by David Spade
Another favorite that year was yet another sketch that involved me playing a smart-ass. (Do you see a theme?) It was on the show that Helen Hunt hosted, and we played rude asshole flight attendants. Fred Wolf, one of the longtime great writers on the show, had an idea about two sweet, blond, all-American flight attendants standing at the door as everyone exits . . . and saying the now infamous “Buh-Bye” to everyone as they leave. The “Buh-Bye” is laced with some venom, so that what you really hear is “get the hell out of here,” which you know is what flight attendants are thinking after hours of taking care of a hundred demanding assholes on an airplane. (That’s got to be one of the worst jobs. Especially when I’m flying!)
This sketch had a great hook and was perfect for Helen Hunt and me. The audience related to it and responded so well because we’ve all seen those flight attendants in our own lives. Sometimes you notice something in the world that seems funny to you. This angle of escalating the “Buh-Bye” more and more was just funny to me. Fred and I were good buddies, and we wrote the sketch together. It did well at read-through and we laughed a ton during rehearsals because the sketch just got funnier and funnier as it went on. There was the very end, when Sandler wanted to beat me up, and I just kept yelling “Buh-Bye” at him like a tough guy, or how we replaced the lyrics of songs from the seventies with “Buh-Bye.” “Awww Buh-Bye!” to the tune of “Freak Out” and “Do the Buh-Bye” instead of “Do the Hustle.” He called the airline TBA for Total Bastard Air—I was slightly surprised that got through Standards and Practices.
The sketch really came together and did well on the air but you never really know what’s going to resonate. Without Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram you couldn’t really get a feel for what people liked. You just had to go by what you heard from your friends and hopefully what Lorne heard from his Upper East Side pals. But I got on a plane the next day to head back to Los Angeles for a two-week break and all the flight attendants started “Buh-Bye” the minute I walked on. For probably the next ten years I have had someone say “Buh-Bye” to me at least once a day. American Airlines even used the sketch in their training seminars to show the perception of flight attendants, and how it needs to be changed for the better. Recently, when I was leaving Burger King (I like to eat healthy!) there were stickers on the door that said “Buh-Bye” in huge letters. Watching SNL as a kid, there were always those sketches, those catchphrases that became part of popular culture. When I got on the show, I wanted desperately to be a part of one of those. All I wanted to have accomplished when I left the show was to have been in a sketch and said a line that people repeated. I think that was the closest I came to that. After the receptionist, I got a lot of “Annnnnddddddd Youuuuuuu Arrrrrrrres?” But “Buh-Bye” remains the most repeatable and remembered.
What I also learned from that sketch was that people like what they like. We did that sketch once that season, and I heard about it for five years. Dana and Mike did Wayne’s World at least twenty-five times, and it was a massive hit and created a million catchphrases. But my point is that there was something about that one sketch that people latched on to and it became a “thing.” We even tried “Buh-Bye” one more time the following season and it just didn’t have the same vibe to it. Today no one remembers that one, but everyone remembers the first one . . .
Soon Adam and Chris were about to go and take over Hollywood. I wasn’t ready to leave yet, having just been made a full cast member, so I stayed another year. Lorne gave me a weekly five-minute segment called “Spade in America,” during which I could do whatever I wanted. I enjoyed that, but I sort of felt like I was back on the wall outside the high school cafeteria. I was the guy who had graduated but couldn’t quite get a life. Most of my squad was gone and now it was Will Ferrell, Molly Shannon, and Cheri Oteri’s turn to take over. I liked Will a lot because I thought he was hilarious. I invited him to lunch one week. Like a selfish prick, I ate before he got there. He was so surprised that I had done that, and I felt like the biggest asshole alive. Even though it was and is something I do to my friends all the time, this was symbolic. My time was done. I should have just moved on and let those guys have at it. I was sort of in the way now.
