by Mohr, Jay
I couldn’t believe it! We’re talking about Mike Myers. He told me his legs cramped from sitting Indian-style for hours at a time. When I asked him if he complained to anyone, he told me that he hadn’t because he was worried that he had never actually been hired. Mike apparently had never been given the welcome aboard from Marci or Mike Shoemaker or Jim Downey. Chris Farley never fake-vomited in his lap. The fact that he was forced to sit on the floor until a meeting was called or rehearsals began made him reluctant to broach the issue. He told me that after a while he figured that if the only place they had for him was on the floor across from the elevators, the next spot for him was probably out on the street.
Having gone mad my first season on the show feeling like an outcast, I was curious how Mike handled his own situation. He said that after a few weeks passed, he started bringing a tennis ball to work with him. Whenever the elevator doors opened on the seventeenth floor, Mike would throw the ball into the elevator as hard as he could so it would ricochet off the back wall of the elevator and bounce back. This version of catch was the way he worked out his frustrations. I asked him what he did when there were actually people in the elevator. Mike gave me a funny grin. “Oh, that was when it was the best!” he said.
I felt good about my conversation with Mike Myers because I was communicating with others about the show—something I was unable to do my first year. I appreciated the fact that Mike had taken the time to commiserate with me. It was somehow comforting to know that one of the show’s biggest stars had gone through even more bullshit than I had.
After being inaugurated into my new dressing room, I walked back to the studio. The sketch I was in wasn’t even close to being rehearsed. The camera blocking was taking longer than expected, and the cast was still rehearsing one of the first sketches in the rundown. I probably had about an hour to kill. I wasn’t going to go back to my new dressing room, so I went to my old one. I was hoping that the topic of conversation being “this used to be my dressing room” would take up some of the time.
I knocked on the door that read CHRIS ELLIOTT and there was no answer. I opened the door and Chris wasn’t inside. Tim Meadows was coming out of his dressing room, so I asked him if he had seen Chris. Tim told me that he was in hair and makeup. I thanked Tim for the information, though I was really thanking him for the communication. My first year, the same question would have been met by a mumble as the person walked away from me. Tim actually looked me in the eye and gave me a straight answer.
I walked back through the halls reinspecting the walls for photos, hoping that I had missed one. I hadn’t. When I got to the hair and makeup department, Chris Elliott was sitting in a makeup chair. Because he refused to shave his beard, he looked a little like a landlocked sea captain. Across from him was a dummy’s head with a hairpiece on it. I leaned against the makeup counter and asked him how he liked the dressing room. He joked that it was the definition of luxurious, and I bit my tongue. I looked around the room for the owner of the hairpiece, but everyone in the chairs had full heads of hair.
“Chris, whose toupee is that?” I asked.
Very calmly he responded, “That’s mine.”
I was embarrassed and also immediately baffled. I had watched Chris Elliott on television for years and one thing was clear: He was slowly losing his hair. Whenever he appeared on Letterman, Chris always had a few wisps of stray hair waving off of his head. Those wisps, I discovered that night in the makeup room, were fake. The guy was brilliant! He had a hairpiece that made it look like he was losing his hair so no one would realize that he actually was losing his hair.
Though Chris has since dropped the lid, there was one cast member (who shall remain nameless because he’s still using the hairpiece in secret) who was found out when he had a toupee mishap. It occurred at a Monday night basketball game during my second year. This particular cast member had been on the show a long time and rarely fraternized with the rest of us, but he had decided to play. He arrived with a baseball hat on his head. About five minutes into the first pickup game, he went up for a rebound and his baseball hat fell off. We were all crowded around jumping for the same rebound, so when his hat came off with his hair still in it, we gasped in horror. The guy was completely bald!
