended Brooklyn Heights Montessori School and Wyoming Elementary School, taking part in high school plays before going on to attend NYU.She is the granddaughter of radio personality Joe McCauley, and her mother, Kate McCauley, was an actor and singer who performed in the first touring company of Les Miserables,which Anne followed her all along the entire tour at the age of eight, which is when she fell in love with the stage.I guess so. Yeah. So as a teen, she was cast as Get Real for her first appearance.[3:55] Followed by her big breakout in The Princess Diaries.She grew up actually wanting to become a nun. And as the husband of a Catholic, I can say about 80% of Catholic girls, I think, for the first 10 years of their life want to be nuns until theyfigure out what it involves.[4:14] She re-evaluated her relationship, actually, with the church on finding out her brother was gay at the age of 15.And her family left the church at that point.Oh, she is the first and only teenager ever admitted into the acting program at the Borough Group in New York three days before getting cast in the TV show Get Real.[4:38] She's performed in two Carnegie Hall concerts as a high school honors chorus member, was almost cast in the Phantom of the Opera movie, but was unfortunately able or I don'tknow, maybe fortunately for her, unable to perform in it due to conflicts with filming of The Princess Diaries 2.She has gone on to 56 acting roles, eight producing role credits.[5:02] 17 soundtrack credits, currently has four upcoming films.She's been nominated for two Academy Awards, three Golden Globes and a BAFTA, as well as having won one Oscar, a Golden Globe, a SAG, a BAFTA and a Primetime Emmy forOutstanding Voice Over for her role in The Simpsons in 2018.She was named the hasty pudding woman of the year by harvard and her greatest honor is being one of the first 50 nominees to the new jersey hall of fame for just being cool and from thegarden state she is actually she is only one of eight perform uh at women to have won an oscar for a musical and in 2011 two-handed the oscars with james franco who was a jerk to herthe entire Yeah, so the one thing I really found out when looking into Anne that I found hilarious was when she got her big break for the Princess Diaries, she auditioned on a stopoverwhile traveling to New Zealand to film The Other Side of Heaven.She met Gary Marshall partway through the flight during a stopover, and she was so nervous, she fell off of her chair during the audition.[6:18] And she just kept her composure so well, he thought it was a bit, and he cast her on sight. He cast her immediately at that point.So she rolls with the punches. Yeah, she rolls with the punches. Yeah.[6:32] Well, I wonder what she'll do if she gets handed one of the prestigious plaques from the SNL Hall of Fame in the hosting category.I think she will put it in a place of prominence. I think you're right. Right up on her mantle.Well, what do you say we get this show on the road and go downstairs to Thomas Senna in conversation with Kalina Steckle?So let's go down into the bunker now with the two of those folks and hear what they have to say about Anne Hathaway.Track 4:[7:28] All right, JD and Matt, thank you so much for that introduction.Great, as always, a lot of great information about our nominee today, Anne Hathaway.And to talk about this great host, Anne Hathaway, this awesome three-time SNL host, we have a first-time guest here on the podcast, somebody who I'm really excited to have join us. Youprobably heard her.She's been a regular on the Saturday Night Network over the past couple of years, doing various things with our friends over there at the SNN.[8:02] Kalina Steckel, thank you so much for joining me today. Kalina, how are you?I am great, Thomas. I'm so excited to be here. I'm so excited to be a first-time guest and so excited to talk about an amazing host.Yeah, this is going to be a lot of fun. Before we get to all things Anne Hathaway and SNL, I know you've been busy.Have you had a chance to jump on recently on the SNN? How's that been? in?No, I am criminally behind both on the current season as well as being a guest on the SNN.I've been very kindly invited a couple of times, but I have a crazy busy schedule and have not yet been able to jump on the season.But I'm hoping to change that over the next couple of months before they wrap up before the summer.We're all looking forward to hearing you back on the SNN. Your insights have always been very much welcome.And we're very honored to have you here as a guest to talk about our nominee today for the SNL Hall of Fame, Anne Hathaway.So Kalina, since you're a first time guest here on the SNL Hall of Fame, we'd like to give the listeners a little peek into kind of your SNL fandom and history.So tell us about your SNL fandom. When When did that start?If you have any particular eras that you consider like your era, like tell us about you and SNL.[9:28] Absolutely. I, well, I mean, first and foremost, I'm an actor.And so I've, I've been watching movies and television shows for as long as I can remember.And even though I did kind of initially maybe start in drama, uh, I also watched a lot of like Adam Sandler, David Spade, like Rob Schneider growing up as a kid.And I didn't quite know them with their SNL association, but I knew I liked their style of comedy.And it was really around, I want to say like 2008, 2009.And maybe part of it was just because of all the political kind of coverage going on. Maybe that's how I kind of became a little bit more aware of SNL.I started watching really religiously around that time.And if I'm not mistaken, I think that's maybe the same year that Anne Hathaway actually hosted.So she would have been one of my first hosts that I watched.And it kind of just started of like, I loved the the format, I loved the idea that every single week.[10:22] Countless people were coming together to create something new and fresh and topical and I'm a writer as well and I know how difficult it is to be bold and brave enough to like putyour ideas out there and to challenge yourself to be smart and like timely and and come up with something that's just so good that they're gonna put it on tv and all your friends are gonnado it and everyone's gonna laugh like it's so much pressure and I just could not believe that some sort of institution still existed where every week that's what people were doing so I thinkhonestly I was was just intrigued by the concept of what Saturday Night Live was.And then me being just such a geek and a nerd and like a movie aficionado, I was like, oh, then I can see these people that I love from these movies playing these really silly charactersand putting on costumes.And I can see people like Bill Hader making sounds and faces at them and making them laugh.And so it just became something that it didn't make sense how it wasn't already like a part of my personality.[11:18] And then And then very specifically, my friend and I like really latched on to Seth Meyers and we got obsessed with the goodbyes at the end of the show.And we'd be like, Seth seems like he gives the best hugs and just like little things like that.And so it just became a part of my staple. And it's been a steadfast, loving relationship ever since.Yeah. If you have any, I don't know if you going through Anne Hathaway's episodes, if you took note of the goodbyes, I kind of, I like to sometimes rewatch some of these these episodes.So if you have anything to say about the goodbyes, I'd be interested. If not, that's okay.But you're like me. I tend to really pay attention to the good nights and stuff.I'm always intrigued by that.And you as an actor and a writer, you have to appreciate the high wire act of SNL that goes into creating an episode.A lot of people, casual viewers don't seem to grasp how hard it is to put on an episode of SNL.You, I'm sure you appreciate that, Kalina. I do, yeah.I mean, even before, so I've been lucky to attend SNL, I think three or four times.And man, I mean, I know that especially if you don't live on the East Coast, it's such a privilege and a rare occurrence to be able to experience that.[12:31] But whatever you think, you know about how the show works. And then when you watch people do this over a 90-minute, two-hour thing, you're watching the crew come in andtear down and build sets so quickly. I'm also a theater kid.And so there's like an even deeper level of appreciation because I know what it's like where you have like 10 seconds with the lights down to build an entirely new environment and getpeople in costume changes and get them back on stage and ready to find their light. It's really phenomenal.[12:56] And when I lived in Chicago where I spent half my life as well as just various trips I would take to New York for a while I think around 2015 there was like a traveling SNL exhibitthat was going around and so you got to go and really see the insights and like the inner workings of like alright Thursday's is when they start set construction and it starts you know theselike warehouses out by the water and then you find out like when hair and makeup and the wigs start getting made and it's so intricate and it's like the phrase it takes a village doesn't evenseem to sum it up because Because it is hundreds upon hundreds of people who have to be so exact and so good at their job and all working in harmony.And if one person missteps, then there's potential for the entire thing to go wrong.And they do this live every single, like, I don't think people grasp that.It's in the title, but I don't think they fully understand it.So, yeah, like being in the industry, it's such an exciting thing to observe and be a fan of and get to see how it gets produced every week.Because it's the best of the best. That's that's why it exists and that's why it's so hard to become part of it.Yeah I just got chills when you were describing it. I was like Perfectly well, but that's one of the big reasons why I continue to for better for worse some way Yes big reason why Icontinue to watch is because of that like I know what goes into it Yeah, so impressive to me that they're even.[14:15] Putting on a show right and how they do so i gotta ask so being in studio 8h that's an amazing experience what episodes like did you did you check out in person yeah so my myfirst ever one was sterling k brown in 2018 it was it was a whirlwind of a weekend i friday the the day before i'd gotten a very minor medical procedure everything was fine i also had theflu i was also also on, um, like heavy pain meds.I think I might've literally been on like Vicodin or something because of my procedure.And so, and, and then I had to, I was working a full-time job during the day from eight to five.And then I was also shooting an independent film from like 7 PM to sometimes two or 3 AM.[15:01] And so it was just the most insane week. Like my body was fully shutting down.And for those who don't know, it's a little bit different if you live in New York and you can go go do the standby line.But the SNL lottery, it opens up for 31 days, once a year, every August, and you just kind of pitch an email, say, hey, I'd love to see the show.And then at random from September to May, you may or may not get an email saying that you've been awarded like one or two tickets to the show.And in my case, I was only given a five day notice that I had tickets.And I lived in Texas at the time.And so I was like, how do I scramble up $400 for a flight to New New York and how do I rearrange my work schedule?I ended up, uh, I tried to call out of like call out of work sick and it didn't work.And I ended up having to like block my boss on Facebook and like block the security officer made up this elaborate lie.I went to a different doctor's office pretending to be like sick with something and asked them to write me a note that said I needed to stay home for four days.So that corporate like literally couldn't force me to come in so I could sneak off and go see SNL so like that that's the stakes with my first time going yeah I'd also just finished watching orlike catching up to this is us and so Sterling K Brown being the host I was so excited for and I was I was like.[16:14] When you step into Studio 8H, you are buzzing. It is like a level of excitement and jittery.You're vibrational as a human being. It's like an out-of-body experience.Yes. And I was going up to every single staff member, every single NBC page.I'm like, guys, it's my first time. And I'm from Texas.And just really making a big deal and talking about who my favorite cast members were.And I think I berated everyone just enough because one of the pages goes, all right, we're going to put you in the front.And they sit me front row right in front of the stage on the floor it was the greatest experience i cannot believe that was my first time and then i ended up seeing the kim kardashianepisode, during which i leaned over to my friend during the aladdin sketch and i said her and p davidson are about to become a thing and then the one that i feel most privileged to haveattended attended was Jason Sudeikis' episode.[17:10] Jason, we'll get into this later, b…

