Speaker 1: I'm Alec Baldwin and you were listening to Here's the Thing.
Speaker 1: The name Steve Higgins sounds like a sitcom character, the
Speaker 1: earnest neighbor with thick glasses, the overly bright lieutenant on
Speaker 1: McHale's navy. He's from Say des Moines and transplanted to
Speaker 1: New York. Steve Higgins is the straight man. The real
Speaker 1: Steve Higgins is all that, but also a comedic genius.
Speaker 1: He's my friend with four hundred and fifty six Saturday
Speaker 1: Night Live writing credits and counting. In fact, he's the
Speaker 1: guy in charge of the writer's room, along with Lauren Michael's.
Speaker 1: Steve holds the fate of America's young comedy talent in
Speaker 1: his hands. Lauren and Steve decide who gets hired and
Speaker 1: who gets fired from the show. But he didn't become
Speaker 1: a household name until he joined Jimmy fallon the Roots
Speaker 1: and the rest of the Tonight Show team in front
Speaker 1: of the camera, playing that venerable talk show character, the sidekick.
Speaker 1: So Steve has two jobs. At four thirty every day,
Speaker 1: four days a week. Steve announces the Tonight Show, sticks
Speaker 1: around to play Jimmy straight man, and then runs back
Speaker 1: upstairs to produce that week's sn L. It's a heavy
Speaker 1: life for a kid from Iowa who started a sketch
Speaker 1: comedy troupe with his brothers out of high school. Steve's
Speaker 1: kindness and humility have stayed as sharp as this comedy.
Speaker 1: So it was a joy when Steve Higgins agreed to
Speaker 1: join me on stage at Guildhall in East Hampton. Hello, Hello, Hello,
Speaker 1: I'm so excited, thank you all for coming. Let me
Speaker 1: just start out by saying that lately I've been doing
Speaker 1: you know who, all that crap. It's so pathetic. But anyway, uh,
Speaker 1: I actually said to our guests, I said, I just
Speaker 1: can't do it anymore. I texted me the the other day
Speaker 1: I go, so, who's playing trump this fall? And he goes,
Speaker 1: you are, and quite brilliantly, I might add, so I
Speaker 1: want you to please welcome to God. This is a
Speaker 1: dear friend of mine, one of the great great writer,
Speaker 1: producers and now performer, Steve Higgins. Those are the kindest
Speaker 1: words you've ever said to me. Now, speaking of which,
Speaker 1: what was comedy in your childhood? Was it always class clown?
Speaker 1: And I had three brothers and a sister, and comedy
Speaker 1: that's all it was. We never yelled. It was sarcasm,
Speaker 1: and which now I learned as bad. It's good to
Speaker 1: yell sometimes, well not too much take my word for
Speaker 1: you know. Well, m um, it is the lingua franc
Speaker 1: of our house. Burned somebody and get a big laugh,
Speaker 1: and you were the king of the house. I mean
Speaker 1: it was who was the king? My brother Dave was
Speaker 1: the king. I think he was one of the quickest
Speaker 1: people I've ever met. Like one time was this. I
Speaker 1: went to high school in Des Moines, Iowa, Thank you, um,
Speaker 1: and there was this thing, uh, there's a new part
Speaker 1: of the gym. Was the new part of the gym
Speaker 1: was built, and on each of the eight foot by
Speaker 1: seven ft piece of glass there was a thing that
Speaker 1: said beat Aims, which was Aims Iowa. Where the was
Speaker 1: like we'd play them in the first high school thing
Speaker 1: there and he was walking by saw that ripped off
Speaker 1: the B and the A and the S or just
Speaker 1: said eat me that kind of thing. You go, my mathematicians.
Speaker 1: That's why I think, that's why I love like those
Speaker 1: celebrity jeopardy things that you know what I mean, where
Speaker 1: it's like a word play on a thing is all
Speaker 1: from that of me, just going, how did you fat
Speaker 1: like when they have uh, when Darryl would do Connery? Yes, yes,
Speaker 1: and I can't think of exactly horrible. This must be
Speaker 1: my lucky day. I'll take the rapists. And that's the therapist.
Speaker 1: The therapist. Why would that be his lucky day? When
Speaker 1: you were a kid, I mean your brother's obviously it
Speaker 1: sounds like he's up that school. I grew up with
Speaker 1: guys like that. It wasn't that. Your house. To my
Speaker 1: family was things like we'd be standing there on a
Speaker 1: corner with like a little gang of kids and we
Speaker 1: would play a game called He's Got a Gun. As
Speaker 1: a game you didn't announce, you just he erupted it
Speaker 1: into it spontaneously. So we'd all be standing there. We're
Speaker 1: going like six kids or like fourteen years old and
Speaker 1: fifty and he goes, you see Tommy, did he come
Speaker 1: back to his vacation and they live on a lake. Right,
Speaker 1: he's got a gun? You jump on someone, you pick someone.
Speaker 1: One person would announce the game, and he was like
Speaker 1: sir Han, Sir Han at the Ambassador Hotel. Everyone he
Speaker 1: was the killer, he was the shooter, and we'd all
Speaker 1: picked and we'd all beat the crap. We'd stop him
Speaker 1: on the ground. Yeah, as opposed to you're gonna wear that? Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that kind of like yeah that my brother and my
Speaker 1: girlfriend came over. He'd go, you put on weight, thank kind?
Speaker 1: And what was TV? Movies? Did you got? Were your
Speaker 1: family out to the movies? We did not have what
Speaker 1: it's called money, um, so we would watch a lot
Speaker 1: of TV. And then my mom one day, uh took
Speaker 1: the chord to the TV, which kids to work with her,
Speaker 1: so we couldn't watch TV during the summer. And my
Speaker 1: brother Mike took a part the whatever weird toaster thing,
Speaker 1: remember that with the three products, and he just rewired
Speaker 1: and shoved it in the TV. And we'd watched him.
