by Mohr, Jay
Mike Shoemaker, one of the producers, announced to us that the door was going to open soon, so we all walked to Lorne’s office and milled around the wall with the letters, which was in front of the half-dozen secretaries stationed outside his office. When the door opened I was reading a protest letter from a guy who was appalled that we used the word nut over and over again. I never read where the guy lived because the wind from the door caught all the letters, blowing them up into the air, leaving them desperately clinging to their thumbtacks. I turned from the wall, walked into Lorne’s office, and at the top of the first column of the corkboard was a yellow index card that read GOOD MORNING, BROOKLYN.
Oddly, I didn’t feel particularly elated. I knew it deserved to be up there. I walked back to my office and a few people patted me on the back and offered congratulations. When I saw Steve Koren, he was beaming. “First sketch!” he called out, stretching his hand up for a high five. Being first was a big deal because it meant that we had written the funniest sketch of the week. I instinctively walked to the phone to tell my friends that there was a reason for them to watch the show. Shortly into my first season, I had stopped calling because whenever my sketch was cut, the first question they asked when I saw them was “What happened?” But because “Good Morning, Brooklyn” was scheduled to lead the show, I decided that it was safe to spread the word.
After I had finished calling everyone—except my parents, who had long since gone to bed—I walked back toward Lorne’s office. I was going to see if Marisa Tomei was still around so I could thank her. I found her in Marci Klein’s office, reintroduced myself, and told her how much fun we were going to have. She was very engaging and bright, and we chatted for ten minutes or so. But the conversation took a turn when she asked me how long I had been a cast member.
Without sounding the least bit defensive, I explained that I wasn’t a cast member yet, I was still a featured performer. Her face dropped. “You’re not even a cast member?” she said, half as a question, half as a statement. It became obvious that she didn’t want to talk to me anymore. Her answers grew shorter and she stopped making eye contact with me. I said good night to her and went home, carrying with me a funny feeling that it was best I hadn’t awakened my parents.
When I arrived on Thursday night for rewrites, Jim Downey pulled me aside. I was about to learn how many different ways you could get your legs broken. “We’ve got to talk about ‘Good Morning, Brooklyn,’” he said ominously. He explained that Marisa Tomei didn’t want to do the sketch, though he promised to try and talk her into it. I decided I would do the same.
I found her again by Marci’s office and confronted her. “Why don’t you want to do ‘Good Morning, Brooklyn’?” I asked her straight out. She began rambling that after the movie My Cousin Vinny, she didn’t want to be typecast as an Italian chick. She didn’t want people to think that was all she could do. I told her that the sketch was great for her and it was funnier because she was in My Cousin Vinny. People wanted to see her do something like this, I pleaded. She wouldn’t budge.
I knew that if I pressed her further I would run the risk of pissing the host off. I didn’t think Marisa Tomei telling Lorne what an asshole I was would be a good way to get more airtime. You could try and change the host’s mind, but if he or she didn’t want to do your sketch, what could you do? Nothing. It was eliminated. For the rest of the week, with your legs broken, you would crawl in and out of studio 8-H and curse every sketch that was being rehearsed.
I never believed that everything happens for a reason. I have always known, however, that everything does happen. My campaign for the sketch to remain in the lineup was legitimate, and I was grateful to Downey for going to bat for me. But I hated Marisa Tomei. I didn’t believe that she was worried about her public perception. I still don’t. She didn’t want to do the sketch the moment she found out that I wasn’t a cast member. I wanted to choke her during Good-nights.
After the Marisa Tomei show, I was on camera in only bit parts for the next two weeks. That brought the grand total of sketches of mine that had gotten on the air in my second season to zero. Mohr: 0–4. Nothing had changed from my first year. I was still a bit player. I grew more and more nervous as the weeks ticked by. I could no longer place the blame on the fact that I was new.