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Taran Killam Mar 04, 2024

Show notes

Welcome to the SNL Hall of Fame podcast! This week on the program we've invited back our dear friend of the show Kirsten Rajala to join Thomas in conversation about the former Cast member Taran Killam! jD and Matt are on hand to handle the rest of the lifting! Thanks for listening to the SNL Hall of Fame podcast!Transcript:[0:42] All right. Thank you so much, Doug DeNance. It is cold outside here at the SNL Hall of Fame.So why don't you take a look down below and you'll see a mat.No, it's not Matt Ardill, but it's a mat for you to wipe your feet off.Get that snow out of here. Somebody might slip and fall.That could be a real lawsuit on our hands.So there's that. The SNL Hall of Fame podcast is a weekly affair.Each episode, we take a deep dive into the career of a former cast member, host, musical guest, or writer, and add them to the ballot for your consideration.Once the nominees have been announced, we turn to you, the listener, to vote for the most deserving and help determine who will be enshrined for perpetuity in the hall.That's how we play the game. It's It's just that easy.This week on the SNL Hall of Fame podcast, we are talking about former cast member Taryn Killam.And we are joined by our good friend Kirsten Rajala, who is a regular on the SNN and a regular here in the SNL Hall of Fame.Do you know who else is a regular? Our friend Matt Ardill. Let's go down the hall and talk to him.Track 3:[1:59] Okay, I am walking down the hallway and I see him leaning on the wall ever so casually.Look at this cool cat. It's Matt. How are you doing, Matt?I am doing great, JD, and yourself? You're looking pretty fine today.Well, thank you very much. It's these new pants.They're very snazzy, very snazzy. Yeah, yeah.Track 2:[2:17] So, Taron Killam.Track 3:[2:19] Six foot one, born April 1st, 1982, which makes me feel very old.Born in Culver City. His mother toured with the Charlie Daniels Band and his father. Oh, my gosh.Yeah. Singer, songwriter, performer. That went down to Georgia.Yeah. And his father was a member of the City Garage Theater Troupe.So he has showbiz background.[2:46] In his veins. And he was born April 1st, so it's got to be comedy.Yeah, exactly. Exactly.This is the great grandnephew of the actors Rosemary Bow and Robert Stack. Get out.Yeah, yeah. Like showbiz legacy kind of thing. Wow. If he was joining today, they'd like be shouting Nepo baby.So, but yeah, he attended the Los Angeles County High School for the Arts and the UCLA Theater, Film and Television Program studying musical theater, which we will get back to.He graduated from the Groundlings in 2010 and is one of two cast members to be both on MADtv and SNL.Did not know that. Yeah, yeah. When he joined MADtv, he was actually the youngest cast member at 19 in 2001.He has 90 acting credits, four writer credits, and two producer credits, along with six soundtrack credits that we will touch on in a second.His first film appearance was in naked gun 33 and a third the final insult as the character named boy.[3:54] Very you know big long a big credit there uh it was 1994 and he was at the age of 12 when he yeah so as a child actor he he was also on unsolved mysteries uh the jersey and big fatliar He had a recurring role in Stuck in the Suburbs.He went on to play Mr.Rad in Community in their regional holiday music episode.He wrote the comic book miniseries for IDW called The Illegitimates, which I'm going to have to now cover on my comic book podcast.Give it a plug. What's the title? know detecting the marvelous so if you want to check out about comics the three comics chatting about comics yeah so he went on to marry colbysmulders and uh is a broadway star taking over the role of king george the third in hamilton in 2017 and he did so well with it yeah yeah and he also played lance a lot in the broadwayproduction of spam a lot Oh.So, I mean, that's tying his comedy and his musical loves together.Yeah. Which I wish I could have seen that. I wish I could have seen that.Yeah, that would have been great. Man, I wish I lived in New York sometimes.Yeah, yeah. So close, yet far enough away to be a pain in the butt. Right.[5:19] So, I think we should go to our friend Kirsten Rajula and Thomas down in the basement and And get a sense of what they're thinking about Terran Kill'em.Looking forward to it. All right, Kirsten and Thomas, take it away.Track 4:[6:02] All right, JD and Matt, thank you so much for that.Yes, we are talking today about a great and sometimes, I think, overlooked cast member, and that is Taryn Killam.So to join me, not an overlooked guest, in fact, what are you now?Are you a 20-timer on our podcast at this point, Kirsten? I feel like I'm a 20-timer, a happy 20-timer, though.Yeah, you're like our Steve Martin, I think. You're just like, you're in the fabric of the show at this point. I love it. Thank you.Yeah, yeah. Thank you. Thank you for joining us. Kirsten Rayula, thank you so much. Kirsten, how are you doing?[6:46] I'm doing fantastic. And I, you know, I know I say I love so many of the people that we talk about, but this is a real special one.So I'm doing great because in re-watching a lot of this person's material, serial it put me in a great mood yeah it really does that it puts you know i the last few days that i've been revisitingtaryn's sketches and and whatnot i've just been in a wonderful mood because of that so so this yeah this this is a good one to talk about uh given the nature of our the format that i like todo on this podcast kirsten i'm going to let you plug stuff up the top so tell us what you've been up to i know you have a storyteller thing that you're doing i know that you've been on a lotof SNL podcasts.So tell us what Kirsten's been up to. All right.So yes to both of those.So my bestie and I, we host a seasonal storytelling event. It's called Generation Women.There is one in New York. We have the Toronto-based shows. So folks in New York, you can go see it there as well.And it's an intergenerational storytelling event. So on a common theme, a woman in their 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, and 70s plus all tell us a story.And they're not professional, but they are formidable women.[8:05] And it's a really beautiful night. So, you know, if you're in the Toronto area, come check us out. The next one is in April and they happen every season.Or if you are in New York, check them out there too because the event itself is like a big warm hug.It's fantastic. And to be able to give a voice to so many people who, you know, we all have a story to tell.So that's great. And yeah, I mean, my love for SNL grows deeper and deeper the more I engage with all these other fantastic members of this SNL fan community.And I've just got to check off my bucket list going to see the show because I have not seen the show live yet.That's hard to believe. I know. Have you entered the lottery? Yeah.[8:47] That's the thing. I haven't. Okay. You got to enter the lottery or the best way to do it is in the standby line.That's how my wife and I got into the show. Yeah, it does.Yeah. The success rate's a lot better than the lottery.So I'd advise you, honestly, just take a weekend to go to New York and do the standby line. What time did you get there?Well, they have a new process. So you send an email now and then they give you a number.Okay. And then you show up about 6 o'clock with your number, and then they slot you in the line.And then you wait. How we did it, and this may have even changed since then. It was 2022.But how we did it was we slept on the street for 12 hours overnight.And then they handed us our cards. We picked live or dress.And then they handed us our cards. And then you show up to Rockefeller Center and then kind of hope you get in.And we got in for the Lizzo show two years ago, my wife and I did.Oh, my gosh. But you slept on the street for 12 hours?Yep. And it was fun. We made friends.[9:55] Lizzo bought us pizza. Her backup dancers came out and delivered pizza to us.So it was a whole thing. Now it's fun. Did you see live or dress? We saw dress.Yeah, I'd almost rather see dress because I want to see more.Mm-hmm and we we've we uh compare we were able to compare dress to live see what got cut see what should have got cut that made air and all of that so that's that's what i recommendbut you gotta see the show okay 2024.[10:22] Yeah. I got to get on this. Scratch that off your bucket list.Yeah, I got to do it. All right. All right. I'm actually writing this down.I'm going to, this is happening.Yes. So also as part of your big appearances on podcasts lately, you were on the first episode of season five of the Esna Hall of Fame in our draft.So you were one of the drafters. It was me, you, and Matt Ardill, and you chose today's topic, tear and kill them.So just in general because we're going to kind of deep dive into some of his sketches and work just in general what was it about Taron that compelled you to want to choose him and talkabout him oh that's a great question I will say I read a lot of comments on so many of the videos that I've re-watched and I gotta tell you I don't think I saw a single negative one everyoneEveryone said, overlooked, stellar member of the cast, and Lorne did him dirty.Lorne did him dirty. We need closure. I know.We really need closure. He, gosh, he's just so consistently funny and the kind of person that I'd want to hang out with.I'd want to hang out with him and just laugh and do silly characters.[11:45] And that's probably part of the reason, although I'd probably say that about people like Bowen too. But special place in my heart.[11:51] And I think most, apparently all, according to the comments, people would agree with me.Yeah, Terran comes across as a big old ball of sunshine.Yeah. I think that's something that came to my mind. He just pops off screen.He just fills the room with joy.Even when he's playing almost an unlikable character, it's fantastic.And he's likable in the process. Yeah, and all chips on the table.Like, no ego, just attacks each character, which I admire and enjoy so much.And Kirsten, as far as SNL cast members, a few different categories come to my mind.So you have cast members who are unquestioned stars that hit in the mainstream.Mainstream so like your will ferrells your eddie murphy's like those are unquestioned mainstream stars that hit on the show and had a wider reach then you have cast members who arejust not cut out for the show don't want to name specific names but we can think about snl history we know who a lot of those people are you see them they're okay but maybe not totallymade for the show then you have cast members who are obviously very good obviously made for the show but slip through the cracks just a little bit.[13:15] So I think Taron probably falls into that last category.Clearly made for the show, but kind of like went under the radar.So why do you think that happens, Kirsten? Like a cast member can be made for the show, but not 100% hit like on a mass like populist level.Oh, I wish I knew I would just become an agent in Hollywood.I think he's got a little bit of so many things.He's got a character actor sensibility.He can play the, you know, Prince Charming type role physically.And then there are some sketches like Overly Protective Brother where there's some Farley characters.[14:00] So he almost had a little bit of everything, and maybe that was working against him.[14:09] You would think it would work for him, that they could just, you know, great, bring him in, bring him in, bring him in.And perhaps the other folks that leaned into those lanes, you know, Chris Farley doing his kind of boisterous, over-the-top, yelling, aggressive, high volume.And then you've got Sudeikis who really leans into like the smarmy dad or co-worker boyfriend and they really raced hard against those things and he was like I'll do all of them so youknow Jack of all trades master of none is all I can figure no I think that's a really good point I think he didn't have the one thing to latch on to I think you're right he was willing willing todo everything, was capable of playing anything and doing anything on screen.And you're right, as far as mainstream appeal, SNL nerds watched Taran Killam and knew what we were seeing.We were seeing a person made for the show who was great at sketch comedy, but I guess he didn't have the recurring character, though I would argue at least one or two of his charactersprobably should be more well-known on the mainstream level.But you're right, Jack of all trades. I would say master of them, but maybe that wasn't the perception of the quote-unquote average fan or the people who aren't SNL. Not in a Hollywoodway. Yeah, exactly.[15:33] But we are here to appreciate Taron Killam. We know SNL fans do, and we appreciate him.So Kirsten, I want you to get this going.We're going to talk about some sketches. What sketch or character do you want to start with with Taron Killam?Well, there are some I know we're going to cover them all. But one of my favorites, it may have been one where he really landed my consciousness was Les Jeunes de Paris, the youth ofParis.And this happened a few times, I think the ones with Emma Stone, really, you know, that was my, the top.Pop they're a bunch of you know teenage kind of cool parisian kids with their parisian style hanging around a jukebox there's some flirting going on and then this really fun poppy songwhich by the way i shazammed and then put on my spotify and have listened to because it's so fun i think taryn or somebody heard it at a starbucks or something really one time and waskind of like that's where it came from that's a cool groove yeah and then they just do this kind of incredibly.[16:47] Wacky dance at certain parts of the song and then switch back to playing it cool love love.[17:05] One of the sketches that I would have loved to have been in as one of those dancers.Yeah, that looks so much fun. And by the way, my French teacher wife would say magnifique on your pronunciation of Le Jeune de Paris.Well, you know I'm in Canada, right? Yeah, that's true. You have a leg up.Yeah, I should. Just a little leg up. But thanks.No, I'm taking away the compliment. Ah! No, so this was great.Like kind of an out there concept.Concept like there it's like almost a parody of like a stereotypical view on like the youth of paris or whatever like so so funny out there concept taryn is such a good physical performer andi think that's going to be a common thread in a lot of the stuff that we talk about is just how he contorts his body the facial expressions after the the look on his face after he gets slappedand he's had kind of the self-pleased look on his face and just such a great physical performer, Kirsten.I agree. I have some key themes, the physicality of his performance and also very much a vocal performer using Thrall's impressions, kind of volume, tone, cadence, and then face pulling.He really is in control of.[18:27] His being and brings all of it. You know, there are some recent episodes of the show where we've had guest stars and such on, and you can see a difference when they're showing upand they are there on their looks alone or their attractiveness or something.And this is someone who will do anything for the role, pull faces yell and scream as you say twist and contort and I think the fans appreciate when someone really just dives in like thatyeah when I was talking about that the diff…