There is one bit from that year that I do want to discuss. It was a field bit that involved Sean Penn and a tattoo. At this point, I didn’t know Sean Penn at all, but I had heard talking at a party about learning to do tattoos on potatoes or pig ears. I don’t know how this stuck in my head, or if it is even true, but a week later I was desperate for an idea for the show (again) and read that Penn was in town for Letterman that week. So I had the brilliant idea to ask him to come in and give me a tattoo. (Brought to you by www.dumbideas.com.) So I asked Lovitz for his number. Lovitz made me promise I wouldn’t tell Sean Penn where I got his number. I left Sean a message telling him who I was, and asked if he would give me a tattoo while he was in town. He shockingly called me back a little later and said, “Sure, let’s do it.” He didn’t seem too nervous about possibly ruining my upper arm for the rest of my life.
So now I had to a) go through with this and b) find a tattoo I liked. I found a tat based on one that Steven Tyler had on his arm that I thought was cool. I had it all drawn up and I was ready to go. For legal reasons, we had to meet outside of Manhattan, so I had the show send a car for Sean. For hours I was in a grubby little tattoo parlor with my film crew waiting for a guy I don’t know to come destroy my beautiful epidermis . . . actually to finish the job the Arizona sun started. The owner was a big, burly dude who actually knew Sean, and two other Hells Angels were there to meet him for some reason. This was not my typical scene. I was a squirrely punk from Scottsdale who was more comfortable sitting in the shallow end of an empty pool with a few other skaters waiting to drop into the deep end. So I sat there awkwardly trying to jabber with these shady characters about feathering hair techniques or anything I could think of. At this point, Sean was two hours late. My driver got lost and then reported that Sean wanted some vodka, so they pulled over.
To kill time I filmed the owner giving me a tour of his fine establishment and me wisecracking about different tattoos, none of which made him even crack a smile. Sean finally rolled in, what felt like five hours later, slightly buzzed, but super-nice and ready to go. I showed him the tattoo sketch I had picked and as he looked at it curiously the owner said, “There’s no way he can do this one. It’s too complicated.” So I asked, “What could he pull off?” We ended up going through the comics section of the newspaper, and the one that was decided on was Calvin from Calvin and Hobbes. As much as I thought this was a mildly amusing comic, I definitely did not want to have that drawing on my arm for the rest of my life, but the show must go on.
Sean started doing the tattoo while I interviewed him about his career and world events. I was trying to make him laugh over the buzzing noise and the pain. Not a great idea. “You know when I laugh, I’m even worse at this,” he said, which was not reassuring since he wasn’t so good when he wasn’t laughing. At this point I decided I didn’t care. I was already going to be maimed for life. I just wanted a good bit out of all of this. When we were in the middle of the interview, I hit him with one of my meanest jokes. It was around the time Sandra Bullock was starring in the cyber-thriller The Net. So after a few dumb questions about his career I say, “By the way, did you see the talking pig movie?” And he shook his head no, focusing on my pale arm. I continued, “Oh you didn’t see The Net?” And he took a beat and smiled and said something to the effect of, “Oh, that’s fucked up.” Looking back, maybe it was too rude to kick America’s sweetheart Sandra Bullock in the balls because for one movie she was maybe five pounds overweight, but I had to get it in there and it fucking cracked me up for some reason. Just because it was so shitty and so out of left field. Anyway, I got back to the show and played the bit and to this day, I don’t think people really thought it was a legit tattoo. But if you ever see me on the beach looking like a moron flexing with Calvin on one of my mega guns, you’
ll see Sean’s handiwork for yourself.