Speaker 1: Mom was coming. Yes, we thrown away. What kind of
Speaker 1: show did you watch? We watched the same as you as.
Speaker 1: I mean, we grew up in the same house pretty much.
Speaker 1: I mean you'd watch I mean I remember when my
Speaker 1: mom said, my mom loved comedy, so she would let
Speaker 1: bob and yes, she was funnier than your dad. She
Speaker 1: was a funny one. Well, my dad died when I
Speaker 1: was in tenth grade, so you know when you're that
Speaker 1: you don't but my dad was funny, but in tenth
Speaker 1: grade he was he died. But I remember one time
Speaker 1: my little brother al uh was He would go, oh,
Speaker 1: Alan Alan, Joel thinks, bring me my room and off,
Speaker 1: so bring me my running not even run, this says
Speaker 1: to be laughing at out. Did you do this thing too?
Speaker 1: Did you do that one? You know? I think I
Speaker 1: want to know what's that. That's the thing where you
Speaker 1: go like this and if the guy doesn't see, you
Speaker 1: get to punch him. But if he puts his finger
Speaker 1: through it and breaks it, you get to punch him.
Speaker 1: So it would be one of those elaborate and punching
Speaker 1: games of like who won the Kentucky Dry to reach
Speaker 1: Charlie Horse, Spider bites Dutch RBS does anything that would
Speaker 1: inflict pain in a controlled manner, we laugh. We just
Speaker 1: each other. Mom, did your mom? Like in my house?
Speaker 1: My mom? You know, we'd have to speak in code,
Speaker 1: so we'd say vulgarity and code. So if somebody was
Speaker 1: an effing asshole, we told that, we use the word
Speaker 1: fung and we call him a zoul. So we'd be
Speaker 1: having lunch. We'll have a dinner in our kitchen. Tip
Speaker 1: have you seen Larry Lady, did he come back from upstate?
Speaker 1: Is he back? Yeah? He's a fung zul Right, we'd
Speaker 1: say lima. I told him to lima. You know, I
Speaker 1: mean just lima. Lick me. We have all these like
Speaker 1: funky code like lick me was lima. And finally my
Speaker 1: mother would be like, like, you know, like after like
Speaker 1: one whole summer of this, Mom was like, what are
Speaker 1: you saying? What does this lima? What do you what
Speaker 1: is lima? What did your mother do to control you? Guys?
Speaker 1: The silent treatment? That would be the big thing, because
Speaker 1: you didn't hit, so you just go like that, No,
Speaker 1: had four sons, Yeah, but we did his hand you cash.
Speaker 1: You said you had no money, No we didn't. Would
Speaker 1: just go work a thousand different jobs and things like that.
Speaker 1: It wasn't, No, it's not. And so mom would just
Speaker 1: take care of the thing and she would make sure
Speaker 1: everything ran smooth, and you know, everybody did, and it
Speaker 1: would just be one time, Oh my god, she goes,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna come back. I want this house clean. That
Speaker 1: was the big thing, because our house was a big sty.
Speaker 1: She left and I don't know why we got a
Speaker 1: pudding fight. Why the why would you do that. I mean,
Speaker 1: was depit about on Dad's South. It was in the
Speaker 1: dry clan. It was like to this day, if I
Speaker 1: think about that, it just gives me ship. Was feathers
Speaker 1: exactly was There was like an episode of the Brady Bunch,
Speaker 1: like that doesn't happen in real life. No kids getting
Speaker 1: pudding fights with tapioca pudding awful. My dad had four sons,
Speaker 1: he had no money and uh and other people you
Speaker 1: know in the neighborhood they had something you could control
Speaker 1: and managed kids with. Like you know my friends people
Speaker 1: with money lived on the water with my friend's parents
Speaker 1: would be like, if you don't get in there and
Speaker 1: do your homework, they're not getting any gas for the boat.
Speaker 1: ID be like in my bedroom, going not gonna get
Speaker 1: any gas for the boat. I do my homework. If
Speaker 1: it got me gas for the boat, you can bet
Speaker 1: on that. My dad had the fear program. Like we
Speaker 1: go out at night and my dad would be like,
Speaker 1: what time are you coming home? Will You'd be like,
Speaker 1: oh God, please don't yet. And he did an iron finger.
Speaker 1: He had to figure he like, grind it into your
Speaker 1: into your muscle of your chest, and he goes you
Speaker 1: come home at ten thirty, I'm gonna break every bone
Speaker 1: in your body. Were like, okay, we'll bear God please,
Speaker 1: Well you have to as a parent, you have to
Speaker 1: find things of your children love so you can take
Speaker 1: away from them nothing. Now we had no money, yeah,
Speaker 1: now barely making rent. When do you decide you're gonna
Speaker 1: you're gonna try to get up in front of people.
Speaker 1: You formed a comedy group, and how old are you
Speaker 1: when you sit there and go, I want to get
Speaker 1: but I want to try to do stuff in front
Speaker 1: of people. Because we were all in plays growing up.
Speaker 1: There was a thing called Summer Upper at a workshop
Speaker 1: which did Gilbert and Sullivan plays in Des Moines, and
Speaker 1: my sister joined that, and then everybody in the family
Speaker 1: joined that, so we were in all the place in
Speaker 1: high school were you know, it was always and my
Speaker 1: mom and my dad, I found out later went to
Speaker 1: announcer school. My aunt Pat told me and my aunt
Speaker 1: I didn't know about this. He went to ann and
Speaker 1: I'm an announcer. How weird is that? But my mom
Speaker 1: had like pictures of Lucille Ball autographs that she sent
Speaker 1: with so show business was always we knew no one
Speaker 1: an in show But like when we went to do
Speaker 1: show business. People thought we were crazy because nobody from
Speaker 1: des Moines chloris Leachman except chloran Um, what would be
Speaker 1: in show business. It was just the craziest thing. So
Speaker 1: we did wasn't scouting in des Moines? No, he didn't
Speaker 1: show up and yeah, yeah, so what's the first thing
Speaker 1: you did? You got up in front of people? Well
Speaker 1: we did, Yeah, we did comedy comedy. Who's we me?