But in the fifth week, I had a reversal of fortune. “Good Morning, Brooklyn” was back on the corkboard as the lead sketch, with Sarah Jessica Parker hosting. Suddenly I was walking on air. The sketch was slotted first, so it must have had universal approval. I figured that “Good Morning, Brooklyn” was my “Wayne’s World,” my “Church Lady,” my “Hans and Franz.” It was going to be the sketch that broke me.
Rehearsals went off without any glitches. The sketch was practically uncuttable. The host was getting big laughs, as were Farley, Sandler, and Janeane Garofalo. But during the Saturday afternoon rehearsals, a new storm began brewing. One of the producers pulled me aside and told me we had a big problem: A group called the Sons of Italy were going to protest the show if my sketch aired. The Sons of Italy apparently thought my sketch portrayed Italians in a negative light. It was further explained that unless I toned down some of the Eye-Tal-Yan jokes, the sketch would be yanked from the show.
I pleaded my case. The entire sketch was about Italians, and toning it down was the equivalent of making it less funny. A one-sided compromise was reached: I could probably keep the sketch on the air if I made it less Italian. Were they kidding me? How was I supposed to make a sketch about Italians less Italian? Mike Shoemaker asked me about the names of the two hosts: Did they have to be so stereotypical? Stereotypical? I had named the lead character after someone I knew. Go tell the Barone family in Verona, New Jersey, that they’re too stereotypical! There was no way I was changing the name James Barone. Instead, I changed Angela Tucci to Angela Evans. My legs were fractured but not broken.
It was a move that bothers me to this day. In the original version, when we both said our names, the audience knew right away what we were doing. We were doing a sketch about Italians hosting a morning talk show. Now, with Sarah introducing herself as Angela Evans, the audience wasn’t sure what they were about to watch.
The sketch remained atop the corkboard between dress rehearsal and air, but murmurs of protests from the Sons of Italy made their way to my ears. I remembered when Adam Sandler had done a Canteen Boy sketch that the Boy Scouts of America objected to.
A popular character of Adam’s, the Canteen Boy was slow, if not slightly retarded. Whenever you wrote a character that was an audience favorite, the trick was to ride that character as long as possible. This particular week, Canteen Boy was going to take place at a Boy Scout camp (with cohost Alec Baldwin playing the troop leader). In the sketch, Alec would eventually wind up sharing a sleeping bag with Canteen Boy and begin fondling him. We all thought it was hysterical. The Boy Scouts of America did not.
After the “Boy Scouts Canteen Boy” sketch aired, the wall outside of Lorne’s office where the letters to the show were posted was covered in letters of outrage. The most prominent letter had the Boys Scouts of America letterhead on it. The brass at Boy Scout headquarters were less than thrilled that a troop leader was portrayed as a pedophile. What made the situation worse was that the wardrobe department had outfitted those of us in the sketch in actual Boy Scout uniforms. They weren’t replicas, and there was no possible substitute for Boy Scouts in the piece. We called ourselves Boy Scouts, we dressed as Boy Scouts, and Alec Baldwin played a Boy Scout leader who molested Canteen Boy. The Boy Scouts threatened the show with litigation, which I never understood. What was the show supposed to do? Take the sketch back? Turn back time and rewrite it? So periodically someone from outside would get a red ass about something that aired and write a letter telling us how much trouble we were all in, but eventually, more interesting letters would arrive and the protests would go into the trash can.
As airtime neared, I blocked out the threat of letters from the Sons of Italy pap
ering the hallway outside Lorne’s office and tried to focus on the sketch. It was a big break for me to have the first sketch of the night, and I didn’t want to experience anything but satisfaction.
“Good Morning, Brooklyn” got huge laughs on the live show, but something was gnawing at me. In the wee hours of the morning, after the wrap party, I was home in my bed when I had a troubling thought. The “Canteen Boy” sketch was protested by the Boy Scouts after it aired. “Good Morning, Brooklyn” was being protested before it left the building. How could people object to a sketch if they hadn’t seen it? It was just words on pieces of paper that went from my office to the read-through table to the eighth floor for rehearsal. Did the Sons of Italy have the writers’ room bugged? Did they watch rehearsals? Or was it all a prank?