BEING VALUABLE
I want to take an opportunity to say a few words here about Rob Schneider. I’ve written a lot about him in this book. It is probably obvious that we were friendly rivals. Sometimes not friendly. Sometimes the rivalry only went one way—as in I saw him as a rival while he was riding high. I don’t want people reading this to think that there is bad blood between us. Rob and I have many years of being in the trenches together, and all those shared experiences have given me some perspective on things. Robert Smigel, I think it was, said once during a period on SNL when there was a chance that Rob would be fired, that he wouldn’t because Rob was “valuable.” The phrase was something along the lines of “We shouldn’t get rid of him, he’s valuable.” This was a time when Rob was really rubbing folks the wrong way on the show. It wasn’t just me. But when I heard that, I thought that “valuable” was a really interesting word choice. I didn’t get what that even meant in that context. What I thought was, Here’s a guy who can get Phil Hartman to throw him against the wall in anger. Here’s a guy who has Jack Handy grousing about him. This guy is annoying two of the nicest people in the building. And yet, he’s valuable? That really stuck with me. I figured out later it meant because he is good at his job. At the end of the day, he’s a good writer. He’s a good performer. And he could add funny ideas and lines to existing sketches.
I wanted to be valuable. I was jealous of that. He brought more positive than negative to the table. So I saw that and realized that in Hollywood, it was just a blip on the radar. The big examples are huge stars and how much shit they can get away with, versus how much money they’re bringing in or how much they bring to a project. You see it all over now. You can get drunk at work if you’re doing a show that is making money. You can do everything wrong like Charlie Sheen, but if you get your fucking lines right and someone makes money, people give you a pass. (Sheen is a bad example because he got shitcanned. BUT then he jumped on another show and made someone else a ton of cash. And he didn’t change his tune at all.) I try not to be a total disaster at work, but I do try to be valuable. I try to bring whatever I can to the table. I want whatever project I’m on to do well.
It’s all very tricky now. It was really tricky back then. I sound like I’m slamming Rob, but actually, I’m slamming myself. I had a lot I needed to learn back then. We all did.
Here’s what I learned from SNL. When people are better than you don’t be jealous. Respect it and use it to drive yourself to be better. I got in stand-up on a whim but once I made the choice I wanted to be great at it. So many people at the show were so much better than me and I couldn’t deal with it at first. It takes a lot to be great and I was surrounded by it. I felt like a good high school player that got moved up to the pros. But running with people better than you always makes you faster and that’s what I got from SNL. It made a lazy guy work harder than I ever wanted to.
The good news is that Rob and I are still buddies. We started hanging out again when we were making the movie The Benchwarmers. It’s all good. We were all just young and scratching to be famous and broke a few eggs back then.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
EDDIE MURPHY AND ME
My infamous run-in with Eddie Murphy has been discussed and repeated so many times over the years, by so many people, that I’m sort of done with it. But I feel like I should put it down in print one final time, to sort of put the bow on it and move on. That way, when the aliens come looking for some mildly amusing anecdotes to take back to their planet when they blow ours to smithereens, this one will be primed and ready to go.
When I finally came up with my Hollywood Minute sketch, as previously recounted in great (and probably excruciatingly boring) detail, it was a huge relief to me. I needed something to stick. Things were so dire for me then that whenever I saw Adam Sandler in his office tuning his guitar I’d just crumple up whatever I was writing, go out for pizza, and stick a gun in my mouth between bites. Because he always killed.
The first joke I used on Hollywood Minute went along with a photo of Michael Bolton. The line went “Hey, Michael Bolton, your hair is really long in the back, but guess what? We all know what’s happening on top. It’s called Rogaine, look into it.” Then came “I know you’ve sold eight million albums but guess what? I don’t know anyone that has one!” Laughs all around. I did “the min” (gross term for it that I never actually called it) again two weeks later, and then as often as I could despite everyone probably rolling their eyes whenever I brought it to the table.