Speaker 1: My brother Dave and a guy named Greuber. So it
Speaker 1: was the Higgins Boys and Greuber would good name and
Speaker 1: uh we would he was. They started a club, like
Speaker 1: in the seventies, seventy nine, they started a club to
Speaker 1: do comedy in des Moines and so they would perform
Speaker 1: in Omaha the Spaghetti Works in the moment of the
Speaker 1: spaghinning and they just yeah, spaghetti works. They go there
Speaker 1: and then they do circus you play around and so
Speaker 1: then we moved to l A and eighty four. So
Speaker 1: I joined the group. I was what was it like
Speaker 1: for you? Like you were you were gung home? We
Speaker 1: were like yeah, l A. Yeah, No, I wanted to
Speaker 1: go to New York. Why because my whole life I
Speaker 1: wanted to live in New York because everything in the
Speaker 1: world was New York. To me, it was like, you know,
Speaker 1: live television and you know the street, you knew you know,
Speaker 1: like you go to New York and there's no culture shock.
Speaker 1: In my opinion, if you've seen French Connection, you've seen
Speaker 1: New York. You go to l A and I love
Speaker 1: l A. But it was never for me. It was like,
Speaker 1: this is Hollywood Vine. Wait a second, I thought it
Speaker 1: was exactly yeah. And so we lived out there and
Speaker 1: we performed and would do colleges and gigs like that.
Speaker 1: And then um Joe Hodgson, who had MSS Mystery Science
Speaker 1: Theater three thousand and if you guys know that show,
Speaker 1: knew us and he they this place called the Comedy Channel.
Speaker 1: We're doing shows and we would we had performing clubs
Speaker 1: and stuff like that, and he goes, you guys would
Speaker 1: be good in the show. So he paid for us
Speaker 1: to go to Minneapolis and shot a pilot and recreated
Speaker 1: our house and we smoked cigarettes, strake coffee and goofed
Speaker 1: off on this show. And that's how we came back
Speaker 1: to New York and so and there was Comedy Channel
Speaker 1: that moved out for John moved to l A. And
Speaker 1: then John Stewart, who I met at the Comedy Channel,
Speaker 1: said Hey, I'm doing a show. Why don't you come
Speaker 1: out and help me? Not the successful John Stewart show,
Speaker 1: the show before and that one. Yeah, and he so
Speaker 1: he could come on out and we'll go here. And well,
Speaker 1: my brother was working on the show and we had
Speaker 1: fantastic and that got canceled when Farley and all those
Speaker 1: guys left. That was my first year at S And
Speaker 1: first year was when when you when you hosted the show,
Speaker 1: you had done the show more times than I had, right,
Speaker 1: and you never let me forget. But but but when
Speaker 1: you come on the show in how does that happen?
Speaker 1: How do you get what's your first job? You're a writer?
Speaker 1: I think I was like head writer with fred Wolf.
Speaker 1: Maybe like it made you the head writer right out
Speaker 1: of the gate because I was head writer at John Strange. Okay,
Speaker 1: so you you so you have credentials where you're head writing.
Speaker 1: You know, a serious show, the show that's go on
Speaker 1: the air. So when you come and they poach you,
Speaker 1: you go to SNL. No, it got canceled. It was canceled.
Speaker 1: So when you come to Lauren, you come to SNL,
Speaker 1: you become the head writer, you w wolf, how long
Speaker 1: were the head writer for I don't know because titles,
Speaker 1: as you know, are nebulous there, so I know I
Speaker 1: was head writers, like the head head head writer right right, nine,
Speaker 1: producer or something for this Lauren with Lauren took didn't.
Speaker 1: I think he switched. He didn't become executive producer. He
Speaker 1: went down a producer. And then I think Fred and
Speaker 1: I were head co head writers, and there's been other
Speaker 1: head writers, and he wanted to give the executive producer
Speaker 1: title to somebody else. Lew of pain that money, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: and I'm gonna pay you forty dollars a day. What
Speaker 1: was it like for you, the transition. We were getting
Speaker 1: the ship kicked out of us. Every day. Every day
Speaker 1: was Saturday night. Dad. You'd read a article in American
Speaker 1: Heritage about the Battle of Shiloh and they go, the
Speaker 1: Battle of Shilo was long, but not as long as
Speaker 1: a Saturday live scatch, and you're like, come on, and
Speaker 1: it was just on the bed. They were just a
Speaker 1: you know, and so it was you're just and you're
Speaker 1: scared because you know it's a real deal. You know,
Speaker 1: You're you're sitting there and with all these people who
Speaker 1: know way more than you. But everybody was so kind
Speaker 1: Shoemaker and Marcy Klein and Jim Downey was everybody was
Speaker 1: so accepting and opening with exactly. But they were pain
Speaker 1: about the hours that Dad. Yeah, it's it's so. I
Speaker 1: lived there, just stayed there in the city and then
Speaker 1: we'd see my wife would come in on Sunday, I'd
Speaker 1: see the kids and Christmas. Yeah, exactly. But you're there,
Speaker 1: you're living now, and it really has an effect on
Speaker 1: people's lives. When you go to SNL and there's a
Speaker 1: weird camaraderie because they're in a submarine together for like
Speaker 1: week after week to work, and you feel like you
Speaker 1: see somebody who you weren't in the cast with or
Speaker 1: wasn't even at the same time with you, and it's
Speaker 1: like your marines together or something like that, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean. It's like because it is such a
Speaker 1: soul crushing and soul exhilarating experience. It is just strips
Speaker 1: and by show three of a three week run or
Speaker 1: a four week run, there's no filter left. I've seen
Speaker 1: people there. They're right around the table and somebody look
Speaker 1: out the window and go. People are skating on the
Speaker 1: skating rink. Christmas is coming, you know, and someone's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: come back. So the guy has a penis transplant and
Speaker 1: they go right back to the comedy coal mine, you know.