Full show notes at the publisher

Laraine Newman Feb 26, 2024

Show notes

This week on the SNL Hall of Fame podcast we're hosting two guests, Gary Seith and Brad Robinson to discuss the career of an original Not Ready for Prime Time Player, Laraine Newman. Please subscribe, share, rate, and review the show where ever you get your podcasts!Transcript: [0:42] Thank you so much, Doug Donance. It is great to be back here on the SNL Hall of Fame podcast with y'all.Hope you're doing well. I'm doing spectacular, but I'd be that much better if you would just wipe your feet before you come on inside. Come on.You've listened to this enough times to know what I'm talking about. out the SNL Hall of Fame podcast is a weekly affair where each episode we take a deep dive into the career of aformer cast member host musical guest or writer and add them to the ballot for your consideration once the nominees have been announced we turn to you the listener to vote for the mostdeserving and help determine who will be enshrined for perpetuity in the hall That's how we play the game.It's just that simple.So there's that. I hope that you're ready for a great episode today.We've got two special guests.We've got Gary Seeth and Brad Robinson from the Not Ready for Primetime podcast joining Thomas down in the bunker.And they're going to talk about Lorraine Newman, one of the original Not Ready for Primetime time players, and they're going to make a case for why she should be in the SNL Hall ofFame.But ultimately, it's up to you to cast the votes.Let's walk on down the hall and talk to our friend Matt Ardill in his minutiae corner. Let's do this. Matt!Track 3:[2:12] JD! We're here in your corner, and you know what that means.Time for trivia. That's right. What have you got for us on Lorraine Newman?Well, she's five foot five, born March 2nd, 1952.She was born in L.A. with a twin brother, Paul, attended Beverly Hills High School and the California Institute of the Arts. Uh, she is the self-proclaimed daughter and granddaughter ofJewish cowboys.Uh, the, the family comes from, uh, cattleman stock and her grandfather was the sheriff.Her father and grandfather both ran a cattle drive through Calabasas, which is very posh now, but back in the 1930s, um, it was a farming town.Wow. She began Improvit 15.[3:03] Edition for the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts, London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts, and the Bristol Old Vic, but she didn't make it past the second edition on any ofthose.So instead, she moved to Paris to study mime with Marcel Marceau. Wow.Yeah, yeah. She became a member of the Richmond Shepherd Mime Troupe, and at 19, then returned to LA uh as one of the founding members of the groundlings uh with her sister tracynewman who's a film uh writer and producer you know she has a very storied past before getting into comedy she worked as a rock band booking agent uh handling contracts and gigs andthe song never let her slip away by andrew gold is actually written about her because they were were dating and i'm guessing he regrets uh having blown that opportunity i bet you're rightyeah yeah i had a crush on her big time oh yeah definitely yeah now she landed her first role on the tv series manhattan transfer and followed that up by filming tunnel vision which wasfilmed before the first episode of snl but was released after that and it was alongside many of her her future castmates.She was actually hired by Lorne Michaels for a Lily Tomlin special in 1974.[4:29] She's gone on to acquire 244 acting credits.And she also wrote a memoir, May You Live in Interesting Times, a memoir, which is on Audible.[4:41] She later moved into voice acting and is in a bunch of cartoons, Danny Phantom, Avatar Avatar, The Last Airbender and Metalocalypse, amongst many.She's a contributing writer to One for the Table, Huffington Post, Los Angeles Times, The Believer and McSweeney's.Has been nominated for Primetime Emmys, Annie Award, Behind the Voice Actors Award and received a Television Academy Hall of Fame Award along with the original SNL cast.That's amazing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And not only that, she has created a legacy.Her daughter, Hannah Einbinder, went on to become one of the leads of the show Hacks and is frickin hilarious and a great stand up in her own right.She was did not know that. Yeah, she was in Toronto at Comedy Bar about I think about six or seven months ago. Super frickin hilarious comedian.So funny runs in the family. But yeah, so I'm really looking forward to what Gary and Brad are going to share with us about Lorraine.Yeah, me too. They've got a fun person to talk about. It's going to be really interesting. Should we go to them now?Yeah, let's go for it. All right, let's do it.Track 2:[5:56] Take it away, Thomas.Track 4:[6:25] Alright, JD and Matt, thank you so much. Yes, we are here.Welcome to the SNL Hall of Fame. Another great episode for you all.And to join me to chat about one of the original cast members, somebody who we all hold in such high regard, Lorraine Newman.Joining me to talk about Lorraine Newman is a duo, a duo that I've had on before from an amazing podcast, a wonderful podcast. I'm a subscriber, listen every week, and before I evenknew them.You're so self-deprecating, Brad.[7:03] That's part of your charm. I was a listener before I even met you guys.So you guys do a great job. They're not ready for primetime podcast.I'm welcoming Gary Seeth and Brad Robinson.[7:17] How you two doing? Good. Thank you for having us, Thomas.Good to be back. back always a fun time happy back yeah you were here uh last season talking about uh michael o'donoghue like the the last gasp as it were possibly that went well well ithink there's the episode it was see brad it's about the uh the journey not the destination around here wait is that really because i thought their whole podcast was about the destination is itnot to get into the hall of fame i believe the finite goal is the destination with the hall hall of fame yeah well yeah maybe we're wrong that's why if you want to be technical we have astated purpose here on i guess in the title of the podcast snl hall of fame but you know i'm i'm like kind of a touchy-feely kind of guy i'm you know i have my zen attitude so it is about thedestination so i didn't really enjoy that michael o'donohue episode it was fun it was very fun it was a lot of fun even if we couldn't pull the votes yet yeah for michael o'donohue oh it's It'squite all right.So today you're joining me for Lorraine Newman, which I'm excited to get into.Before we do that, Brad, tell us what's been happening on the Not Ready for Primetime podcast.Gary, if Brad doesn't do a sufficient job, you can chime in too.Okay. Oh, thanks, Thomas.[8:39] Not Ready for Primetime podcast. We do a deep dive through the original era of SNL, the first five seasons.We are currently wrapping up season two, just about done.I feel like we're very close to your second appearance this season for our, um.[8:56] Eric Idle episode right around this time. It's got to be coming out.But yeah, we're finishing up season two, and then we're going to try to take a little bit of a break, and season three will be starting up in May.And we are going to do some fun specials in between seasons two and three as well, which will be a lot of fun. And Thomas will be there.Hopefully. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.I'm pretty sure I'm going to be there. I'm looking forward to that.I've been really honored to be able to take part in the podcast.I'm apparently now the British correspondent.That's right. As it were.I've been on for, who was that, Dudley Moore and Peter Cook, and two Eric Idle episodes.Yes. So it's been a lot of fun being the British correspondent, being the correspondent for funky white musicians as well.Okay, okay, easy. Introducing us to the Boz Buds, even though I believe Brad and I, neither one of us are They're actual Boz's buds, but.But you're closer than you were before that episode.[9:58] Sure. More of an appreciation. You just don't want to hurt my feelings.That's exactly right. But we love, Thomas, we have loved having you on.It's so much fun every time we have you on. The last time we had you on, my wife, I laughed so hard.She's like, what were you doing? She's never seen me laugh so hard.So we have a blast when you come on. Thank you so much for supporting the show and coming on like you do. We love it.You guys are awesome. and you guys let me like I get to let my hair down a little bit on your podcast I get to be just the guest is the wisecracking guest and I think I put the burden onGary to kind of edit the stuff that the dumb stuff out that I say.[10:32] Oh, it's not you that I'm editing out, Thomas. It's the other one. Here we go.Okay, here we go, guys. So check it out, the Not Ready for Primetime podcast. Please, yes, thank you.Yeah, yeah, it's a great podcast. So you guys are immersed in the first, right now, the first two seasons of SNL.So perfect guys to come in and talk about Lorraine Newman.So just a little background, Lorraine Newman, a groundling out in L.A.[11:01] She knew Lorne prior to SNL from working on a Lily Tomlin special in 1974.That was kind of her, one of her ends with Lorne.And she impressed him so much, she became an original cast member.So guys, I wanted to start off, a lot of the original cast knew each other prior to SNL.But Lorraine, again, came from the Groundlings in LA.So do you think her not having as much of a rapport with the other cast prior to SNL, do you think that made for somewhat of an uphill climb for her, possibly when the show started?What do you think of those dynamics of the cast when the show started?I think at the very beginning of the show, everyone was trying to feel each other out and who worked together well and who worked with what writer well, and everyone's trying to findtheir place.And I think Lorraine, in the early seasons, showed the breadth of what she could do.And she was also a lot younger. I think we talk a lot about how Dan Aykroyd was so young.She was only 23 when the show started. started so there's also that kind of like finding her place on this big national stage all of a sudden and being a lot younger than some of the othercast too right brad.[12:20] Yeah, I think it's more the age thing. She's being younger.And also, you know, she was a California girl, so she's so far away from home at a young age, thrust into this environment with the personalities you have.Your Chevy Chases, your John Belushis, your Dan Aykroyd, your Gilda Radner.So I think fighting amongst that and being so young, I think all those things is what is what led to her having to maybe what seems to be fighting a little bit more than some of the others.Yeah, I think she was she was a great cast member in that sense, because like SNL, especially the early years, I always look at it as a sports team. And with a good sports team, you wantto have a good season or whatever.Everybody needs to kind of slide into roles and see what holes need to be filled and everything.And they can't all be like Chevy Chase was the breakout star of season one.Not everybody's going to be Chevy.You have to have role players and utility players.And that sounds like a dig, but coming from comedy nerds, being called the utility player is actually a really big compliment to me. So if I think of Lorraine in that sense, that's a hugecompliment.Did you see her kind of fill in a lot of those utility roles from what you've seen, especially in the first couple seasons?[13:47] Oh, 100%. I think that's what we're going to talk about a lot tonight is, you know, and she purposely did not have a lot of recurring characters because she didn't want to do them.And so, you know, I think on a surface level, you look at Lorraine Newman and you're not going to see the characters Belushi had.You're not going to see the screen time Chevy had. But when you actually look at it, what you're going to see is that utility player, that person who was vital to making sketches work,making the show work.I almost, I was looking through kind of all the scenes that she was involved in. She's in tons of famous scenes and stuff, you remember.She's kind of like the cherry on top on a lot of those scenes.Like, she just adds that little extra something that really ties it all together and brings it together.And I think she set the standard for what that was, both men and women moving forward on how you contribute and are a vital part of the show, but you're not the star, if that makes anysense.But you can't diminish how important that role is, like you were just alluding to. Yeah, she she adds a lot to a lot of sketches.And even when she's not the focus, she brings things that you and maybe at first.[14:56] Viewing you don't realize it either and you you see it again later and it's like oh look she was brilliant in that and she was i think so underrated with her singing like a lot of thesinging that she did in the first few seasons totally goes unnoticed but she's great and she just she brought it and she could sing in different voices and different characters and withdifferent accents there's an episode in season one where the musical acts singing and her and gilda come come out and are doing hula hoops.And I remember when we covered that episode, we're like, is there nothing she can't do?Like, there's nothing Lorraine Newman, you ask of her, she cannot do.Sing, dance, hula hoop, impressions, characters, she can do everything.And if you remember, I think it was with Candice Bergen was the host, and they all came out and hula hooped.And Lorraine did not drop that hula hoop for the whole four minutes or whatever. It was amazing.And it was just like, it's those small little things that you don't really really notice unless you look for it. And she was excellent.Yeah. Well, I don't know if I'm stepping on an example, but like you, Brad, you talked about her putting like that cherry on top of a sketch, the Basso Matic.Yes. Wouldn't have been the Basso Matic sketch. Yeah.Without Lorraine Newman, it would have just been Dan rambling, which I, I mean, I'm a huge Dan fan.I don't mind if he's rambling on and on, but Lorraine coming in there with her classic line.[16:20] Wow that's terrific bass we've got fish here that just completely adds to it it was it was lorraine's delivery her charm that's why they brought her in the 40th lorraine was back doingthat exact same line in that sketch she's 40 she takes that sketch from an a to an a plus yeah like she literally like it it's an a it is an a sketch and she makes it an a plus.[16:45] Yeah yeah yeah absolutely and then to your point gary about her singing that's something i noticed too with a lot of the sketches i watched like an episode that you all covered inseason two she did a barbara streisand oh yes right amazing yes yeah it wasn't just like it was a funny song if you really listen to the lyrics it was a funny song it was almost like playingoff of streisand thinking very highly of herself but it worked in a lot of ways because lorraine could sing what big.[17:51] When I first watched that sketch, I had to rewind it because I was so caught up in her actual voice and how well she was singing that I had to stop and go back and listen to thelyrics to listen to how funny it was because it is a very funny song, but she sang it so beautifully as Barbra Streisand. It was excellent.And to a point on how…