Some of the cast and writers knew this already, but even if we had all known, it still would have been mortifying. We all backed away and watched as the hat fell top side down with the hair still in the hat looking up at us. The cast member calmly bent down, picked up his hat, put it back on his head, and walked out of the gym without saying a word. After that night in the gym, whenever I saw him, I would look at his shoulders when I spoke to him so I wouldn’t be tempted to stare at his hairline. And from that point on, whenever I saw him on television, I would stare at the screen and remember his entire head of hair in the baseball hat on the gym floor.
As I was standing in the makeup room talking to Chris about hairpieces, I realized that I would eventually have to go back to my room and change into my wardrobe. I dreaded going back to my room because I knew that every time I opened the door to go in or out, all the people in the show’s greenroom would see me because my dressing room was directly across from it.
The greenroom was the place where the overflow of guests would be put during the show. Whenever there was a sketch that took place in the hallway, there was always a pope, three Vegas showgirls, a guy in a mule suit, two guys in a horse suit, and various and sundry paid extras. All of these characters in the hallways were directed to wait in the ninth-floor greenroom across from my elevator shaft dressing room, and because I had removed the sign, sometimes they would overflow into my private space. If a celebrity brought a dozen friends, they would watch the live show from the greenroom while the celebrity would undoubtedly be on the studio floor standing next to Marci Klein.
Unlike the people in the tour group, I didn’t want anyone—not even the guy in the pontiff costume—coming out of the greenroom to recognize me. It would be humiliating. I would open a door with no nameplate on it and head inside. Everyone would turn to see who I was just in time to see me throw my clothes on the floor and push the door shut with my feet. They would all think I was on probation because I was relegated to such a small dressing room.
Finally, as nonchalantly as possible, I left Chris Elliott and his toupee behind and went back to my dressing room to change into my wardrobe. I was hoping that if anyone did recognize me, they would think that my dressing room was just a place close to the stage where I stashed some extra clothes. I picked my wrinkled wardrobe up off the floor and turned and walked out like I was on my way to someplace much larger and cooler. Now that I had my clothes and had left my dressing room, I was faced with the dilemma of where I would actually change.
I settled for a stall in the men’s bathroom. There, I stripped out of my street clothes and put my sketch clothes on. Thankfully, the pants had plenty of pockets. I felt like a moron carrying my street clothes through the halls, so I went back up to my office on the seventeenth floor and left them there, a practice I followed for most of the year.
When I got off the elevators back down on the eighth floor, I could hear Joe Dicso was halfway through the casting call for the sketch I was in. Thank God for the intercom boxes, I thought to myself. Thank God for Joe Dicso and his voice.
The small space of my new dressing room had made Joe Dicso’s voice even louder. Joe had been the show’s stage manager since the inaugural show. He wore a headset that was connected with a wire to a sound box he wore on his belt. The box on his belt had a few buttons on it, and depending on which button he pushed, Joe could talk to the control room or the other stage manager, Bob Van Rye, who had also been a stage manager since the first show. During both rehearsals and the live show, Joe could push a button and his voice would be heard through the intercom speakers that were in the dressing rooms, as well as throughout the eighth and ninth floors. Joe was the one who told you what was next, who was in it, and how long before you had to be on
stage. In some of the dressing rooms, the intercom boxes were alarmingly loud, and mine was definitely one of those.
One day after my dressing room was wired for sound, Michael McKean and his girlfriend were sitting there when Joe Dicso’s voice exploded into the room: “‘Buh-Bye’ will be next! ‘Buh-Bye’ will be next. David, Chris, Tim, Janeane, Ellen, Adam, Michael, Chris, Rob, and Jay! We are behind schedule, guys! We gotta go, we gotta go!” My dressing room was five feet by nine feet and the door was closed, so with the three of us in it the room seemed much smaller. With Joe’s voice chopping us into pieces, it seemed like a prison cell.
