Susan Morrison - Author of LORNE: The Man Who Invented Saturday Night Live
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Who is Susan Morrison and why is her book about Lorne Michaels important?
Dana, today we have Susan Morrison, a writer. We don't always have writers. We have SNL writers, but she's a writer of SNL. Yes, yes.
She wrote a big fat book about Lorne. And it's the 50th anniversary of SNL. It's a good time to have it out. Lorne, the man who invented SNL.
And she covers a lot. She's telling things to you, listeners, that even we don't know.
You're going to hear something that's a little shocking, a little surprising. How's that for a tease? But if we do a deep dive... The man, the moment, Lorne Michaels, based on the book and what she learned by interviewing. I got interviewed. My quotes are probably silly. I got interviewed, yeah. Got interviewed. Everyone got interviewed. Everyone talked. And it's just sort of a comprehensive look at Lorne Michaels through his childhood, all the way through his travails, seasons that were rougher than others, and on and on. So it's a very interesting conversation.
oh yeah and they got you know tina fey and steve martin and john mulaney there's all these quotes up front and everywhere you turn you know they're talking about so very in-depth took years to put this together years to put it together and it was very interesting talk we went on and on so uh yeah here she is and you're gonna learn a lot who's in morrison
And I sort of forgot, I had forgotten until recently the wonderful accent thing that everybody says, the eagles.
Oh, the eagles. That's right. The eagles. So you claim to have a book.
I do. I actually can't even show it to you. It's coming out.
Okay. I don't know when this airs, but it's February 18th. It's called Lorne, the man who invented SNL.
That's right. Invented Saturday Night Live. We decided that Lorne has monomial status, you know, like Fidel or Madonna. You know, one name does it, Lorne.
You know, you can tell the rookies because Lauren is such a name that comes up millions of times in our podcast and in life. But the people that call them Lauren and they spell it Lauren, like the female name is pretty interesting because, you know, they're an outsider and I don't listen to one thing they say.
It's like the people who say skits instead of sketches. It's an immediate disqualifier, right?
DQ. Oh boy. Don't even mention. Oh, skits gets him going. It's kind of interesting to me. I'm just thinking out loud to myself is that because of his hallowed place and his Mount Rushmore, you know, thing that's been going on for the 50th, um, He had left for five years, did a lot of things, left SNL in 1980. None of them really landed. Comes back in 85, has a rough season. And then I meet him. So probably in this whole 50 years, that was, would it be a Nate? I went to state school, his Nader or something.
I think, no, I think that's right. And Dana, I remember that when I interviewed you, you told me that when you showed up there, you thought you were probably going to be in the last cast of SNL. You thought it was on its way out and it was kind of a Hail Mary pass. And, you know, it's interesting because I met Lorne when he was perhaps at an even lower point. Even lower? Well, I worked for him when he did the new show, which was his one public spectacular flop. And I don't think people thought he was going to be coming back from that. And he also lost his own money in that show. It's strange it was such a flop because it was packed with talent. You know, the writer's room was incredible. Jim Downey, Jack Handy, George Meyer. Wow.
John Candy did amazing work on that show. It's worth looking up Food Repair Man.
No, I watched it. It was funny. It's just that besides In Living Color, which was a niche kind of – primetime, and it was on Fox in the day, primetime sketch. I did one that didn't make it. Martin Short, you'd have to line them all up. That's your next book. Why was there a bazillion sketch shows in primetime in the 50s, 60s, and into the 70s And then so many swing and a miss, you know, I don't know if you have, I've never totally figured that out.
I mean, I have a theory.
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