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Julio Torres Feb 19, 2024

Show notes

This week on the SNL Hall of Fame podcast we welcome back one of the SNN's Super-Fans, Sammy Kay! He's visiting the Hall to discuss writer Julio Torres with our very own Thomas Sena. Transcript:[0:42] All right. Thank you, Doug DeNance. It is great to be here in the SNL Hall of Fame.[0:50] Welcome to the SNL Hall of Fame podcast, A Weekly Affair.Each episode, we take a deep dive into the career of a former cast member, host, musical guest, or writer, and add them to the ballot for your consideration.Once the nominees have been announced, we turn to you, the listener, to vote Vote for the most deserving and help determine who will be enshrined for perpetuity in the hall.That's right. That's how we play the game. It's really quite simple.And we're thrilled to have you here with us.This has been a great season so far, and it's about to get that much better as we invite S&N correspondent, super fan, Sammy K, into the conversation room with Thomas Senna to todiscuss the career of writer Julio Torres.This should be a good one. I'm looking very forward to this.Will Julio be rewarded or will he be punished for being a writer?We shall see when voting commences.I'm getting way ahead of myself, though. Before you get into this building, you gotta wipe those feet. That's all there is to it. it.Let's walk down the hallway to my friend Matt Ardill in his Matt's Minutia Minute corner and get to know a little bit more about Julio.What do you say? Matt!Track 3:[2:13] Matt! Julio Torres! Yeah, JB! I can't wait.This is another one of my picks from the draft and I am looking forward to this one.I'm looking forward to all of them, but this one in particular.No, this is your pick. Yeah, I understand that. That's great. Yeah.So talk to me, because I know precious little about Julio Torres.Yeah, he's pretty private, to be honest. Julio Torres, I don't know his height.One of the few people I've not been able to track that down.So when I do the chart, he's going to be a big question mark. Oh, man.He makes me feel very old. He is born February 11th, 1987. Jeez, Louise.[2:57] He co-created Los Espookys with Fred Armisen and Anna Fabergia, as well as working on The Chris Gethard Show as a writer.[3:11] Oh, did not know that. Yeah, yeah. So he got his start on Gethard and then went on to SNL and then all sorts of stuff followed.Um he is born he was born in el salvador to a civil engineer uh who is his father and an architect slash fashion designer mother uh his mother has collaborated uh with him and his sisteruh on comedy projects um they he picked up some skills from his mom um and his mom and his sister actually make a lot of his clothes or have them made his quote i have of him is mymother and sister noah taylor in el salvador who can make anything i sketch with their assistance so when you see him doing shows it's often outfits that he his mom and his sister havemade together oh that's cool yeah so he took literary studies at the new york school or excuse me he took literary studies at the new school in new york okay um even as a student his goalout of the gate was to become a comedy writer which a lot of times you don't start that way you kind of fall into comedy writing yeah but uh yeah it was his goal um he has an hbo specialfrom 2019 called my favorite shapes and is credited with nine writing credits and 25 acting credits as well for producer credits.[4:39] He starts his Comedy Central stand-up special by introducing himself as Julio and Aquarius.His favorite color is clear and starts all of his emails well, well, well.[4:54] Um, his special is named I'm a vegan and I'm so sorry, uh, where he takes the stage with his best friend, crystal, a four foot tall talking crystal.Uh, so this sort of sets the tone of what to expect.Um, I think he and Sarah Sherman would get along very well, um, or fight to the death as they both seem to have very similar sentiments around comedy.Um he appeared on the tonight show eight times as a correspondent and has appeared three times on late night uh appeared on the former snl writing team chris kelly and sarah schneider'sshow the other two in the episode chase turns 14 and has also been in an episode of bob's burgers he deliberately avoids political comedy preferring to focus on his personal experiencesand viewpoints, which, you know, is probably good because those are so surreal and wild and awesome.[6:01] It's great to hear a unique voice like his. Yeah.Well, I'm excited to hear a couple other unique voices. Sammy Kaye back in the SNL Hall of Fame talking with our friend Thomas Senna.You ready to hear that conversation, Matt? I am ready. Can't wait. Let's go downstairs.Track 5:[6:50] Alright, Matt Ardill and JD, thank you so much for that introduction.Yes, today we are talking about a writer, digging into the writer category here on the SNL Hall of Fame.A very current writer that I'm really excited to talk about.He's turned in so many recent classics.It'll be fun digging into Julio Torres and his work as a writer on SNL.And to join me to break down a lot of Julio's work on SNL is a multi-time guest here on the SNL Hall of Fame, Mr. Sammy K.Welcome back to the podcast, Sammy. How are you doing?Thomas, I'm doing well. I'm happy to be back. I think this is my third appearance on the pod.So this is, I've done a writer before, a writer, sketch performer, and then just with Seth Myers.And then I did Vanessa Bayer, you know, a cast member, and now I'm doing a pure writer. So, you know, excited to kind of, you know, go through all these different kinds of contributorsto SNL on the pod with you.Yeah, I'm pumped to have you back. We're still waiting for Vanessa Bear to get the SNL Hall of Fame call.It's going to happen. I know you and I are like two huge Vanessa Bayer super fans, but I think, I don't know, I think give it a couple of years. I think it might happen.I think it's closer than anybody thinks, Sammy. You made a great case for Vanessa.[8:07] I'll always, on any podcast, SNL or otherwise, make a great case for the great Vanessa Bayer.So yeah, hopefully one of these days, you know, we finally call her number down and give her her praise for the Hall of Fame.Yeah absolutely y'all should go back and listen to our vanessa bear episode from last season and hear sammy and i kind of fanboy over vanessa bear that's a good way to describe it yeahcomplete fanboys i'm not ashamed to say that uh so yeah sammy thanks for coming back uh before we get the dig into julio torres's work uh can you tell all the listeners what you've beenup to uh over at the saturday night network absolutely yeah so you know we're digging into to season 49.And obviously we have a ton of different shows that we put out for the new episodes of SNL most recently.[8:56] I've kind of been all over the place. I've been on, I was on the I.O.Debris hot take show and was recently on By the Numbers with Mike Murray.And then I'm also the host of our Superfan Takeovers, which is, you know, basically the number one destination you want to go to if you're a diehard SNL fan of all the seasons.We go in and we talk about the whole history of the show uh we've recently recently did a a one-time host draft which was a lot of fun you know drafting hosts that only hosted the showone time seeing who we'd want to bring back and have them host your second time my top pick for that i believe was conan o'brien was my number one pick and you know that is one thati thought you know we kind of closed the book on but now that he made that appearance in the five-timer sketch for millennia a couple years back and we're looking ahead to snl 50 youknow you never know what could happen but so that that one's a lot of fun so you know you guys should definitely check that out yeah the that's always a great you know sammy uh billkenny is also on that pod of course uh you got the andrews haskell and hands tend to make appearances right we got both we got both andrews yep yep yeah so listen to uh Sammy and allof his work across the Saturday Night Network podcast universe.[10:17] So yes, Sammy. So today we're talking about a writer. I know you were with me for Seth Meyers.You helped get him into the SNL Hall of Fame. Now we're talking about Julio Torres.So an interesting one today, a very recent writer.And I'm curious, Sammy, from your perspective as an SNL superfan, for you, what qualities go into making a great SNL writer?[10:42] Yeah, I mean, that's an interesting question, because I think, unlike, you know, most comedy shows, or, you know, I mean, you know, SNL is a weekly variety show, a sketch showthat, you know, needs to churn out content, you know, on a, you know, weekly basis, or whenever there's a show, you know, be consistent.So you need a writer that's able to obviously handle that sort of workload.But I think ultimately, if you want to get your stuff on the show, you need to have a a unique voice, a unique point of view.That's something that I would definitely ascribe to Julio Torres as someone who used their experience and kind of interesting tones of comedy and was able to put that into sketches whereyou 100% would watch a sketch and be like, I for sure knew Julio Torres wrote this sketch.But then also could have something that you maybe didn't necessarily see his fingerprints totally on, but kind of just worked as, I don't want to say a cog in the machine, but was able to dothe SNL formula of a sketch as well.So having that balance of putting out stuff with your own voice, but also being able to put out stuff on the consistent basis that you need with a show like SNL, if that makes sense.[11:59] Oh, it makes total sense. I think you're absolutely right. I think you hit it right on the head as far as I really enjoy as a viewer were being able to spot a certain writer's voice andsketches that's why growing up i was a big jack handy fan because you would watch a jack handy sketch and know jack handy was behind that unfrozen caveman lawyer kind of weirdsketches like that you knew it was a jack handy uh yeah so so i think julio is kind of in the same vein and you're right about not just doing not just Just getting put in your own littlesandbox over there in the corner as a writer.I think Julio showed, too, that he can play within SNL's confines. And we'll see that here.I mean, he wrote from 2016 to 2019, obviously, a very heated political time in the country and in SNL.Julio did political sketches. Yes.[12:55] But he put his own little twist on them, too. So I think you're absolutely right about he was able to play within SNL's confines.But his personality and his background still came out.His background being an immigrant from El Salvador and also a gay man.He had those viewpoints, the things that make him him.And of course, he's just a very clever person, too. So he had a clever touch on a lot of his sketches.This will be an interesting one, man. like relatively recent only a writer for three seasons yeah so let's let's get going i'm curious what what sketch do you want to bring to the table as far asjulio torres yeah there there are definitely a lot and as you know you sent over a list just to kind of refresh my memory on some of these i'm like oh my god he has like a murderer's row oflike classic modern day sketches so i don't know if i want to start with like the heavy hitters first or whatnot but you know i think I think because you mentioned the political stuff, I think agreat one to bring up would be Through Donald's Eyes.[13:59] And this is one that I honestly didn't realize until doing the research for this episode that he wrote.But this is one that when I'm looking back at the Trump era of SNL, totally sticks out to me as a memorable sketch.[14:13] And, you know, watching this one live, I'm just like, oh, man, like, this is such an amazing concept. You know, this is the one that people don't remember where John Cena isplaying Donald Trump.And it's, I think, right around the time after the 2016 election.And you're kind of doing like a day in the life of Trump and seeing it all through his point of view.So for the most part, unless you're looking at a reflection or something, you're not seeing John Cena, but you're seeing everybody else.And honestly, it kind of reminded me of the, I think it was the Reagan sketches from like the early 80s that they would do, like from his point of view.Like, I don't, I, you know, I'm sure like they maybe thought that there was some parallel there when they're coming up with this concept.But it's so surrealist and being able to take that feeling after the 2016 election of like, this is, this is the president now.And like, what is kind of like, you know, what is it like to look at through the world through Donald Trump? It was such a great sketch, so memorable.And I just when I look back at that time frame and think about sketches that really, you know, broke through and, you know, last because a lot of those political sketches don't necessarilyhold up. That one certainly does.Yeah, I love how it explores the delusion of Donald Trump.[15:33] You're right, he looks in the mirror and he looks like John Cena.So that's how Trump sees himself.He's watching TV and it's an announcement that huge suits and long ties are in fashion.And I love the little detail of Trump processing things in small bits and fragmented sentences.Huge, huge success. Fantastic. Fantastic. Victory.Landslide. Fox News. In fashion.Big news. So he doesn't have like complex thoughts and even the way he processes the world is not complex.[16:13] So this was just like little touch after little touch by Julio Torres.And I should say too, along with his writing partner Jeremy Beiler has contributed to a lot of these sketches too.So Julio and Jeremy were definitely a really good team on SNL.But just the way Julio was so adept at political satire, Sammy, in such a smart way, like you and I mean, we a lot of us were remember vividly because it wasn't that long ago.At this point in SNL, a lot of it was just ripped from the headlines and verbatim of what somebody would say.But these were a breath of fresh air, in my opinion, Sammy.Like, what do you what do you say these compared to like a lot of other political sketches from around this time?Oh, yeah, for sure. Sure. Like, like a breath of fresh air is a great way to kind of describe it.Um, because, you know, you, you have, you are kind of bringing in all the characters that we've seen throughout those sketches where they're playing off of the Alec Baldwin, you know,Kate McKinnon as, you know, Kellyanne Conway, um, and, you know, Cecily Strong as Melania, you know, we've seen these characters before, but the way that he's kind of using thesepieces within the world that he's building, um, it just kind of elevates it. And it.[17:27] Obviously going for something that's different from, you know, something you'd show in a cold open.Like, I don't know, I don't remember exactly where this aired in the night, but, um, you know, it allowed, um, the show to get a little bit weirder and a little bit more surreal with, um,everything going on.Cause it was a kind of surreal time, like, especially right after the aftermath.So, you know, kind of matching it with this real sketch, um, was, was a great kind of pairing.[17:53] Yeah. From around this time, if it was, if it was genuinely like of really smart political satire there's a decent chance that…

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The R.E.M. Breakdown Trailer Feb 14, 2024

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Dewvre podcasts & such has several new podcasts in the pipeline we think you're gonna love. Here is the first one. It drops on February 19th. You can subscribe at linktr.ee/rembreakdown

