Dark Side of the 90's S3 Episode 5
Dark Side of the 90's Season 3 Episode 5
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00:00In the 90s, depending on who you ask, Saturday Night Live is an unsinkable comedy institution.
00:17Or the Titanic, crashing into an iceberg of audience disappointment.
00:24Either way, the captain of the SNL ship is Lorne Michaels.
00:29He has a healthy amount of respect for him, and probably a healthy amount of fear.
00:35He really does like that sense of being the master of this domain.
00:40But in Lorne's domain, there's onstage controversy.
00:43Fight the real enemy.
00:47And a sometimes toxic workplace.
00:50Lorne made the show competitive.
00:51No loss.
00:52Where the show's biggest star is asked to pay the highest price.
00:58There was a lot of inside talk about why the hell is Farley even hosting the show.
01:02Comedy can get along with that, anyway.
01:04I don't mean to be analyzing the id of Lorne Michaels.
01:08But I do get the sense that that show runs thanks to the machinations of this guy.
01:15This is where we leave.
01:16Okay.
01:17Good luck.
01:18Live from New York, it's Saturday Night Live!
01:44Saturday Night Live's 40th anniversary special in 2015 brings together a who's who of America's
01:50comedy stars.
01:51Susan, what about actors?
01:52The impressive gathering of former hosts and cast members is evidence of SNL's enduring
01:57power to launch careers by creating some of the most enduring comedic characters in TV
02:03history.
02:04How is that fashion?
02:05I'm just a caveman.
02:06There's you there!
02:07But the real star maker at the anniversary is not the TV show, but the man who first
02:13created SNL, Lorne Michaels.
02:16What can be said about Lorne Michaels that he himself has not already said?
02:22Like the Wizard of Oz, comedy's man behind the curtain works hard at remaining a mystery,
02:27even to the people who work with him.
02:30Any adjective in the English language we could find applied to Lorne Michaels, sadist, genius,
02:39caring, paternal, you know, mean-spirited, cold, powerful.
02:45Even the media struggles to find the right adjective to describe him.
02:48Controlling?
02:49Uh, controlling, you know, sort of has a negative context, I'd say in charge.
02:56So I don't know what is the deal with Lorne Michaels.
03:06How do you know it's funny?
03:08That's what a live audience tells you.
03:10In the late 60s, 25-year-old Lorne Michaels, a former University of Toronto English major,
03:16begins writing and acting on Canadian radio and TV.
03:19A Canadian beaver.
03:21Before moving to Hollywood to write for Laugh-In.
03:23Very interesting.
03:30In the early 70s, he pitches NBC a Saturday late-night comedy variety show he claims will
03:36draw a new audience by reflecting the decade's youth culture.
03:40Beginning on October the 11th, Saturday night, we'll open up a whole new live venture from
03:43New York City, from Studio 8H here at Rockefeller Center.
03:47And we just happen to have the producer of the program, Mr. Lorne Michaels, with us.
03:51What should we look for on your program?
03:53Anxiety.
03:54That anxiety will mostly be inflicted on NBC's censors.
03:59Live from New York!
04:05Welcome to Saturday Night!
04:08In the fall of 1975, I was 16 years old when I first saw Saturday Night Live.
04:15Thanks for joining us live.
04:17My name is Robert Thompson.
04:18I'm a professor of television and popular culture.
04:21Up until that point, late-night television was The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson.
04:27Here's Johnny!
04:33In retrospect, that just seemed so much the stuff your parents watched.
04:39Here, this da-da, this weird, this trippy type of programming.
04:49It was so different.
04:52John Belushi did Samurai Delicatessen, and it was nothing like it on television.
04:57Saturday Night Live really shifted the way people saw comedy.
05:02On our top story tonight...
05:03On our top story tonight...
05:06Everybody was kind of shocked by certain things that were shown on the shows.
05:09But you wouldn't know about that, Dan.
05:11Jane, you ignorant slut.
05:15I'm Mariel Hemingway, and I am an actress.
05:18And in 1995, I hosted Saturday Night Live.
05:22Since it launched in the 70s, it was such a huge part of my young adulthood.
05:31I'll never forget Julia Child.
05:36They were really a part of something that, I don't know, that just means something to
05:42your entire generation.
05:51Saturday Night Live was this industry by this time manufacturing these stars, but it was
05:59also really, really effective at manufacturing distress, anxiety, angst, fear.
06:09Most of that is a byproduct of how Lorne Michaels prefers to work.
06:13Lorne Michaels has the biggest heart in show business.
06:15You see, he hired that director when nobody else was hired.
06:20For Lorne, creating a successful live 90-minute show from scratch every week requires an insanely
06:27competitive all-night free-for-all.
06:30Lorne Michaels once told me that he set the show up to be late hours because of his schedule.
06:36And he had us working off of his sleep schedule.
06:40You've got 90-hour work weeks.
06:42They are on a weekly basis making in six days what should take about three weeks.
06:48That is a hazardous work environment.
06:51It's foxhole writing.
06:52It's like the, is there any vile stuff that we do?
06:54Yeah.
06:55We get tired sometimes, you know, and just go until we drop or die.
07:00As Lorne tells Oprah Winfrey on her podcast, he sees the exhaustion as a feature, not a
07:05bug.
07:06Fatigue is your friend.
07:10Through exhaustion and through people just being so depleted, the stuff around the nerve
07:14endings gets worn away and you take way bigger risks.