Speaker 1: But it's like they're in that bubble in that building
Speaker 1: and that unique building where the where the world of
Speaker 1: New York is out the window, and you know, and
Speaker 1: even like it's hard goes. Yeah when the tree goes,
Speaker 1: the tree goes something like you just stay in side
Speaker 1: more because you know, there's too many people. We can't
Speaker 1: fight the clouds. We gotta go at the backboard. Now
Speaker 1: sleep here now in the time you've been there, there's
Speaker 1: the video department, and there's a set design and camera
Speaker 1: and talent meaning the cast and their schedules and the hosts.
Speaker 1: And there's a music department for the music. And you
Speaker 1: basically run the writer's department, where again you have had writers,
Speaker 1: but you're the producer that oversees that. And when when
Speaker 1: when people come into are tough, they send me to
Speaker 1: meet them. Yeah. Yeah, uh, it's funny used to say that.
Speaker 1: But the because because you are like that, you're like,
Speaker 1: what's wrong? I am like you know what I am like?
Speaker 1: Did you read c biscu. Your wife's having a baby,
Speaker 1: you can play trump that? Why not? He literally, he's like,
Speaker 1: they're like this, you've already had four babes, isn't the novelty?
Speaker 1: Warn If you're gonna again and again, TiVo it, TiVo
Speaker 1: it better view. But in the time you've been there, No.
Speaker 1: One of the things you do is you have to
Speaker 1: scout talent. You do do this every explain to them
Speaker 1: that rhythm this. The season ends in May and everybody
Speaker 1: takes a bit of a break and then you gotta
Speaker 1: go out. You gotta go do what In the summer,
Speaker 1: we usually we go to people go to l A
Speaker 1: and I go. I go to Chicago now when Lauren goes,
Speaker 1: and we'll go see people every year, so we just
Speaker 1: know who's out there. Yeah, in the sketch people's comedy world,
Speaker 1: because it's a weird sketch comedy is a weird it's
Speaker 1: not stand up and it's not acting. It's like a
Speaker 1: merge of both, especially SNL's like it's not film, it's
Speaker 1: not TV, and it's not live theater. But it's all
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, it's a very odd skill set.
Speaker 1: Why would you want to work anywhere else. Why would
Speaker 1: you want to go to movies, you know what I mean?
Speaker 1: You sit there, they roll it again and again and
Speaker 1: again to no audience alone dark theater. I'm not making
Speaker 1: any money yea in the movie business. Now. Um, Now,
Speaker 1: for you people who are in comedy world, they all
Speaker 1: as the trade just to say, ankle out to l
Speaker 1: A as quickly as possible. L as. L A still
Speaker 1: a big hub of comedy writing. And there's a lot
Speaker 1: of sitcoms out there. But you have no desire. You
Speaker 1: don't want to go out there like you want to
Speaker 1: develop shows sitcoms. I think once I exceeded my dream
Speaker 1: so far. I hope my wife is not listening to this.
Speaker 1: That my it was like, why would I want to
Speaker 1: go anywhere else? Because it's not There's not one part
Speaker 1: of your brain that doesn't get used, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean. When you're doing on the show, it's like,
Speaker 1: they're good, what's this sketch about? It's about the you know,
Speaker 1: the Norman invasion. Well I know a little bit about that,
Speaker 1: you know, whatever it is. And it's still amazing to
Speaker 1: me that some you'll think of some crazy idea Wednesday
Speaker 1: morning at noon, right it up Thursday Friday, it's done
Speaker 1: on Saturday. They've got costumes, they've got the beer. The
Speaker 1: makeup is amazing. The costumes are amazing, the sets are amazing.
Speaker 1: Many many Emmys for all their makeup very quickly. It's
Speaker 1: insane how good people are there. And I like living
Speaker 1: in New York because I think that it's it's more
Speaker 1: for me. It's not a one industry town, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean. So it's like you'll meet some my
Speaker 1: neighbor as a banker, and this guy's a plumber, and
Speaker 1: this guy does this, and mone there's a range of
Speaker 1: mountains to climb, and you know what real wealth is
Speaker 1: because it's not show business, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: And so you're in New York and you'll see like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, look at that. And it's a different feel.
Speaker 1: And again, my brother's my brother. I lives in l A.
Speaker 1: He writes uh on shows. He loves it there, but
Speaker 1: desire to make films. I would write films for some people,
Speaker 1: but it's like that thing of SNL would consume so
Speaker 1: much my time and I'm really quite lazy. I don't
Speaker 1: like working like you do a lot of things. Jerry
Speaker 1: Sein felt, something to me goes you don't like a
Speaker 1: lot of blank pages on the gal You're like a van,
Speaker 1: gotta book everything. Your joy is to be busy while
Speaker 1: you're talking to some of your phone. I'm heading out
Speaker 1: to the opening of a Burger candidates out tree signing.
Speaker 1: You'll call me every time you call me, you're busy.
Speaker 1: I'm just sitting there. Yeah, you call me, what's going on?
Speaker 1: I'm busy. It's like John Alexander, my friend who's who's
Speaker 1: very dear friends with Lauren. He said to me, they'd say,
Speaker 1: come on over, we're gonna have blunch with Mick Jagger.
Speaker 1: And I'd say, well, I can't do that. I gotta
Speaker 1: go to an event at guild Hall. They were like Jesus.
Speaker 1: Then like, you know, two weeks they're like, come on over.
Speaker 1: You know, McCartney's gonna come over and have a sing
Speaker 1: a longna have a sing a long. Gardener's gonna tea
Speaker 1: us how to play the days. Yeah, he's gonna tell
Speaker 1: us stories about the Beatles. No one's known the Beatles
Speaker 1: that nobody's ever heard. A dinner is gonna be you
Speaker 1: and me, and he's gonna play you some barber strikes
Speaker 1: and and I'm gonna play some tapes on the cab
Speaker 1: and then every cardener is gonna take us to a
Speaker 1: secret trap door we had, like a recording studio, and
Speaker 1: I'm like, no, I can, I gotta go host the
Speaker 1: thing at guild Hall and uh and um see you
Speaker 1: think the fact that you've got me even to come here.