I still don’t know, but when Courteney Cox hosted later that season, I brought back “Good Morning, Brooklyn.” Again, it was the lead sketch. I obediently wrote “Angela Evans” into the sketch to avoid any pre-show controversy. I also resolved not to be pushed around by a dubious-sounding organization named the Sons of Italy—and to emerge with my legs intact.
As we were coming back from commercial break during the live show, I leaned over to Courteney Cox. “There’s been a rewrite,” I whispered. “No matter what it says on the cue card, make sure you say Angela Tucci, not Angela Evans.” She introduced herself as Angela Tucci, and the audience burst out laughing.
The Sons of Italy didn’t show up at the wrap party to take me for a drive into the weeds in Secaucus. I checked the wall for the next few weeks to see if there were any letters complaining about the sketch being too Italian. If there were, no one took the time to post them. For the rest of my time on the show, I was really bothered by the whole situation. However, after the sketch had worked twice, I decided that I no longer wanted to strangle Marisa Tomei.
After Sarah Jessica Parker hosted, I was on a bit of a roll. I brought back Christopher Walken with John Turturro—at his request. Turturro also did a Christopher Walken impression, and in the pitch meeting, he brought up that he wanted to do a Walken sketch. He said this in front of everyone, and it made me feel needed. I also played Harvey Keitel in the John Turturro show, so I had two fun impressions to do that week, and neither of them were cut.
In the Walken sketch, John Turturro played Christopher Walken’s brother, Eugene. His impression was so funny that when he first spoke, I laughed directly into camera. The audience laughed when I laughed and I was never reprimanded for it. For one show, I was on fire, and I was having the greatest time of my life. Then they sent me back to the bench. In baseball, when you’re hitting, you expect to stay in the lineup. Not on Saturday Night Live.
After John Turturro said his Good-nights, I had done three good sketches in two weeks; two of them I had written myself and one was the lead-off sketch. I anticipated that I would get more and better parts in read-through since I had shown what I could do in the last few shows. I didn’t. If the sketch that I wrote myself didn’t get picked to be on the show, my only shot of being on camera was if Tim Herlihy or Fred Wolf looked out for me. They always did, and in each show, I would have a few lines in someone else’s sketch.
But after John Turturro left, I went five weeks straight with virtually no airtime. Nothing I wrote was picked to be on the show. Out of eleven shows that had come and gone in my second season, sketches that I had written were in only two of them. I started to fear for my job security. They had every right to fire me if they wanted to. I was freezing.
During my cold streak, I didn’t mingle much with the other cast members. There was nothing to say. We didn’t have anything in common. They were on television and I wasn’t. Even when someone was being kind and offered words of encouragement, I felt empty. It never made me feel any better. I hated that I was in a situation where others felt they had to console me.
Because I wasn’t on camera very often, I had plenty of free time on Saturday nights to roam around and meet the people who worked in the building. The undercover police officers who handled security for the show became good friends of mine. I got to know Jane, who worked as a janitor for the show, and I befriended Theresa, the NBC nurse. I spoke at length with all of them and found myself seeking their company each Saturday. They were beautiful, friendly people with families, pension plans, and summer homes. And like me, they were never on camera.
The undercover cops and I hit it off pretty quickly. They were blue-collar guys named Ron, Billy Mac, and Fat Phil. They dressed in suits and wore tiny earpieces to communicate with one another. They also carried .22-caliber pistols in their socks. I would chat with them during the show, and at the wrap party, they would always help me sneak in some extra friends. At the parties I would get so drunk that I couldn’t walk anymore. I always made sure my drinking took place in their sights. If I finally snapped, I wanted to make sure I did it in front of the guys who were packing.
The NBC nurse, Theresa, was a delightful woman. She had a husband and a house somewhere in New Jersey, and she always had a smile on her face. I confided in her about my panic attacks and even showed her my Klonopin pocket. Having a nurse close by was always comforting. Since NBC gave free flu shots to its employees at the beginning of the cold and flu season, I felt relieved to be friends with the person who would be injecting me.