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Martin Short Feb 12, 2024

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Today on the SNL Hall of Fame podcast jD and Matt get their trivia on, meanwhile Thomas is joined by a friend of the show Bill Kenney to discuss the career of multi-time host, Martin Short.Transcript:[0:42] All right. Thank you so much, Doug Donatz. It is great to be back here with you all in the SNL Hall of Fame podcast studios deep within the SNL Hall of Fame.It's JD here, and I hope you're doing well.We are doing great here in the hall, but we would be remiss to remind you to please wipe those feet before coming inside, especially with the snowy weather now.It just Just makes things messy.[1:15] The SNL Hall of Fame podcast is a weekly affair.Each episode, we take a deep dive into the career of a former cast member, host, musical guest, or writer, and add them to the ballot for your consideration.Once the nominees have been announced, we turn to you, the listener, to vote for the most deserving and help determine who will be enshrined for perpetuity inside the SNL Hall of Fame.That's how we play the game. It's really quite simple.It's all about you. You get to listen, you get to vote, and you get to brag about the fact that you inducted the Hall of Famers.So there's that. that i'm going to tell you that i'm excited about this week's episode but i always tell you that so it's a little redundant i suppose but i am excited we are welcoming back ourfriend bill kenny and he will be in conversation with thomas about our first host of the season martin short martin short of course uh a legend in showbiz and quite the character in the snlworld the SNL cinematic universe, the butt of many jokes in terms of the Five Timers Club, and.[2:34] He seems to relish it.He plays that role so well.But I don't want to get into too much minutiae because I like to leave that for my friend Matt in his corner, Matt's minutiae minute corner.So let's walk down to that intersection of walls where he is most likely loitering, and uh get to the bottom of this.Track 3:[2:56] Hey matt how's it going my friend hey jd i am awesome i am awesome i am looking forward to talking about today's potential inductee yeah i think it's pretty safe to say he'll be aninductee but uh you never know this place is weird you never know you never know like a lot of times you're thinking this person's gonna make it right away but you know it might be likehow he had to go to addition to second city for like a dozen times before he got out into the cast.Well, we're bearing the lead here, even though the title of the episode is named after this person.So you already know who it is. But it is Martin Short that we're going to be talking about this week on the program. Yes.[3:35] A who is actually not that short he's five foot eight i mean he's not a tall guy but he's kind of average that's average height yeah it's average height i always thought he was shorterthan that but i'm maybe only very minorly taller than that so we're about the same height are you plotting all these.[3:54] Are you plotting all these heights somewhere on a graph so that i should i should to like a uh i that will be my project over the summer who's the tallest uh nominee you know yeahwell will ferrell probably it's oh that's true yeah yeah but but who comes next kind of thing or is there somebody taller we never know we'll we'll find out kevin maybe yeah he hasn't beennominated yet no no oh you'll see well i'll i'll do them i'll do the math i'll do one of those comparison graphs okay um but yeah martin was born march 26 1950 he graduated from westdalesecondary school in hamilton and later attended mcmaster university where he shout out to the hammer yeah we have a kitty cat from from hamilton duncan he's toothless and weird and ilove him very much sounds very hamiltonian to me yes he does he does um now um martin studied social work before changing after leaving pre-med and then subsequently leavingsociology so academia probably wasn't in his in his future he has 113 acting credits 19 writing credits 12 producer credits 27 soundtrack credits and one director credit including the latestaquaman film which which means I am going to have to watch that horrible movie now. Oh no.[5:20] Oh, I mean, geez, what I do for the love of Martin short.Right. Now his very first role was actually as a giant in a visa commercial back in the seventies.So which is, yeah, it's like interesting casting.Um, he's a class fricking act, uh, by literally all accounts.Um, you know, You can see how he rolled with the Today Show interview where Kathie Lee Gifford was asking about him about his wife two years after she had passed.[5:56] The man is a saint. He just...You know corrected her during the commercial break but was just very gracious about it and you can tell that he's this is a real genuine niceness because he's remained friends with all ofhis co-workers uh david lennerman conan o'brien tom hanks eugene lovey robin williams chevy chase william shatner diane keaton and of course his bestie steve martin all of them lovehim he um met the SCTV and Second City castmate, Dave Thomas, in college in 1970, where they began acting together, appearing in Macbeth, where they played Lennox and Banquo,respectively.This caused him to be a part of the infamous Godspell performance in Toronto, Yeah, where he met the SCTV and SNL geniuses that really created those two shows, including GildaRadner, Eugene Levy, Paul Schaefer, Andrea Martin, and his future wife, Nancy Dolman, whose brother married Andrea Martin, making SCTV a family affair. Hmm.Now, as an early member of a second city in Toronto, where many of his Godspell friends were performing.[7:17] He actually took about a dozen auditions to get into Second City, which means I don't feel so bad having been drummed out of my first con edition.So I will get in one day. If it takes Martin Short multiple passes, it'll take me multiple passes.Now, he left Second City and joined the cast of SCTV along with his fellow SCTV and SNL cast member, Robin Duke, in 1981.I have a friend whose parents actually just wandered in to the old fire hall to watch a performance, and it was their farewell show.[7:58] Oh, my God. Yeah, I was like, what I would have done to have been at Robin and Martin's farewell show.One of the few SNL cast members to make an appearance on MADtv, his first romantic love was Gilda Radner.But honestly, who didn't love Gilda? Yes.Yeah, everybody loved Gilda. He is a member of the Order of Canada, has a Tony for Little Me, an Emmy for SCTV's Network 90.That's the NBC version of SCTV. Two Outer Critic Awards for Outstanding Performance, a Primetime Emmy, Lifetime Achievement Award.The Independent Spirit Robert Altman Award, the Earl Grey Award, Lifetime Achievement Award for the Canadian Screen Awards, and three Canadian Screen Awards for BestPerformance.So he's pretty critically recognized for his talents as well.Well, he continues to tour doing his two man show with Steve Martin, uh, to this day where he is merciless.Uh, they, they keep working together. They also have the, the show that they co-star in only murderers in the building, which is one of people's choice award in 2021 and 2022, aprimetime Emmy in 2022, a satellite award and an AFI TV program of the year just this past year in 2023. So he's nominated for an Emmy award.[9:16] Or an evening you will forget for the rest of your life with Steve Martin.But they lost Mulaney, which, let's be honest, I'm sure Mulaney was really embarrassed by that.Like, he is probably just heartbroken that he beat them because Mulaney is nothing if not self-effacing. And those are two people that I am sure he idolizes.Yeah. Um, you know, he's been a success on and off of Broadway, dancing, singing, and remaining a beloved figure this, this day.He has a cottage in Muskoka, uh, where he cottages with friends and his neighbors include Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson, Kurt Russell and Goldie Hawn and Steven Spielberg and KateCapshaw.[10:00] Um, and he is my favorite amigo. So yeah, that is Steven.He also has a hell of a, that was Martin Short. short or that was martin short sorry he also has a hell of a hell of an autobiography uh does he does and he he reads it and yeah tremendous igot the book from my wife and i listened to the audiobook on again on audible not another plug for audible but it's on audible hey audible by the way if you're looking uh to sponsorsomething the snl hall of fame has a wing that we could uh use your vast amounts of money on so talk to us yeah i mean we could probably do an entire series all about just snl alumniright fees read on audible by the those cast members well i think we should take it downstairs now bill kenney is waiting he's chomping at the bit and uh he's down there with thomas sothomas take it away buddy All.Track 4:[11:18] Right. All right, J.D., Matt, thank you so much for that introduction, and welcome to another edition, another episode of the SNL Hall of Fame.Today, we are bringing you Comedy Royalty, and I'm talking about Bill Kenney, my guest, of course.Of course. Hi, Bill. Welcome to the SNL Hall of Fame. Welcome back.Thank you for having me back. Yeah, sure thing. Of course, we're talking about Marty Short, Comedy Royalty. Yes.He's a little bit higher than I am, but yeah. On the pecking order, you're just below Marty.[12:01] So no, we love having you, Bill. Thank you so much.You were a guest for Jason Sudeikis last season. And I like to think, Bill, that your natural charisma is what put Jason Sudeikis in the SNL Hall of Fame. Like, what say you?I mean, listen, I'm trying to be humble here, but all of the people I've come on this here your podcast and promote it are now in the SNL Hall of Fame, including my dear Jan Hooks. JanHooks. Yeah.Very excited when I heard you guys announced that.And yeah, it's such a great, great thing to see these people recognized for their great work.Jason probably got on for Ted Lasso and me, but yeah, we'll give me credit too. Jason, call me.Yes, yes. But Jan, though, I was super excited when we got the results in Jan Hooks. It was a well-deserved, overdue bill.I mean, Jan Hooks. Now the Eskimo Hall of Fame has maybe legitimacy in your eyes. I don't know. Absolutely, yes.I mean, it's like that favorite player that gets in on the seventh or eighth ballot.I know this was the third ballot. But yeah, it was great to see.The only thing, people, please vote for these writers.That would be my only pitch besides Marty tonight, of course.[13:22] Need more of these writers in. If you've seen a season of SNL that you didn't enjoy, it's because they had bad writers. Period. End of sentence.Put these people in. They're well-deserving.Exactly. Yep. I think, in my opinion, Jack Handy might be the next one on the list, hopefully, to get in. Jim Downey's in.So that was a little bit of a wrong that's been righted. We're making progress here, the voters at the Esna Hall of Fame.Chipping away. That's all you can do.Absolutely. So today's guest, I'm super excited to talk about Martin Short, Bill. So where...Did you first become acquainted with Marty? Because before SNL, he was already known in comedy circles. So where did you become acquainted with him?[14:09] Probably right around the time that he was on SNL.That was my formative years. I wasn't watching the show at that point.But as similar with Billy Crystal, I'd hear comedy clips on Dr.Demento's show, which I don't know if you're familiar with. but it was a Sunday night show that just did comedy clips. There'd be standup clips.There would be clips from SNL, from SCTV.And you'd start to hear stuff like Ed Grimley on there.And I'd wonder where this was coming from, you know, as a 10 year old or 11 year old boy.And it all kind of came together when he came to host for the first time.It was kind of all of my worlds colliding.So yeah, I didn't know a lot of him. him. A lot of his movies weren't child oriented at that point.So I hadn't seen him in the movies, but that was probably where I got my start with Marty.Okay. Yeah. So of course, Martin Short was a cast member on SNL.He was in the ringer season, as we like to call it, season 10.Steinbrenner season. Yes, the Steinbrenner season.[15:19] Dick Ebersole's last season as producer, he just went and brought in big game hunting, basically, and brought in Marty, Billy Crystal, Christopher Guest.He brought Harry Shearer back.Great season. So Marty on SNL, Bill, you and I, so there was a little discussion, a big discussion.Marty's placement on the Saturday Night Network's cast member countdown, and you and I had a little bit of disagreement there.Marty was 42 on the SNN fan list, And I think that was really high.I actually didn't have Marty ultimately in my top 50. But Bill, my stance has a lot to do with philosophy.[16:02] Try to convince me otherwise. This is one of the few things that you and I have disagreed on, and this is one of the few things that our friend John Schneider and I have disagreedon.I understand where quantity counts for something.If you're on the show for 10 years and you've done very solid work, you're going to be higher than somebody who was on for one year.But bang for your buck, Marty on there for one season was phenomenal.Uh, yes, Christopher Guest was a big deal as well.[16:36] He didn't have that great of an SNL career. There's not a lot you could point to his, his weekend update. SNL news was not that great.Uh, he wrote some good stuff, but it was basically the Billy and Marty show.And for better or worse, you know, a lot of good people didn't get a lot of airtime.Julie, Julie, Louis Dreyfuss, Mary Gross, uh, Jim Belushi.But for what was there these two carried the show made it relevant again i think really for the first time since eddie left full-time uh eddie murphy so uh and he was highly quotable he hadthese incredible characters that he had brought from setv which is something you wouldn't see today uh you probably know this uh many of the fans probably know this but snl now ownsthe the characters like if you if you bring a character this was around the 90s that they started this dana carvey's talked about this on his podcast where he brought the church lady so heowns the church lady um nbc snl owns the characters now so they wouldn't let somebody like marty come in today and not give up these characters but he came fully performed from hishis SCTV time with Ed Grimley, with, uh, what else did he do?Irving Cohen, which was one of my favorites, the bouncy C, uh, composer, Nathan Thurm, uh, Jackie Rogers Jr.He had brought all of those from his time as SCTV and, uh, it made SNL, uh, big again.[18:05] Yeah. He was, he was very well-equipped to do sketch comedy, to do the S to do SNL. He was so well-equipped. I remember I remember watching SCTV in reruns. Of course,when it aired, I was I was a small child.I wasn't watching SCTV, but I was lucky enough to catch up with it in reruns.And what a what a group we haven't on this podcast.I mean, it makes sense, but we haven't really talked a lot about SCTV.But Rick Moranis, John Candy, Eugene Levy, Catherine O'Hara, Bill, were you able to watch SCTV later after?I was too young as well, but I can recall, I believe it was after Late Night with Letterman and then Conan, where NBC started rerunning those SCTVs.And that was kind of mind-blowing.You know, this is pre-YouTube, pre-internet. So to see these things, all of these people had started to become big in their o…