Speaker 1: I don't like leaving my house. SNL producer, writer and
Speaker 1: Tonight Show announcer Steve Higgins. If you're enjoying all the
Speaker 1: SNL talk, take a listen to Kristen Wigg who joined
Speaker 1: me on Here's the Thing for an exit interview of sorts.
Speaker 1: Every Saturday, you do something that you're scared to do.
Speaker 1: I will miss that feeling. And of course you have
Speaker 1: absolutely no prospects whatsoever. It's a really ballsy move on
Speaker 1: your part because who the f can hire you? I
Speaker 1: don't know. I'm made open up the canoe shop. The
Speaker 1: rest of that interview and more that Here's the Thing
Speaker 1: dot Org when we come back with Steve Higgins more
Speaker 1: of my favorite SNL moments, and he tells the story
Speaker 1: of how he got started with Fallon on the Tonight Show.
Speaker 1: I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing.
Speaker 1: Hi'm Alec Baldwin, and you were listening to Here's the Thing.
Speaker 1: Now more from Steve Higgins on the hard work of
Speaker 1: hiring for us. And now that's the drag about being
Speaker 1: in comedy. How do you make somebody hate their hobby?
Speaker 1: You pay them? Because now you look at something you
Speaker 1: can't It's like I'll go to my children's graduation and go,
Speaker 1: can't they speed this up? Why do they take it
Speaker 1: so much time base versus name? They can't just get
Speaker 1: it to go? So you look at things differently. So
Speaker 1: I see it when people perform and they make me
Speaker 1: feel like an audience member, and you go, how did
Speaker 1: you come up with that? You know what I mean,
Speaker 1: Like like Leslie just barrels over you, you know, eighty
Speaker 1: does something just delightful thing that some crazy to us
Speaker 1: Cecily or do some character that is like so deep
Speaker 1: that you're going, like people from the town that she's
Speaker 1: doing will go, so did she spend a lot of
Speaker 1: time in Manx? You know? I mean like that? And
Speaker 1: then Kate will just come up with these, but you
Speaker 1: know her Giuliani, It's just it's just like you're going, like,
Speaker 1: where did that so to me, it's very And the calendar, yeah,
Speaker 1: she said, I'm doing all the talk shows. It's like
Speaker 1: an advent calendar. So that's like just a treat. And
Speaker 1: it's like, oh the dudes, Keenan, come on, Kenan Thompson.
Speaker 1: It's like, you know, and just all the dudes are great.
Speaker 1: I mean because I've seen I've been there for twenty
Speaker 1: or years and you see these people and it is
Speaker 1: the same thing. It's like, I love talent. That's why
Speaker 1: I love you. I love talent. People who are talented,
Speaker 1: you'll move heaven and earth so that their talent can
Speaker 1: be seen by people. And I think that's what my
Speaker 1: job is, to help them get out of their way
Speaker 1: so that they can be the best them they can be.
Speaker 1: So my notes, hopefully are more like to get you
Speaker 1: to do what you need to. You need direct you
Speaker 1: can't s I'm not go out there. I'm like, it's
Speaker 1: this weird sound thing. It's a it's a it's a
Speaker 1: it's a an acoustic thing. Like you know, all my
Speaker 1: memories are all about line meetings and somebody would do
Speaker 1: some little thing, you know. I always tell the story
Speaker 1: about how I never laughed on the air ever, until
Speaker 1: I worked with Phil Harpman, the late Phil Hartman, And
Speaker 1: there was a scene righte did my bad Marlon Brando.
Speaker 1: There's an explosion at the chemical factory and I'm taking
Speaker 1: Victoria Jackson with me and we're gonna leave the town.
Speaker 1: And Phil Hartman is her father who runs the chemical plant.
Speaker 1: And right as we're about to leave and he's about
Speaker 1: to try to stop us, his side kick comes in
Speaker 1: and says, hey, you know, telling him a night just blue, sir.
Speaker 1: You know there's chemic, there's a there's a there's a
Speaker 1: FOG's a mist all over you know, the back yard.
Speaker 1: And Phil Harmon like completely never did it this way
Speaker 1: in any of the recause that on the air, you
Speaker 1: see him grab me, go kick me with you, and
Speaker 1: I spit up laughing on the air. I fucking lost
Speaker 1: it on the air. It's like back I had to
Speaker 1: stop myself from laughing. When Beck is putin and Beck says,
Speaker 1: you'll take this alphon the shelf on the mantel next
Speaker 1: to your intern the route. Yeah, and I just thank
Speaker 1: you very much for your gift that of here. I'm
Speaker 1: sorry I didn't buy you a gift, and he says no,
Speaker 1: Mr President, you are the gear, and he says that line.
Speaker 1: Just say every He's like, you are the gear, and
Speaker 1: everything is their sound, their lines and readings and this
Speaker 1: and that. Now speaking of Trump, because we're gonna take
Speaker 1: some questions. Speaking of Trump, now, you and I both know,
Speaker 1: and I think it's necessary for us to be honest
Speaker 1: with people. You voted for him that I thought, I
Speaker 1: thought you want to keep that secret. But let's face
Speaker 1: it that in the halls of SNL you had like
Speaker 1: forty people. I mean, I was told you wanted Eddie
Speaker 1: Murphy over me to play Trump. Is that true? You
Speaker 1: want Edie Murphy by trumped Murry, come him do anything? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Come on? Yeah. But when this comes up out and
Speaker 1: we have to how did you feel? Not in terms
Speaker 1: of because I think the essa L people are pretty mercenary.