I knew that Joe said everything twice over the intercom. The entire cast was in the “Buh-Bye” sketch, and since I knew Joe was going to say all of our names again, I looked at the door and realized it would look strange to Michael and his girlfriend if I sprinted out of the room without explanation. McKean jumped a little and made a joke about how loud the intercom box was. Joe started to murder me. He pushed the button on his belt again and after a few seconds of feedback he belted out another rendition: “David, Chris, Tim, Janeane, Ellen, Adam, Michael, Chris, Rob, and Jay! We are behind schedule, guys! We gotta go, we gotta go!”
But McKean reached the door before I did. As he opened it and stepped out into the hallway, he looked back at me, laughing. “You know there’s a big volume knob on the back of that thing,” he said. I thought, Are you shitting me? My ears have been bleeding for a year and a half and you mean to tell me there’s a big volume knob on the back of the speaker?
The door swung closed and I was alone in the room with Joe and his voice and the speaker box. I pulled the chair under the speaker and climbed up. I put my face against the wall sideways, so I could look at the back panel of the box. The volume knob was an inch from my face and right next to it was a bright red sticker that read VOLUME. Why hadn’t I noticed this before? The knob was so big that the box had to be hung a few inches from the wall to make room for it. I grabbed the volume knob and turned it to zero. I got down from the chair and turned toward the door—happy with myself and thankful for Michael McKean—when Joe stabbed me in the back. “‘BUH-BYE’ WILL BE NEXT. WE GOTTA GO, GUYS!” I climbed back up behind the box on the wall. I read the sticker and studied the numbers on the dial. Joe started to read the names again and I turned the volume dial to 5, but the sound level stayed the same no matter what adjustment I made to the knob. I sprinted out of the room after all.
After rehearsing the “Buh-Bye” sketch, I stopped by the graphics department for a roll of duct tape. I spent the rest of the evening standing on my chair putting duct tape across Joe Dicso’s mouth on my wall. None of the other volume knobs in the dressing rooms were broken, just mine. Duct-taping someone’s mouth might be effective, but it had little effect on Joe’s voice coming out of the box. His voice was just as loud as it had been. It just sounded like somebody else’s. I was still being tortured every time an announcement was made, but I was glad the voice no longer sounded like Joe’s, because I liked Joe.
Later in the season, I received a one-week reprieve from my elevator shaft dressing room when one of the main cast members had an illness in his family and couldn’t be at the show on Saturday. To me, that meant a dressing room had just opened up. I badgered Marci Klein all week, saying that if anybody deserved to get the new dressing room, it was me. Marci agreed with me and assured me that come Saturday it would be mine.
The free dressing room was like the SNL presidential suite. It was a two-person corner room with enough space for two couches and two chairs and doors on both sides. One of the walls had a long mirror encircled with bright lights running across it. The place was twice the size of my first dressing room and ten times (no joke) the size of my new tiny one.
On Saturday, Marci kept her word and handed me the keys to the corner dressing room with the two doors. I put my backpack on the floor and started shadow-boxing. I had so much room that I could have jumped rope and jogged. I sat on both couches and measured them up against each other. Which one was I going to sit on all day? I had asked out of another courtroom sketch in which I played another speechless bailiff. Since I wasn’t in any other sketches, I had planned on watching golf with the lights off and sleeping until the show was over. I took off my shoes and lay on the winning couch to settle in. I was drifting off to sleep when there was a knock on one of the doors.
Marci was in the hallway outside my door standing with Beverly Hills 90210’s Brian Austin Green, who had a walk-on part on the show, and Tiffani-Amber Thiessen, his girlfriend at the time. Marci introduced the three of us and informed me that they would be sharing the dressing room. We all shook hands and then Marci walked out of the dressing room and shut the door behind her. The dressing room didn’t look so big anymore.
The three of us sat in uncomfortable silence for a few minutes. Finally, Brian asked me if he could change the music on the boom box that I had brought to work that day. The CD that was playing was Miles Davis’s Kind of Blue. I asked him if he was serious and informed him that it was one of the greatest albums ever made. Brian Austin Green looked at me and said, “I only listen to rap.” Great. I was no longer spending the evening alone, napping in a giant dressing room and listening to jazz. I was now sharing a dressing room with two teen idols who took over my radio and played rap all night. I like rap a lot, but the fact that Brian Austin Green was picking which songs we were listening to was torture.