The bit was working and now the cast and other writers were baiting me, daring me to go after certain people. Jim Downey was notorious for egging me on, and I was easily swayed by him because he was my boss, he is a great writer, and I was desperate to impress him in any way I could. Plus I needed attention. (Barf.) As time went on, I hit some peeps pretty hard, but I only did so if I felt they deserved it. It’s a fine line between clever and just mean. I did cross it a few times, but I went for laughs. Some of my favorite jokes back then were ripping on Downtown Julie Brown after she had left MTV (Wubba wubba wubba, my career’s in trubba trubba trubba), and M. C. Hammer (Do do do doot do doot do dooot, it’s over). I went for Jim Carrey once, and I can say it was too soon—people loved him too much. I loved him, too, frankly, but this was a case of writers egging me on, daring me to go after him. I did the joke at dress rehearsal, but I got so many hisses that I pulled it. I liked it though: “Jim Carrey was hospitalized this week on the set of his movie after mixing over-the-top pills with play-it-too-big juice. It can be a deadly combo. He’s fine now and quietly overacting at home.” A lot of the time I was going after friends, friends who happened to be in the news, so it felt like an omission if I skipped the story. But in the case of Jim Carrey, I’m glad that joke didn’t make it to air.
Now we come to the infamous Eddie Murphy Hollywood Minute. Here’s the story, as I remember it. After this I swear I am never talking about this again. (Of course I will.) One week I was writing my dopey Hollywood Minute, my bread and butter and basically the only thing keeping me from going back out on the road doing shows at the Gut Busters in Omaha or working in the skateboard shop. I was sort of addicted to doing them because it was the only thing keeping me in front of the camera. So I’m sitting in my dumpy office and I realized that Eddie Murphy had put out two back-to-back flops. (By the way, there couldn’t be a harsher word to hit your ear when you’re an actor than flop. It’s brutal. Short, harsh, and to the point. The past tense is even worse, as in “I heard your movie FUCKING FLOPPED!” So awful, and I should know. I’ve heard it a lot. That and bombed. But I hate flop more.) I think the two films were Harlem Nights and Vampire in Brooklyn. So, I casually write a joke about Eddie Murphy for my piece that week. You know the line. “Look, kids, a falling star! Quick, make a wish . . .”
The burn skims by on air, gets sort of a laugh mixed with an, “Ooo no you di-int” response, and I think nothing of it. Especially because it’s buried in the middle of ten or twelve of these rapid-fire sizzles that come and go quickly.
So, on the following Monday at around 5 P.M. I was sitting in the writers’ room reading the paper and waiting for the meeting with that week’s host when an NBC page came into the room. He looked at me a little oddly and said, “Eddie Murphy is on the phone for you.”
My heart stopped. WTF? “Um, seriously?” I squeaked.
“Yes, line two.”
“Ummmmmmmmm. I’m not here, take a message.”
She walked away. I could tell she was a bit starstruck (by him, not me) and curious as to why Eddie was calling me. Also curious as to why I wasn’t sprinting to the phone. Meanwhile, I was quietly shitting diarrhea into my Dockers, out the window, and down Sixth Avenue, thinking, Holy shit! Why is this famous motherfucker calling me? My spider senses are tingling. He has to be pissed! What do I say? I just did that joke about him. That has to be it! In other words I was freaking the fuck out. I didn’t know if I should cal
l him back, or act like I didn’t know he had called, or hide under Lorne’s desk till this crazy storm blew over or what . . . I was starting to have an actual, official panic attack when . . .
RIIIIINNNGGGGGGG!!
The phone seven feet from me in the writers’ room started ringing. One of the assistants picked it up.
“Writers’ room . . . hang on . . . David, it’s Eddie Murphy.”
“Can’t find me,” I said casually, staring a hole through People magazine, pretending to read it, frozen in total, unmitigated fear. By now my heartbeat had picked up the pace a bit.
She hung up. I broke out of my trance and realized I needed to enlist Chris Rock. He covers all bases. He’s my black friend, so any black-related problems go across his desk. He gets cc’d on everything. And he’s Eddie’s buddy, too, so he knows what I’m dealing with. He will have special insight, like when a movie brings in a real forensic criminologist to be a consultant. Rock knows what makes this guy tick. He could solve this. But before I could even get up to find Rock, I had a new problem.