Speaker 1: When Trump won the election, we hope that on that morning, Hot, damn,
Speaker 1: we're gonna have some fun. I wish um that was crazy. Yeah.
Speaker 1: We did three shows before he was gonna lose. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we thought everybody thought he was gonna lose. My wife
Speaker 1: would go, he's gonna win, He's gonna win. I don't know,
Speaker 1: He's not that wife. Yeah, she knew it she was
Speaker 1: on Facebook. I don't like the Facebook, so I stay off.
Speaker 1: We did three shows. People say to me, you know,
Speaker 1: your Trump really isn't that good. I go, well, I
Speaker 1: try to make it like as two dimensional as the
Speaker 1: man himself is trying to make it very like. You know,
Speaker 1: there's a couple of quick moves and uh the uh
Speaker 1: wait till they see this year's oh and totally redesigned
Speaker 1: like like an Apple phone. Yeah, I mean we were
Speaker 1: taking away to the botton wireless charging you never know charging,
Speaker 1: but the uh no. But when we did it, I
Speaker 1: mean I remember you, mum gonna do it three times?
Speaker 1: And how much could I get hurt if I fucking
Speaker 1: three Trump shoving it off? And then also when I
Speaker 1: turned out, I gotta do it eight teen more times.
Speaker 1: It's like whoa, No. Ninth coming up. But when you
Speaker 1: do the show, obviously because I learned this from Lauren,
Speaker 1: you do back off. There's sometimes you sit there and go, well,
Speaker 1: we can't just like hit the guy with a coutl
Speaker 1: because that's the drag of it is. We try to
Speaker 1: be even handed, you know what I mean, And it's hard.
Speaker 1: It is hard, Like the best evern't been the olden
Speaker 1: days when it was like Bush and Gore try to
Speaker 1: be fair. It's hard, though, it's very hard. You try
Speaker 1: to make it because you don't want to because it
Speaker 1: just gets boring. Does to pound something over and over?
Speaker 1: Just go there's got to be something, you know, It's
Speaker 1: just something that's not crazy. It's like a televangelis. They're
Speaker 1: hard to make fun of because it's just like they're
Speaker 1: they're already yeah, yeah, you'll come into my room. I
Speaker 1: like you change this page nine, page fourteen, and you'd
Speaker 1: walk out and be like, I gotta help a meteor
Speaker 1: hits this building, but now and just kills all of us.
Speaker 1: I just I can't go out and do this goddamn
Speaker 1: show one more time, please God. Now, who are people
Speaker 1: who have left the show? Who are some of the
Speaker 1: ones who you really admire, Like the careers like Farrell
Speaker 1: and McKay and work really well together, to Tina and
Speaker 1: Carl Tina and Carlo were forgetting, and then writers to
Speaker 1: like Mike Sure and people like that. It's like there's
Speaker 1: so many people. It's like if you go through an
Speaker 1: IMDb page and do a thing in comedy, I would
Speaker 1: say it's probably of the people worked at s and
Speaker 1: now who are you? Know what I mean. It's like
Speaker 1: a giant percentage you forget like I'm Greg Daniel. You
Speaker 1: know everybody Conan and if they haven't done it, they've
Speaker 1: hosted it, you know what I mean. So it's a
Speaker 1: very weird. That's another reason I never need to go
Speaker 1: to l A or leave because everybody I know comes
Speaker 1: to visit. Eventually, you either down a Jimmy or up
Speaker 1: on SNALYSIS just like you sit there long enough? Is
Speaker 1: that calfinagas? How's it going? Um, We're gonna bring the
Speaker 1: lights up and take some questions. Everybody gotta their hand up.
Speaker 1: We have some mics in the audience. There's Mike Peters,
Speaker 1: I see Mike Johnson, and you got a question for
Speaker 1: us right here? Go ahead, So we have a great
Speaker 1: let's wait for the Mike. That's a very casual stroll
Speaker 1: you have there, Mr Mike. When I first started with SNL,
Speaker 1: I was no problem staying up. Now I see SNL
Speaker 1: on Sunday morning and I just wonder how you deal
Speaker 1: with the demographics of your television audience. Well, I think
Speaker 1: that the thing that we learned when SNL as Lauren
Speaker 1: would be went from a show to being an institution,
Speaker 1: because when when I came there, Farley Spade, all those guys,
Speaker 1: it was reviled that New York magazine cover, and then
Speaker 1: they all two years later going, oh my god, that
Speaker 1: was the past year's ever. So whatever year you watched
Speaker 1: it in high school or college, that to you is
Speaker 1: the best. Everything before that is garbage. Everything after that
Speaker 1: is garbage. So it's like a thing and you go
Speaker 1: through and then and it is. The Democrats should be
Speaker 1: like the Simpsons, where there's you know, as Longe calls it,
Speaker 1: a big tent show where there's something for everybody. You know,
Speaker 1: there's a sketch that that and also hopefully all the
Speaker 1: references are correct and the costumes are correct and every
Speaker 1: so there's something to enjoy, but it is aimed at
Speaker 1: where the money is not us anymore. What's the biggest
Speaker 1: f up you saw on the show live? Where even
Speaker 1: you sat there and it doesn't happen that often. Believe me,
Speaker 1: they were all very very very good and smart at
Speaker 1: what they do. But there must have been something you
Speaker 1: saw you were like, oh god, one time, I think
Speaker 1: it was a Mikey Today sketch. It was this forst
Speaker 1: Centaur vodka. Bruce Willis was hosting Who's a Delight, and uh,
Speaker 1: he just got the cards mixed up and walked out
Speaker 1: in the middle of the sketch, and I was like,
Speaker 1: what you're freaking you know what I mean? Because cars
Speaker 1: are it's very confusing, all these things like that. You
Speaker 1: didn't do it on perfect We did that on the
Speaker 1: air with the Trump thing where we ran out of
Speaker 1: the shot. Run back about that. So that person that
Speaker 1: sucked up Bruce Willis, they're still there. Yeah, yeah, there,
Speaker 1: they got a promotion. Sucked me up. It makes good television.