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Pearl Jam Feb 05, 2024

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This week on the SNL Hall of Fame podcast we're joined by Ryan McNeil to discuss musical guests Pearl Jam.Transcript:[0:43] All right. Thank you so much, Doug Nance. It's me, J.D., and I am back in the.[0:49] SNL Hall of Fame for the SNL Hall of Fame podcast.Thank you so much for joining us this week, as you do each and every week.Now, I've been told that I'm not formal enough with my ask at the beginning, so please, wipeth those feets.[1:09] It's muddy out. For heaven's sake, we keep a clean floor here at the SNL Hall of Fame.The SNL Hall of Fame podcast is a weekly affair where each episode we take a deep dive into the career of a former cast member, host, musical guest, or writer and add them to the ballotfor your consideration.Once the nominees have been announced, we turn to you, the listener, to vote for the most deserving and help determine who will be enshrined for perpetuity in the hall.That's how we play the game it's just that easy this week we are going to delve into the career of a musical guest and that is the seattle band that goes by the name pearl jam we are joinedby a repeat offender on the show our musical guru ryan mcneil and we're very pleased to have him back.Now, I'm going to walk down the hall and I'm going to talk to our friend Matt Ardill.Track 3:[2:15] Matthew, who you think you're going to talk about this week? Pearl Jam!Oh, the world's worst Pearl Jam impressions. Yeah, yeah. I lived through that.I guess, like, the 90s are just a blur.[2:32] Talk to me about Pearl Jam. Ranging from 5'7 for Eddie Vedder to 6'2 for Jeff Ament.They were formed in 1990 in Seattle, Washington, and are still performing to this day.Yeah. So Vedder originally claimed that the name came from his grandmother, Pearl, who made made a drug-laced jam, but he later admitted in a Rolling Stone interview that it was thatwas just made up. It was actually.Yeah, he does have a grandmother named Pearl, but the jam was just inserted after they went to a Neil Young concert and watched him just do extended jams for 20, 30 minutes of musicalimprovisation at the end of each song.So they were just like, you know, we'll call it Pearl Jam.So that's where the name actually comes from. Yeah, They were originally named after the basketball player Mookie Blaylock, but changed it after signing to Epic.While they officially have 11 studio albums, 23 live albums, and three compilation albums with 42 singles between 2000 and 2001.[3:38] They released 72 official bootlegs.So up until that date, they had encouraged their fans to bootleg because they've always always been pro their fans, fighting for their fans' rights with Ticketmaster and all of that.But during that tour, the Binaural Tour, they released a recording of each concert, their November 6th, 2001 Seattle show, hitting the 98 on the charts for rock albums.Now, they had some big supporters in those early days. They opened for U2 at the height of U2's fame in 1992 touring Europe for the Zeropa tour, which I can't think of any tour of U2that's more.[4:19] More diametrically opposed to Pearl Jam style than Zeropa. I agree.They do have some synchronicities in style, but like that's literally U2 doing like a Depeche Mode concert.It was just like, it was so weird.Vedder had refused to release Black as a single in 1992, despite the push by Epic.So DJs just decided to play it regardless, thus pushing it onto the number three of the Billboard Mainstream Rock Charts, even though it wasn't a single, which doesn't happen very often.In 1995, though, things kind of came full circle for the band when Neil Young partnered with Pearl Jam to release Mirrorball.So they got to work pretty early with one of their heroes.An environmentalist, Eddie, has the logo of Earth First, a stone hammer crossed with a monkey wrench tattooed on his leg.And the band has been very open with their activism, supporting freedom of choice environmentalism anti-bush protests and support for disaster victims one of the causes supported bythe band members is crohn's disease mike mccready who suffers from the disease after being diagnosed at 21 works to bring awareness of the disease and performs an annual concert forthe northwest chapter of crohn's and colitis foundation of America.[5:38] And lastly, during the song Oceans, they used a very non-traditional element for percussion because they just were too far away from a rental shop.So they decided to line up the fire extinguishers in the recording studio.And that is what the percussion section is for Oceans. That is great.Nice tidbit. Well, we'll see what happens with Pearl Jam.Right now, Now Thomas is sitting with Ryan McNeil and they are going to talk more about Pearl Jam and why they should be a part of the Hall of Fame.So I'm interested to hear that.Thomas is calling, calling. That one's a bit better. Take it away, Thomas.Track 4:[6:50] All right, J.D., Matt, thank you so much.Welcome, everybody, to another installment of the SNL Hall of Fame.I'm your co-host, Thomas Senna.Before we get started today, I actually want to give some recognition to someone who has been really helpful as far as me researching the podcast and everything.They go by Blood Meridian, and their SNL reviews have been really helpful in going back and getting sketch information and everything like that.So thank you, Blood Meridian.You can check out their reviews at bloodsnlreviews.com, a really great resource, really fun reviews.They review current episodes and episodes dating all the way back a few years.So thank you, Blood Meridian, for helping me and for helping this podcast.So today is our first musical guest of season five of the SNL Hall of Fame and for that I'm turning to our go-to person for our musical guest like I don't want to typecast you Ryan becauseI know you did Bill Murray with me but you're kind of my go-to musical guy.Have I got anybody in yet?[7:59] Um no but you should and you're still still trying i think i i think bill is bill i think bill is actually and i think but no bands that's what i'm saying like i've argued for some of my veryfavorite artists but it's a iconic performance just nothing so there's someone who's gonna get into a band or an artist it's gonna i hope so yeah i think it's gonna be you so ryan mcneil uhyou were my guest for dave grohl uh david bowie uh what is it what is it gonna have to take for dave grohl to be in by the way dave grohl to me like should be a slam dunk and he'sinching toward their ryan what are we gonna have to do i i mean i think he might have he might have to.[8:41] Play in front of the beatles and the rolling stones at the same time you know he's played with a beetle and with the stones but he's never played with both together so i'm like youknow You know, that's Ringo's got to be sick or something.And that's that's what's got to happen. And then maybe and then maybe, you know, apparently, apparently.Gosh, I mean, he appeared again with Foo Fighters this past season.It was a great episode with Nate Bargatze and and Dave was in more sketches.And he's so far out in front. It's like it may be one of those records that like never gets caught.Yeah. Yeah, it's nuts. So I think we're going to get Dave Grohl in.I'm pushing for that. I think I think we're gonna get him in at some point nice But even though you haven't got any musical guests in I have I have you back, Yes, so so Ryan you're thehost of the matinee cast in which you discuss movies and whatnot and a recent episode Was about Sean Durkin's new movie the iron claw So be what a movie.Yeah, absolutely I saw that movie in the theater and then when I got into my car for the drive home home, I immediately put on your episode to get your thoughts. So I had it in queue.Thanks, man. And I knew I was going to go see it. Yeah, I knew I was going to go see the movie and I was like, okay, so when I'm done, I'm going to play the matinee cast and get yourthoughts.So you accompanied me on my drive home from seeing The Iron Claw, which I loved and you loved and your guests loved.[10:09] All of us really loved that movie. It was a good movie. I mean, what I was really thankful for on that one was that was a really good conversation.And I mean, you know i don't need to tell you because you're a podcaster as well but whether we enjoy it or whether we don't enjoy it just anytime i can get a good talk out of it i'm alwaysreally happy to put the podcast out into the world my you know and again kind of like your show i don't always know what i'm getting when i bring a guest on like i've kind of got a basicroster even though i bring in new people now and then but i don't know if somebody's not going to be bringing the the energy up or if they're going to be having an off day or if they'regoing to be just like.[10:48] Really just not in the mood to talk about a movie but anytime i get a good conversation, uh i'm always really like excited to put one out in there and my guest uh brian rowan forthat episode um he always brings the good so i was really excited yeah i'm always checking to see if you've covered a movie it's like a new movie that i watched i'll check to see if you'vecovered it you asked your guests really cool questions about their movie going history that's a nice nice wrinkle to the podcast so so yeah matinee cast uh you guys do you have anythingto promote anything coming up i know oscar season is yeah well i'm thank you for reminding me so the big show that we do for the oscars is i could not give a rat's ass who wins but theclass of nominees always fascinates me as a snapshot from year to year so that episode i've pretty much entirely had the same guest for the entire run of my show, minus one or two years.[11:42] Mariah E. Gates out of Chicago is going to be joining me and we're going to talk about the Oscar nominees pretty soon.And that's always such a fun conversation. She's so smart.And it's just like steeped in Oscar knowledge. It's amazing.It's always incredible.Yeah, it's an interesting batch this year. So when I catch up on my best picture nominees, that's what I do.I look at the list. I'm like, I haven't seen this one. So I catch up.I'll go check out the matinee cast to see if you guys covered covered it to like a sweet me my viewing So go check out Ryan McNeil's podcast the matinee cast great podcast today. We'rehere to talk about Pearl Jam.[12:18] As a nominee for the musical guest category of the SNL Hall of Fame.So quick CliffsNotes, Pearl Jam, Jeff Ament, Stone Gossard were in Mother Love Bone.Lead singer Andrew Wood unfortunately passed away in 1990.So that led to Jeff and Stone forming a new band with a new kid in town by way of San Diego, Eddie Vedder.So we had Eddie, Jeff, Stone. We also added Mike McCready to the mix, a rotating cast of drummers, finally settling in more with uh with dave abruzzese so we got mookie blaylock soonto be pearl jam out of that so ryan were you a pearl jam fan back then around 91 92 grunge scene all of that don't be you're gonna be a hipster and say you were a mookie blaylock fan nono no i was i will i will actually i will really own it i was about five minutes late to the party which is to to say that I was listening to, you could not get away from Pearl Jam when theyarrived.They arrived with the force of an atom bomb in 1991.[13:22] So the music was always just around, like you just turn on the radio or be walking by a bar or something like that.Or, you know, I was too young for bars at that time, but you'd be walking by places and you would just hear 10, especially in 1991 and 1992 you could not get away from it so i enjoyed iti enjoyed what i was hearing it was you know speaking to me as a young you know old generation x slash young millennial it wasn't like my music quite at the time i jumped insomewhere in between verses and vitality so i around their second appearance was where i joined the party um and then as actually oddly enough Like as they endured, I grew to lovethem more and more and more.[14:09] When they were in that moment in between Versus and Vitality, I do remember actually having conversations with my friends about, you know, we would have the lunchtimeconversations about like put together a super group of everybody who's, you know, around right now.Or who would you think should headline Lollapalooza next year or whatever?And one of the questions that we asked each other was, who's still going to be doing this in 20 years?Which of the bands that are out there right now are still going to be around? And...[14:41] I cannot remember most of the others, but I do remember that Pearl Jam was the one that we're like, we feel like that there's something about them.They're going to be, you know, kind of this, maybe if nothing else, this grateful dead type band that just keeps going and going and going until the wheels fell off.We were stupidly right. We were like wrong about everything else.But with that one, with who do you think is still going to be doing this in 20 years?And a lot of that, and I mean, really, truly like a lot of that scene, you know, you have have three quarters of the smashing pumpkins still knocking around even though they you knowthey've they've broken up and reformed a few times but they are the one band from that era that's.[15:21] Still most of the original lineup and still going at it and it's kind of wild yeah it is wild that grateful dead comparisons really apt the way uh there's like tape trading associated withuh with pearl jam like their fans trade like live shows pearl jam releases their live shows a lot so So that's like a good Grateful Dead comparison is they really embrace that sharing theirlive performance and sharing the live shows with their fans.And they are. They're still very relevant in the music. I did see Smashing Pumpkins last year.And that was a nice bit of nostalgia. But that was a good call.You probably saw them. And you were obviously a movie guy.You might have seen them if you saw singles back in the day.That was where a lot of people saw them. Tonight, we rock Cleveland. Citizen Dick, yes.[16:13] Touch me, I'm Dick.[16:16] Yeah, so that's where a lot of people... Do you like singles? I love singles.Yeah, right? It's an underrated Cameron Crowe movie. Yeah, I think it still holds up.Pearl Jam was... There were probably things still Mookie Blaylock when they were in singles, but they really stood out to me.It was very memorable. I don't know if they're the best actors.I don't know if Eddie's the best actor, but they're parched and stood out.They're not really asked to do very much.Yeah, very little. Yeah. So a lot of people saw them in singles.Of course, they first appeared on SNL around the time, like a little after 10 broke out.So so in 1992, I don't want to set the stage for like an SNL appearance.So in 1992, Ryan, like what would you say a good showing on SNL could do for a band around that time?Time it could still really cement a band at the time um you know there were there were more uh it's it's weird to say okay hang on i i'm it's one of these moments where i start having athought and then in my head i immediately think as a listener and just argue it down because i was going to say there were more ways to encounter music um in 1992 but that is notentirely correct What there was, was there were more ways to...[17:32] Come face to face with…