I didn’t get a flu shot my first season and paid the price for it. I was flat out in my bed for a week with a fever. My second season, I decided to let NBC give me my flu shot. I couldn’t afford to miss a minute of work, let alone a week. I was afraid that if I was ever sick in bed again, I might not get up to come back when I felt better.
But the day of the free NBC flu shots, Theresa wasn’t there. She had taken a day off and there was a different nurse in her place. I wasn’t too crazy about someone I had just met giving me a shot. What bothered me the most was that I had heard that after you get a flu shot, you contract flulike symptoms for a few days and, in some cases, even a fever. For some reason, this information terrified me. Still, I forced myself to go to the nurse’s station the day they gave out the shots. I wondered if Theresa’s absence should be taken as some sort of omen. I rolled up my sleeve and let the substitute nurse shoot me in the arm with the needle. It didn’t hurt, and I suddenly felt manly and relieved. I proudly rolled down my sleeve when the substitute nurse shouted, “Oh my God! I am so sorry! You’re not allergic to chicken feathers, are you?”
How the hell did I know if I was allergic to chicken feathers? Now I was certain that I was. The substitute nurse quickly downplayed the entire thing, but I could tell from her initial outburst that she had really messed up. I walked out of the NBC nurse’s station planning the lawsuit that I would bring against NBC for shooting me with a needle full of chicken feathers. Henceforth, the show would be called Jay Mohr’s Saturday Night Live.
The rest of the night I itched all over my body and felt nauseated. I was sure that any minute my windpipe would close up and I would choke to death. I never saw the substitute nurse after that night. I told Theresa the next time I saw her what had transpired. She was appalled that anyone would give another human being a flu shot without asking him if he was allergic to chicken feathers first. I was glad she was back.
Jane the janitor was probably the most refreshing person to talk to in the entire building. A black woman in her sixties, she didn’t have an ounce of show business in her. Usually when I saw her, she was pushing a gigantic trash barrel on wheels. She always had a genuine smile on her face and seemed happy to see me. When we spoke, it was never about the show. It was always about family. During these conversations we were never interrupted. It was as if there was a shield around us.
During my spectator period, I would sit with the show’s announcer, Don Pardo, who would sip tea to keep his throat loose and ask me about my parents. He also lived in New Jersey, and despite the generation gap, we knew many of the same places. He cracked me up. I had started talking with Pardo the moment I was hired on the show. When he fi
rst laid eyes on me in the hallway outside of studio 8-H, he shouted in the same voice he used for the show’s introduction, “Ladies and gentlemen…Jay Mooohr!” He had been the voice of NBC for so many years and had done so many commercials that whenever he spoke to me, I felt comfortable. I had heard Don Pardo’s voice so often that when he spoke, I felt as if I was sitting at home in my living room. Hearing Don Pardo shout my name was a career wake-up call. I must have arrived if Pardo was saying my name.
Once I asked Don Pardo who was his all-time favorite out of all the musical guests that ever appeared on Saturday Night Live. He answered in his booming voice, “Are you kidding me, man? B.J.” I asked him, “Billy Joel?” Pardo erupted, “Bon Jovi!” I was surprised, to say the least. Pardo was at least seventy years old, and his declaration caught me off balance. When I asked him if he was serious, he smiled. “That motherfucker can sing,” he said. Fair enough. Maybe it was a Jersey thing.
Don Pardo, Theresa the nurse, Jane the janitor, and officers Ron, Billy Mac, and Fat Phil all helped make my Saturdays seem bearable. They listened to me and always had something nice to say. They never wanted anything from me but to see me smile. As I spent more and more time with them, it began to dawn on me that for whatever reason, these people simply liked me. Not me the performer or me the comic. They never saw that when they looked at me. They liked me for who I was. There wasn’t a phony bone in any of them, and I loved them for it.