My evening was ruined until I started thinking about how much it must have sucked for Brian Austin Green. This poor guy flies from L.A. to New York to have a walk-on part on Saturday Night Live. It’s such a big deal that he brings his celebrity girlfriend with him, but when he arrives at the show and everyone is finished kissing their asses, they get shoved in a dressing room for three and a half hours with someone they had never met. They were both very polite about the whole awkward situation of sharing a dressing room with a guy who didn’t need one. Episodes like this didn’t bother me much. I just wanted to get on camera.
Thirteen
“Good Morning, Brooklyn”
GETTING YOUR legs broken was a euphemism my manager and I used to describe what it was like not having a sketch on the show. It was appropriate because when I wasn’t in anything, I felt like I could hardly walk. The most painless way to get your legs broken was not to have anything picked for the show on Wednesday night. If Lorne’s corkboard didn’t have an index card with your sketch, you knew right away that you were shut out and it was time to start drinking heavily.
Sometimes it wasn’t until Thursday night rehearsals that the sledgehammer hit you. Perhaps the show was running long and your sketch had to be removed from the rundown so the show would stay on time. The bad news could also find its way to you on Friday night. If you were still in the game on Saturday, you still had to clear the live dress rehearsal at 8:00 P.M. before the 11:30 P.M. live show. Even after the live dress rehearsal, something always had to go.
An hour before the show, everyone would wait outside Lorne’s ninth-floor office for the final verdict. We all knew that no matter what happened, at least two sketches would be removed from the corkboard and thumbtacked to the side. No one spoke much during this time. Too much was on the line, and everyone was a little nervous, always knowing how arbitrary the process was. Sometimes the funniest sketch would be cut. I don’t know why, but it happened regularly. Even if your sketch survived the live dress rehearsal, it could still be bumped if the show started to run long.
On “Good Morning, Brooklyn,” my legs got broken not with a snap, but slowly and gently, which was even more painful. I first pitched “Good Morning, Brooklyn” when Marisa Tomei hosted, which was the second show of my second year. She seemed like a real nice gal. When I said hello, she said hello back. With memories of how my first year had ended still fresh in my head, I needed no more. Say hello back to me and you were forever cool.
“Good Morning, Brooklyn” was perfect for Marisa Tomei. It was basically a parod
y of Regis and Kathie Lee, but with Italian hosts and the show set in Brooklyn, with all the guests being people from the neighborhood. My character, the host of “Good Morning, Brooklyn,” was named James Barone, and his cohost was Angela Tucci. I was particularly pleased with myself in naming the characters because James Barone was actually a classmate of mine in high school. We had remained friends, so I derived great pleasure knowing that he was about to be immortalized on television—assuming the sketch didn’t get cut.
The sketch generated huge laughs from the normally tough crowd, both when I pitched it on Monday and then again at read-through on Wednesday after Steven Koren, a writer, and I fleshed it out. I felt good about its chances because it passed the SNL litmus test. Rule number one: Make the host funny. Marisa had several zingers in “Good Morning, Brooklyn.” Rule number two: Put the female cast members in your sketch. I had written parts for Molly Shannon and Janeane Garofalo, and made sure they would get laughs as well.
I waited around the writers’ room while Lorne, the producers, and Marisa decided if “Good Morning, Brooklyn” would make the cut. For an hour and a half they deliberated behind closed doors. None of it bothered me. I waited like everyone else and felt no anxiety. Everyone knew the sketch was hilarious, and they knew that I knew. It was almost assumed that my sketch would be chosen. After everyone got to know each other a little better during my first season, we started hanging around together after read-through, trying to predict which sketches would be picked for air. We were pretty successful.