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Rachel Dratch Jan 29, 2024

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jD, Matt, and Thomas are joined by Will Norman to discuss the potential Hall of Fame career of Rachel Dratch.Transcript:Track 2:[0:42] All right. Thank you so much, Doug DeNance. It is great to be back here at the SNL Hall of Fame podcast.Step inside the SNL Hall of Fame if you would, but please wipe your feet.The SNL Hall of Fame podcast is a weekly affair.Each episode, we take a deep dive into the career of a former cast member, host, musical guest, or writer, and add them to the ballot for your consideration.Once the nominees have been announced, we turn to you, the listener, to vote for the most deserving and help determine who will be enshrined for perpetuity in the hall.That's how we play this game.It's all about you, ultimately. You get to listen, you get to vote, you get to enjoy the members as they regale us in the SNL Hall of Fame.So there's that i hope you're doing well this week we've got a spectacular episode for you we are talking about rachel dratch and we're going to be joined by a repeat guest will normanwho always brings the goods in conversation with thomas senna but before we do any of that it's time for me to walk down the hall to our friend matt's.Track 3:[1:56] Minutiae minute corner hey matt Matt, how's it going, buddy? Great, JD, and you?I am super star-rific. Talking about Rachel Dratch today, and I think she's funny as hell.Me too, me too. She is one of those people who I have always felt is underappreciated.Underappreciated, yeah. All of the heavy lifting that she does.So you want to hear some facts about Rachel? Sure do. Okay, Rachel Dresch, 4'11 and 1 1⁄2, born February 22, 1966.She grew up in Lexington, Massachusetts, attending the National Theater Institute at Eugene O'Neill Theater Center in Connecticut.Now, she is a Second City alum, and she attended Second City and Improv Olympics with Tina Fey and Amy Poehler.Many of their sketches are still available on YouTube.So if you want to see very young Tina, Amy and Rachel, just Google them.And it's it's actually it's still it still holds up a lot of old Second City sketches done by the theater groups back then did not hold up. But this one did.[3:11] It's because it's pure Rachel just being Rachel.Now, she studied under Del Close and that for improv nerds out there is like improv Jesus.He is.Like one of the creators of the form. And additionally, she also spent time in the Groundlings.[3:34] And so she's done the improv trifecta, as well as being a founding member of UCB.Jeez. Not to mention, she was also on the Harvard Lampoon.So she is basically a member of the comedy Illuminati at this point.So she graduated in 1988 from Dartmouth College and has played cello since high school.So she's a talented musician in her own right.[3:59] She has 127 acting roles and was the original Jenna Maroney on 30 Rock before being recast. Right, I forgot about that.Yeah, if you watch that original pilot, it's a very different energy.As much as I love Rachel, I can understand why they changed the casting to mix it up a bit.The good thing about that is we have her variety of bonkers secondary characters, from the cat wrangler to the weird blue hallucination when the gas is left on in the gas episode.Her first television role was on SNL, but she simultaneously made her film debut on Serious Business that same year.She is also a published author with Girl Walks Into a Bar, which is flipping awesome.And if you get it, I recommend getting the audiobook because she reads that, which is really, it's on Audible.Not a plug for Audible, but it's on there and it's awesome.She has produced a one-woman show called My Life as an SNL cast member, which she ran at UCB before her Broadway debut in Wicked.[5:10] Um as tina after which she wrote the off-broadway play tail spin uh this tail exclamation mark spin exclamation mark which is why i said it a bit weird there yeah she's won thejoseph jefferson award for an actress in a review for paradigm lost uh in 1998 and for promise keepers losers Losers Weepers, in 1999 at Second City Chicago.So from the get-go, she was recognized for her improv chops, has done voice work appearing in movies and television shows, including Spider-Man Across the Universe, or excuse me,Spider-Man Across the Spider-Verse, as Ms.Weber, the guidance counselor, which when you look at the picture, like a still of that character, of course it's her.It looks so much like her. Oh, wild.[6:34] Um, yeah. So for example, she did the escape from Scientology trivia obstacle course, the Julia Robsticle course, uh, Julia Roberts themed trivia obstacle course, and the escapeMargot Robbie's moment course.And they are all as bonkers as you can, can guess.They she and billy are actually quite close and she subsequently did a parody of jay-z's empire state of mind with billy eichner called forest hills state of mind and it is hilarious also onyoutube which i highly recommend, Cool. Well, I think we're locked and loaded here and ready to go downstairs with Thomas and his special guest, Will Norman.Excellent. Can't wait. All right, Thomas, take it away.Track 4:[7:50] All right, J.D., Matt, thank you so much for that.And we are in the midst of season five of the SNL Hall of Fame.This is our second nominee that we're talking about this season.The one, the only Rachel Dratch is our topic today. And to join me to talk about all things Rachel Dratch on SNL, a returning guest here on the SNL Hall of Fame, it's Will Norman.Mr. Will Norman, my guest for Beyonce and for Daryl Hammond.Welcome back to the SNL Hall of Fame, Will.It is great to be back, Thomas. Thanks for having me. I'm just trying to slowly climb towards a five-timers jacket, so thanks for letting me come back, at least today.But yeah, I'm excited to talk about Rachel with you today.Obviously, we'll get into the details, but, you know, one of my favorite cast members and excited to kind of talk about her career and all her contributions to the show.Yeah, I'm looking forward to it. It was a lot of fun going back and rewatching stuff, doing the prep for this.It's always fun. Rachel kind of pops off screen.[8:53] So it's always fun to revisit a lot of what Rachel did on SNL.And you are my guest, Will, for Daryl Hammond, who is a newly minted SNL Hall of Famer.Will, so pat yourself on the back. What do you think, Daryl Hammond, Hall of Famer? We did it. We did it, Thomas.I feel like we made a great case for him. And Daryl's definitely deserving of it. So happy that he was able and the fans recognized his contributions and got him in. So it's awesome.Yeah, absolutely. In my book, probably in your book, we've mentioned top 20 cast member, in my opinion.To me, that's an SNL Hall of Famer. If you're top 20, you're an SNL Hall of Famer in my book. So people agreed. That's awesome. Yeah, couldn't agree more.Yes, absolutely. So we'll see if Rachel Dratch can get there.I know on the SNN's cast member countdown, she was pretty high.I think she was in the top 30 on the Saturday Night Network's cast member countdown.So she appears to be beloved by a lot of viewers and a lot of fans, myself included, yourself included, Will.I wanted to ask you about Rachel. So what were your impressions of Rachel Dratch when you first saw her?It could be on SNL or wherever you first saw her.[10:04] Yeah, I mean, I think my introductions to Rachel, I think were, you know, obviously during her time during SNL, I think in my time watching the cast that she came into was one ofmy favorite casts and kind of seeing her grow a little bit.And, you know, I've always thought of her as just being a very, you know, a great character actor, like she is so good at finding these nuances and weird characters to bring to life.She's also really good at being a part of an ensemble you know she's willing to be in the mix just not necessarily be centered in the sketch but she always makes the sketch better being apart of it and a couple other things that like i might still got to know rachel was like, she's very good at self-deprecation which i think uh yes you know is is is something i really appreciateit's one of my favorite types of of humor since the humor so she always brings that to her her comedy styles and her sketches and then this is kind of an another i think separate But a lot oftimes we talk about all the male performers, how well they are at portraying women.And I feel like Rachel is very great as a performer portraying men.And you see that in some of the characters that she does so much.And I think that kind of goes under the radar a lot.But I've always heard her ability to play different characters and kind of be really weird with it.[11:14] Great line delivery, be in the mix, but also make everything better has always stood out to me. And so it's been it was fun to go back and rewatch her stuff and watching herprogression as a cast number two and get her flowers throughout her time on the cast.What about you? Yeah, no, you're right. That's such a good point.One of the things that I did know was how she portrayed like especially older men really well, older, kind of like kooky, squirrely kind of men really well.Well, she almost inhabited or, you know, harnessed like a Dana Carvey kind of spirit in an interesting way when she did those characters. That's something that stood out to me.And then that's an interesting point you brought up about the self-deprecation.And that came through the, I automatically think of like these weekend update corresponded things that she would do with Amy and Tina.Where she would be like, I'm on location out here reporting the blizzard or whatever.And then they make her stay out there. where Amy and Tina are drinking like hot tea at the desk and they're like, oh, this is so good.And then Rachel's out there shivering and freezing. And so she's able to, yeah, she's able to poke fun at herself.There's also another one where she and Tracy Morgan had like a little talk show and John Stewart was on.And she was almost kind of she was the straight laced one, like kind of nervous talking to John Stewart. And Tracy was kind of ribbing her a little bit.John, do you think you're going to remain on cable or might you consider expanding to a wider market?[12:41] Look at Dress pretending to be all interested in TV markets when she's just trying to get her freak on.What? You don't care about no daily show. You're just trying to be his daily ho.[12:53] Freaky, that is not true. Look at Dress starting all red.Oh, my God. I'm really sorry. um okay um so she makes fun of herself a lot of the uh the writing on the show made fun of her but it's in a loving way like everybody obviously lovedrachel and it's just sort of like in a in a it was almost like big hug when when they would do that with rachel she's so likable that's something that stands out to me and stood out to me atthe time will she's so likable yes yes she definitely is and that's where you know i think she's she's already likable in her presence on on the show and the sketches that she shows up in andthen her willingness to make fun of things to find the funny and to your point never felt like it was a mean spirit it always felt like it was something that she was like if this is funny i'mgonna do it and going to you know put my all into it and so i've always really liked how um like i said like you said how likable she she has been in the sketches that she did and how she'shas a warmth to her performance a lot of times but can be super weird as well where you're rooting for even she's playing weirdo yeah exactly and And and when when when she joinedthe cast.[13:57] I remember when she did, she almost reminded me of like a Sherry Oteri who was still on the cast. And they overlapped for one year.They were on the cast together. It's one of those strange SNL things where it's like, oh, I forgot Rachel Dratch and Sherry Oteri were on the cast together.That's certain pairings that happens sometimes.Like you forget. Like I was going through old sketches today.I'm like, I forgot that Vanessa Bear and Melissa Villasenor were on the cast at the same time.That's just kind of a weird one to me. but sherry and rachel uh well that was that was one of those weird ones but rachel reminded me of sherry so i think initially i was wondering like youknow they kind of have somebody like this but it turned out that was sherry's last season so i think rachel was a good successor to sherry but also added some different elements i think shewas able to even get a little bit.[14:43] Weirder uh in in some ways than even sherry did yes no i agree she definitely i do think she did did get weirder than than than sherry did for sure and i think uh to your point whenyou have those new cast members that come in and they're on it's a deep cast and there's a bench coming in it's one it's fun to go back and see someone they're a featured player you knowthey're going to be awesome later you're like oh that's that's fun like there's that crossover there and.[15:08] She did, you know, as you mentioned just now, like she definitely did bring a Sherry O'Terry energy and vibe to the show.And I think one thing we'll talk about over the time here is similar to Sherry, such a great scene partner that Rachel was with a lot of the cast that she was with, specifically Jimmy Fallonor Will Ferrell.She was a really great scene partner with him and able to, you know, find great characters to have lasting impressions on the show while inhabiting that same energy that Sherry brought.Yeah yeah exactly another one i just thought about molly shannon was on the cast with chris farley and adam sandler no i didn't realize that that's kind of weird you know she started at theend of season 20 so she overlapped by a few episodes but technically molly shannon was on the cast with chris farley and adam sandler so that that's another one that's kind of wild to me.[15:56] Yeah so you had mentioned and we talked about you know she joined sherry o'terry was there but also Also, I mean, she joined and established Will Ferrell, Molly Shannon, AnaGasteyer, Chris Catan, all those people were on the cast already for a few years. Rachel joined in season 25.So this was the fifth season that a lot of those people had been on the cast together.So what do you think might be like the expectations of a new cast member when you're joining a big group of veterans?Where does a new cast member from a viewer standpoint, where do you want them to fall in?Yeah, you know, that's a great question. And I think when, when you see, when you have a stack cast that you love and you, and you like all the people that are on the cast, you see a newperson show up, I think in some ways it's, it's helpful for the cast member because there's not pressure on them to immediately be great.You know, you had those years where all of a sudden there's a bunch of new people and it's like, okay, I got to love somebody here. Like someone's got to take the torch.[16:51] But when you have an established cast, you're kind of wondering one, okay, what role is this person going to fill?You know, we have an absolutely stacked team. We brought in this rookie. what skill set are they bringing to the table are they going to be you know of the archetypes of SNL they'regoing to be the impressionist are they going to be someone who's going to be great as a character actor are they going to be someon…