Speaker 1: Who else? Right back, bro, I'm a leo. So has
Speaker 1: there ever been a time where you could not come
Speaker 1: up with anything? Have you ever been really stunned? Yes?
Speaker 1: A lot of the show. It is like the muse
Speaker 1: hits you, and the muse can leave you and you
Speaker 1: just hope it comes back someday and you'll be sitting
Speaker 1: there and I don't write, um even when I did, right,
Speaker 1: I was like writing with people because I'm in my
Speaker 1: as I tell new writers, you can either be paid
Speaker 1: to laugh or be paid to be miserable. Your call
Speaker 1: up to you, and I always chose to I would
Speaker 1: lay on a couch and you know, Keim word or
Speaker 1: Mike sure Carl like what said at the typewriter, and
Speaker 1: we do sketches and we and you know, we do stuff.
Speaker 1: But the thought of me writing alone in a room.
Speaker 1: I did that. I wrote pilots and things like that,
Speaker 1: and I hated it. So it was more fun at
Speaker 1: goof off like it was more like you do in
Speaker 1: real life. It was like I wanted to put what
Speaker 1: I would do at home with my brothers. I'd be
Speaker 1: more Saliary than Mozart. And there is stuff that ends up,
Speaker 1: you know, on the cutting room floor, so to speak,
Speaker 1: because if you're laughing too if we're laughing too hard
Speaker 1: at something, we know it's not gonna make it because
Speaker 1: we are jade. You know. When we first did Tony
Speaker 1: Bennett Show, Paul Appelle wrote all the Tony Bennett Show
Speaker 1: sketches and the very first one didn't get on air.
Speaker 1: So I'm Tony Bennett, I'm hosting my talk show. We're
Speaker 1: gonna bring out this rabbi who's written a book about
Speaker 1: the looting of Jewish art and treasures by the Nazis
Speaker 1: during World War Two. And I said, Nazi gold, this great,
Speaker 1: great great, great book written by my first guest, Rabbi
Speaker 1: Gush Thedeman. Come out out here, Rabbi Sedeman, and I say, so,
Speaker 1: you wrote this book, and I want to ask you
Speaker 1: my first question. What's your beef with the Nazis? Yeah?
Speaker 1: And the Jewish holidays were that time of the show Humans,
Speaker 1: and I like it goes, maybe we'll call this one. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like there's some great stuff, but maybe not such a
Speaker 1: good idea. Yeah, you know it's weird. Got over here
Speaker 1: Trump at side. Who's the funnest person for both of
Speaker 1: you that you've made fun of? You know, we we
Speaker 1: we We've had a lot of fun. But the greatest
Speaker 1: moment for me was when we got Tony Bennett to
Speaker 1: come on and do the Tony Bennett Show. And I
Speaker 1: cried when we were done, I cried. So we leave
Speaker 1: and he goes to the cast. Everybody wants a picture
Speaker 1: with him. He's got his assistant there with a suit bag.
Speaker 1: He's like a real show business, old school guy. And
Speaker 1: he turns to the cast. They take the picture of
Speaker 1: him by the elevator bank and he's leaving. He goes,
Speaker 1: I want to say thank you all very much. Your
Speaker 1: kids are fantastic. That was a million dollar night on
Speaker 1: Ironically and ironic. I was getting married to my wife,
Speaker 1: who is a little bit younger than I am, a
Speaker 1: little bit his wife, and we're going to his school
Speaker 1: out in Queen's to do this benefit. And we're sitting
Speaker 1: there and the woman who's the principal of the school
Speaker 1: that he runs and says, us he's getting married. I
Speaker 1: saw in the paper that here getting married. And I said, yes,
Speaker 1: I have said, well, my wife was a lot younger
Speaker 1: than I am. And I said, but you know a
Speaker 1: little bit at what that's like, Tony. And he's there
Speaker 1: with his wife, Susan, who's even younger than even more
Speaker 1: of an age difference, and I said, you know that
Speaker 1: worked out for you, and without waking, he looks at
Speaker 1: me goes, I always tell people, consider the alternative. Is
Speaker 1: it okay? Yeah, all right, I'm gonna go with that.
Speaker 1: Consider the alternative. I said it to the priest during
Speaker 1: my way. I consider the alternative. Father. I'm just saying,
Speaker 1: who else a couple more right here? Right here? That
Speaker 1: was to as I ended up on the Tonight Show.
Speaker 1: Because when Jimmy was on the show, uh, we would
Speaker 1: just do bits and goof off constantly, and we had
Speaker 1: an affinity towards that, and we would you know, I
Speaker 1: wrote Jeopardies that Jimmy was in, and Barry give talk
Speaker 1: show and think whatever. He'd you know, Mick Jagger at
Speaker 1: the Mirror. And because Jimmy, to me, what I loved
Speaker 1: about him the most was everybody thought of him as
Speaker 1: like this cute little mop top creature, and we knew
Speaker 1: him as this well of comedy knowledge. And so when
Speaker 1: he started that, you know, it's you know, he goes,
Speaker 1: you want to be my sidekick? I go, if it's
Speaker 1: okay with Lauren because I still work on SNL, and
Speaker 1: so Lauren gave it his blessing. So exactly like on
Speaker 1: Wednesday's after run down from read through on this like
Speaker 1: four sketches, I'll rundown, do the show and run back
Speaker 1: up because I'm only out there for ladies and gentlemen.
Speaker 1: Jimmy fallon ha yeah, and then so I guess comes on,
Speaker 1: I'm out of there. You know, I'm back upstairs to
Speaker 1: my day job, getting like seven and a half eight
Speaker 1: million a year for the nine an episode nine an episode.
Speaker 1: So who else we got than Trump got elected? Back
Speaker 1: there right there, I se there you go. Yeah, there
Speaker 1: are so many times either candidates officials are so over
Speaker 1: the top the writers sometimes feel kind of super I
Speaker 1: think that it's it's the it is the hard thing.