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Adam Sandler Jan 22, 2024

Show notes

jD, Matt, and Thomas are back and joined by the returning Veronica Villanueva to discuss the career of Adam Sandler. Check it out!Transcript:Track 2:[0:42] All right. Thank you so much, Doug DeNance. It is great to be back here.Season five is underway, and there's no better way to ring it in than by asking you to wipe those feet before you come inside the SNL Hall of Fame, which is a podcast.It's a weekly affair. In each episode, we take a deep dive into the career of a former cast member, host, musical guest, or writer, and add them to the ballot for your consideration.Once the nominees have been announced, we turn to you, the listener, to vote for the most deserving and help determine who will be enshrined for perpetuity inside the hall. That's thegame.That's what we play here every week. We've been doing it for four years, four seasons, and we're going to continue doing it until we've exhausted the pool of potential nominees.So there's that. This week, we are talking about Adam Sandler, and I can think of no better person to kick off this conversation than our friend Matt Ardill.I'm walking down the hallway. I am tight to the wall where the outer wall, where the east wall meets the north wall, forms a corner, and that is, of course, the trivia corner, Matt's MinutiaMinute. Let's go.Track 3:[1:59] Oh, Matthew, how are you doing? Hey, JD, I'm good, and yourself?Track 2:[2:03] I am great, thanks for I'm really excited about this week's episode.It's the first episode of the fifth season, and that's pretty cool.Uh, we're starting off with a great one.Track 3:[2:17] Yeah, it is. It's got some great guests. Uh, and you can't start with a more interesting character than, than this, uh, Adam Sandler.That's right. Height five foot 10, born September 9th, 1966.Uh, he first took the stage at 17, uh, when his brother pushed him into doing standup and he did not turn back after that point.Jeez. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I can't imagine at 17 what you would do, but yeah, he did it.He attended NYU's Tisch School of the Arts, graduating in 1991.And you'll note that's a year after he started at SNL.He was still going to school when he started at SNL as a writer.The thing is, he's incredibly prolific in a lot of ways.He's got 88 film credits, 63 producer credits, 29 writer credits and 37 soundtrack credits you can pretty much thank his wedding singer film right that one yeah um but yeah he has 21 filmsthat have been that he's been involved in that have grossed over a hundred million dollars and many of those are produced by his happy madison production company the the highestgrossing happy madison film is growing grown-ups with $272 million in box office with an $80 million budget.[3:44] So even factoring in another $40 million for marketing as the standard, that walked away with a pretty penny in his pocket for that film.I bet. Now, he was 35th on 2003's Power 100 list.He's the second highest earning actor in both 2011-2012, next to Leonardo DiCaprio, earning $37 million and is estimated to have a net worth of up to $500 million as of today.So he's done pretty good for himself.Not bad, huh? Not bad, yeah. Now, his first acting role, though, was as Theo Huxtable's friend, Smitty, on The Cosby Show.[4:28] And that was, yeah, so it was kind of an ignoble beginning, a little bit part.He followed that by roles on MTV's game show Remote Control before scoring his first film role in Going Overboard in 1989.One of his earliest roles was in an ABC After School special credited as Drug Dealer.Yeah, I just can't think of a less convincing drug dealer, but it was ABC After School special.When he does film, he tries to make sure any scenes that are being filmed on location are near a gym that has a basketball court.So he can go and play basketball between sessions of filming.He basically is just a dude who loves the people and things that he loves.[5:24] So he tries to fit in his friends and, and, and music and things that he loves into every film.So he's big Van Halen fan, a police fan and the sticks fan. And he, In his movies, he's made sure to include those, like Big Daddy had Babe by Sticks.Every little thing she does is magic in The Wedding Singer and That's My Boy.[5:52] His character asks the teacher he had a crush on in 1984 to go to a Van Halen concert at the local stadium with him.And the film features And the Cradle Will Rock and Dance the Night Away Twice and Ice Cream Man.Wow. Yeah, he really does try to incorporating the things he loves in there.He's also a big wrestling fan, frequently and frequently referencing it in his films like Billy Madison, Waterboy and Big Daddy.He he's widely considered to be just a pretty good dude. His friends with former colleagues continually supports them, finding them places for them in his movies.To the point, Chris Rock, when recording his Never Scared special in 2004.[6:41] Dedicated the performance to his father, Julius Rock, Monteria Ivey, a radio personality and comic, and Stan Sandler, Adam's dad.Dad oh weirdly though he was almost willie wonka uh one of the roles he was considered for was tim burton's uh willie wonka instead of johnny depp oh that would have been nice itwould have been a very different movie i can only imagine he purchased goldie hawn and kurt russell's home after attending a new year's eve party there as a as a guest he and he's just anall-around lover of comedy.He did a comedy album in 1993, They're All Gonna Laugh At You. Which is a great record.[7:27] Great record. We featured it on my podcast comedy album Book Club years ago.It's a work of sketch comedy tradition.It features many SNL cast members, but it also used all original Foley work, creating special effects using classic techniques used in radio and not stock sounds.So he loves his friends, he loves comedy, he loves music, and is just a pretty good dude.Yeah, I think so too. It's going to be interesting to hear what Thomas and Veronica have to say. Maybe we should hit that now.Yeah, that'd be great. All right, let's go downstairs and talk to Thomas Senna and Veronica Villanueva.Track 4:[8:31] Yes, that's right, J.D. and Matt. Thank you so much for the introduction.And this is the first episode, well, the first nominee we're covering in Season 5 of the SNL Hall of Fame. I'm so excited.We're kicking it off with the biggie, Adam Sandler, crowd-favorite Adam Sandler.And to do that, I'm joined, I had to ask her back. So, my friend, wonderful guest from last year, Veronica Villanueva, who was my guest for Lady Gaga in Season 4. So good, Veronica.I had to ask you back. You're my lead-off guest for Season 5.A scooby-doo-dooby. Thank you.Is that your Adam Sandler? Yeah, a scooby-doo-doo.Sabadoo. There we go. Yeah, we got to start off right.Thank you for joining me. You did such, and I would tell you if you sucked.Oh, thank you. I would hope so after all these years that you'd be like, you know what, Veronica?You suck. And that's all right. It's not you. It's me.Yes. It's all you. But you were awesome on the Lady Gaga episode.Thank you. We got good feedback.So I had to ask you back, and you were back for Adam Sandler.Woo-woo. I'm very excited to talk about Adam Sandler. Like, wow, this is a real honor, and thanks for asking me back. I'm very excited.[9:53] He's amazing. I can't wait to see what we discuss. Yes.All of us SNL fans have very fond memories of Adam Sandler.As comedy fans, you and I, we grew up in the 90s. We're children of the 90s.This is right in our wheelhouse, Adam Sandler.Yes. We got to see him in his prime. We got to see it from beginning to 90 to 95.Wow. That was us. We got to see him hatch out of the egg as a little Adam Sandler, and we got to see his career blossom.So that's what 90s kids remember, as they say.So do you know, do you remember having any recollection about how you first became acquainted with Adam Sandler?I do. I really do. I remember seeing Siren Live and seeing Adam Sandler.I don't think he did like a, he was probably very early on. He was in the background.And I said, I've seen this guy before.And because, again, like we talked about last time, I didn't grow up with cable.So I was very much like there was a limited set of TV shows that I've watched.So when I saw Adam Sandler, he was probably in the background of a skit.And I was like, is he on the Cosby show?[11:03] He was, I think that's Smitty from the Cosby show. He's Theo's friend.And I remember being like, I know this guy, you know? And so that was one of my first memories.But then, of course, the thing that really stood out to me was when he would sing on Weekend Update.Like that to me is like signature, like what stands out mostly in me first thinking about Adam Sandler in Saturday Night Live.That's a deep cut. uh adam sandler like a guest role that he had early in his career i love it yes it really i couldn't i remember him just hanging out and he would wear kind of similar clothesthat he wore on saturday night live with like the cap and of course like the little flannel you know and that's why he it was like he just i just remember seeing him be like oh there he isyeah i remember him i don't know you said you didn't have cable but did do you were you aware of a show called remote.[11:57] Control no no it was a game show it was colin quinn was on it too so colin quinn is a sidekick okay and then a guy named uh ken ober was the host and so it was just like thesethree people they were the contestants they would sit in like lounge chairs and answer questions about tv and there were all these things and adam sandler was one of the guys who wouldcome out and like sing a question or perform a question yeah or something like that so that's where i first remembered adam samler was on remote control you have to look up old videosthis is like a goofy late 80s show him doing the hustle yeah you know yeah exactly that's where he made his bones is on the cosby show in remote control yes that's interesting and he hasalready prior to this huge presence that you're like i know you you know yeah yeah huge presence people people warmed He was kind of like the guy next door.He's like a everyman kind of guy. Did you, one of the other things too, and this was out when he was already on SNL.[13:01] I don't know if you listened to any of his comedy albums. Oh, my goodness. That was the first comedy album I ever listened to.And my gosh, there's just so many songs. And I'll be honest, I'm particular, they're all going to laugh at you.Okay. My favorite song to this day, I quote it at least maybe once a month, maybe sooner, is Food Innuendo Guy.Because somebody says, celery stick, I'm going to slip my celery stick up the back of your drink.Like that comes up or you know your cream of mushroom i'm making some enchiladas and i'm like i need a cream of how i mean oh my goodness yes those and i was a kid you know wewere kids back there we were like coming of age and like that was hilarious like that was just raw 11 what were we listening to where were our parents i know right exactly there's somuch stuff that i'm like Like, all right.Yeah, we probably shouldn't have been listening to Adam Sandler's comedy albums, especially They're All Gonna Laugh At You. That came out in like 93.So the one, of course, I like the buffoon, the different sketches that had the buffoon.The most juvenile thing that still makes me laugh to this day is a sketch called The Longest Pee.Oh, yes, yes. That's the dumbest thing probably that makes me laugh to this day.But yes, but you know what? Even just that little pause.[14:26] Keeps going you know and it just gets you every time it gets you every time i i even though i'm a girl a female like i've never had that kind of crazy pee but i've heard a lot of dudestalk about that crazy pee and it's just hilarious where he's like oh my god yeah he's like scared for his health yes yes i like what the hell happened to me too i think that was that was myjam uh sean lynch and i used to listen to oh my gosh blast from the past yes yes all the time joining the cult the goat steve polychronopolis like all these were like burned into people ourage all this stuff's burned yes it is yes we're like the one where he's like you're not high you're smoking like pencil shavings he's like i am so high right yes these weird because like i gaveyou pencil shavings yeah yeah oh must have been this beer that i've drank and i'm so drunk yeah yes and those things for us yeah it was just like it was ingrained in our childhood whichi'm so thankful for every day i know that you know uh there's all these different decades or whatnot but the 90s were pretty freaking awesome especially saturday night live like they had itbooming that was like.[15:41] For me, the A-team All-Stars, through that whole entire time, there was just so many characters that were brought up, created, and we got to see that live in its infancy and thengrowth.Yeah, it was such a good time to be an SNL fan. So Adam Sandler on SNL, he joined the cast officially in the middle of season 16, already a stacked cast.Already Phil Hartman, Dana Carvey, Mike Myers.I don't know if Jan Hooks. I think Jan Hooks is maybe still there at the time.I don't know. I forget if they overlap. They kind of overlap. Yeah.Kevin Nealon. There was just such a good cast that Adam joined in.So I wanted to start off, Veronica, by asking you where we should start off as far as Adam Sandler's SNL career.What sketch, character should we start off with as far as Adam Sandler on SNL?One of my favorite ones is the Pepper Boy one with Dana Carvey.And the whole entire, you know, how he started off as this meek, sweet guy who's under, you know, his wing for Senor Marco. And it was just hilarious.[16:54] On my chocolate mousse? No, thank you. Say when. No.Hey, cut it out. Come on. Say when. No, come on. Say when. No, come on.Say when. Say when. Say when.[17:15] Yeah yeah that was uh that was in his last season that was season 20 which was a weird season this was like one of the standout sketches to me of season 20 like dana carvey cameback to host so uh chris farley made a memorable like minute appearance in that uh there's a funny story with this like what uh with as far as chris farley like i guess he was filming maybetommy boy or black sheep or one of those things he flew out he really didn't have to to do snl that week he was still on the cast and he didn't have much going on on the show so chrisfarley said if i'm going to be in this sketch i'm going to make it memorable so so he put on this like loud affectation in the beard and you could see in this sketch that he caught adamsandler off guard to say adam sandler he had to like turn his head yeah he had to turn his head away so he wouldn't laugh but that's because chris farley was like why thank you pepper likeit was just this over the top you can hear dana carvey being like don't break you know what i mean, and even dana carvey like he said that like all week long that chris farley was just likeoh thank you pepper boy and like they were not expecting.[18:26] At all. Oh, my gosh. Yeah, that was the show, the camaraderie between like Farley and Sandler.But you were but you hit on something as far as like Adam playing shy and timid really well.And I noted that when I watched the sketch again, like this is one of my favorite examples of Adam playing like a ve…

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