Speaker 1: As you said of Trump, it's like men, you go
Speaker 1: when he goes farther than you would have ever gone,
Speaker 1: Like the when you're telling them about the McCay sketch
Speaker 1: that guy now would have won. The guy wiped his
Speaker 1: ask with a flag and stuff like that. So it's like,
Speaker 1: it's hard to keep it real. Who else we got
Speaker 1: a couple more yes right here, and there was somebody
Speaker 1: up top. We're gonna get you right over here. Then
Speaker 1: we're gonna have you shout. I need shout, all right. Well,
Speaker 1: a couple of weeks ago, Kelsey Grammar actually announced that
Speaker 1: there is going to be a reboot of Fraser. And uh,
Speaker 1: the question is, in this current climate of comedy, how
Speaker 1: do you think a Fraser reboot will be received? And
Speaker 1: should the TV industry stop relying on reboots and come
Speaker 1: up with more new material? Well, yes, but I think
Speaker 1: it is. I find that besides the you know, it's
Speaker 1: just hard to get anything made that somebody's gonna say
Speaker 1: yes to. And I do find I'm guilty of this.
Speaker 1: If I flipped through and me TV comes on and
Speaker 1: there's some show from my childhood before all this Michigun
Speaker 1: stuff was happening, I will sit there and watch it
Speaker 1: and go, oh, that was a good time. It will
Speaker 1: it will take me out of this. So I think
Speaker 1: there's also a giant nostalgia thing. But do I wish
Speaker 1: they'd quit making more? Who coo am I to say,
Speaker 1: I'm just a sketchwriter apparently, But I think that that,
Speaker 1: you know, obviously, these reboots, it's like, if you think
Speaker 1: it's unoriginal, they don't care. Is there an audience for that?
Speaker 1: Sent Comcast? Comcast cares, but they don't care if that
Speaker 1: people might criticize that reboot thing. If they get uh,
Speaker 1: David Hype Pierce, if they get all the original gang
Speaker 1: back together, What could be wrong with that? When those
Speaker 1: guys were really, really, really funny, but um now, please
Speaker 1: stand up and give us your best operatic performance. It
Speaker 1: was Chris and Sarah who had another song, and then
Speaker 1: Leonard Cohen had just died, and so that's how the
Speaker 1: Hallelujah thing came in it. But that wasn't until dress,
Speaker 1: wasn't it let me do it air. We did a
Speaker 1: different Yeah, it was like a very very up until
Speaker 1: the last minute, you know, it was one likes the
Speaker 1: sweet when it works. Sometimes we do some very tender
Speaker 1: things and they're very kind of if it's at the
Speaker 1: right moment. Everything I look at critically, I look I
Speaker 1: divide it into three parts. So a third of the
Speaker 1: shows suck, a third of the shows are okay, and
Speaker 1: a third of them are really wonderful. And if you
Speaker 1: hit that march, if you're bating three thirty three, then
Speaker 1: you're doing well because to grind that out, you know,
Speaker 1: you're you're in a room on a Monday, and uh,
Speaker 1: then the show was on the air, and the sets
Speaker 1: are built in your broadcasting a live TV show on
Speaker 1: a Saturday, it's it's nothing short of a miracle. And
Speaker 1: when you host, when you've hosted a few times, you
Speaker 1: come the writer's uh tell the ideas to the host
Speaker 1: on Monday, and when it's Alec, they don't put out
Speaker 1: any effort because they go, we'll get it, we'll get
Speaker 1: hang on, what do you got? That's okay? I'll never
Speaker 1: forget down. He's there, he's the head writer down. He
Speaker 1: comes to me and I go, so, what's the monologue?
Speaker 1: Because I was always obsessed. If we don't have a
Speaker 1: good monologue, it might be tough to be coming about.
Speaker 1: I'm like, what's the monologue? It's like Thursday night. He's like, oh,
Speaker 1: I got some great and I want to showt you
Speaker 1: now by so good, I mean, I don't want to well,
Speaker 1: I'm still kind of playing with the but this is
Speaker 1: gonna be really good. Friday comes, I'm like, can I
Speaker 1: see the mone Like, oh, it's so good. It's really good.
Speaker 1: He doesn't have a fucking idea what we're gonna do.
Speaker 1: And then finally he hands me the monologue. On the Saturday,
Speaker 1: I just got divorced from my first wife, and I
Speaker 1: come out there and he has me come out there,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, you know, this is a time of
Speaker 1: transition in my life. And uh, you know, I've had
Speaker 1: a lot of changes in my life, but one thing
Speaker 1: that's always been there for me and like a home
Speaker 1: for me a Saturday night love and out comes Daryl
Speaker 1: Hammett as Clinton and he comes in. He goes Alec Baldwin.
Speaker 1: Alec Baldwin, he said, you gotta put your oars in
Speaker 1: the water and row your way towards the island of
Speaker 1: Poonani and I'm saying I'm not. He goes, You're gonna
Speaker 1: be having it hot and cold on tap my brother,
Speaker 1: and he starts saying all these vulgar euphemisms. Um, but
Speaker 1: I want to say that, you know, you are, besides me,
Speaker 1: unbelievably funny and God knows you are. But you're also
Speaker 1: such a gracious, gracious colleague. Whenever I've done that show,
Speaker 1: I mean, you're one of the main reasons I come back,
Speaker 1: because even though we don't enjoy always Trump himself, you know,
Speaker 1: embodying him. It's been such a joy to work with
Speaker 1: you these last years. And thanks for doing the show
Speaker 1: with me. Thanks, thanks for coming you k Thank the
Speaker 1: incomparable Steve Higgins of des Moines's finest sketch comedy troupe,
Speaker 1: The Higgins Boys and Gruber. I'm proud to call him
Speaker 1: my friend. I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's
Speaker 1: the Thing.