07:20Including for some, using cocaine to fuel those all-night creative writing binges.
07:31How about the use of intoxicants to aid the creative process?
07:35You don't perform your best on drugs.
07:37You don't necessarily write your best on drugs, you know.
07:41You have to perform totally straight, I mean, or else your instincts aren't always there.
07:47Belushi may believe that, but he doesn't practice what he preaches.
07:50News of his cocaine abuse becomes public knowledge.
07:54Lorne Michaels and his writers see it as something to laugh about.
07:57Look, I can't put this man on television.
07:59He's, I mean, he's barely awake.
08:01Lorne, if John Belushi could speak, he'd tell you he's got to go on.
08:07In a 1990 interview, Lorne reveals that two years after this sketch, a real doctor tells
08:12him backstage that Belushi is unable to perform after partying all week with Ronnie Wood of
08:18The Rolling Stones.
08:20His lungs were filling up.
08:22Life is played on a sad stage.
08:26Women!
08:27But Lorne says he replied to the warning with a punchline.
08:30The doctor said if he goes on the ulcer, 50-50 he'll die.
08:35And I said, probably just because I was angry, I said, I can live with those odds.
08:40Belushi beats the odds.
08:42Thank you all for coming, good night, and goodbye.
08:46But at the end of SNL's fifth season, when NBC refuses to grant Lorne and his cast a
08:51year off for some R&R, he and all of the remaining original, not-ready-for-prime-time players
08:56quit in protest.
09:00When I left it, I was spent, and at the end of five years, it was time for an upheaval.
09:06Lorne says and Belushi stay in touch, even as Belushi's health deteriorates.
09:10We're keeping you awake, John.
09:13I want the Lorne Michaels wedding ring.
09:15On March 5th, 1982, less than a year after attending Lorne's nuptials, Belushi is found
09:21dead in the Chateau Marmont Hotel in West Hollywood.
09:26John Belushi, actor and comedian, is dead at the age of 33, after taking heroin and
09:32cocaine by injection.
09:39There was no laughter here today.
09:41The clown was dead.
09:44His life was very full, and it was, uh, and then it's, it's been, uh, stopped.
09:50Brilliant.
09:51That's the tragedy.
09:52Comedy can get long without anyone.
09:56Saturday Night Live was a Petri dish, and it was a perfect cultured environment for
10:03growing trouble.
10:05In 1985, with the post-Lorne Michaels SNL nearing cancellation for poor ratings, NBC convinces
10:13the show's creator to return for season 11.
10:16He brings in new cast members, including actors Randy Quaid, Anthony Michael Hall, Joan Cusack,
10:23and Robert Downey Jr.
10:25My demands are few, but I'm intelligible!
10:30But the belief that Lorne can immediately right the ship proves overly optimistic.
10:35The season gets dismal reviews, and Lorne starts over in season 12, hiring the man who
10:42will become known as the show's glue, Phil Hartman.
10:46Jimmy, don't make me have to kill you.
10:50Lorne also brings on board Dana Carvey, who teams up with Mike Myers two seasons later
10:57in a signature SNL sketch.
11:00Extreme close-up!
11:01Whoa!
11:02The following year, Michaels welcomes the new decade, with another mostly new cast,
11:13including many young comedians who grew up idolizing SNL, and the man who invented it.
11:20Adam Sandler, David Spade, Chris Farley.
11:26They all went on to be stars, and it's like incredible.
11:27It's just the biggest assembly of talent that I've ever seen in one room.
11:31I'm Fred Wolff, and I worked on Saturday Night Live in the 90s.
11:34I was a writer, eventually head writer, feature player, producer, all-around great guy.
11:41I shared an office with Adam Sandler and David Spade, and Farley always came in, and I was
11:46just a writer.
11:47Those three guys were all stars, and becoming stars.
11:50Maybe I don't look the part.
11:53Above Lorne's new hires, it's Wisconsin native Chris Farley, who stands out with his hard-on-his-sleeve
11:58personality and over-the-top physical antics.
12:03Farley was amazing at just driving force of electricity.
12:12Writing for Chris Farley was a dream, because he would never question anything you did.
12:16I'm Hugh Fink, and I was a writer on SNL in the 90s into the early 2000s.
12:23Chris Farley's breakout sketch was with Patrick Swayze, where they were dancers.
12:28In the Chip and Dale's audition sketch, Farley gets big laughs, but they come from making
12:34fun of his huge physique.
12:37Chris Farley so embraces his own physical body.
12:42Barney, we all agreed that your dancing was great.
12:45Adrian's body was just much, much better than yours.
12:50But then there's the other level, where simply just making fun of a corpulent guy like we've
12:56been doing from Laurel and Hardy and Belushi.
13:03Same way the show played up Belushi's hard partying for laughs back in the 70s.
13:07They all thought I'd be the first to go.
13:11I was one of those live fast, die young, live good-looking corpse types, you know?
13:16In the 90s, Lorne, the man who decides which sketches make it to air, always seems to pick
13:22the ones that find the funny in Farley's obesity and out-of-control behavior.
13:26Comedy and pretty, it never was.
13:32It becomes the only way Farley seems to get laughs on or off stage.
13:38Farley would do things like, one time, he stuck his ass out the window and was taking
13:43a shit from the 17th floor, and we were laughing so hard his face was getting all red.
13:58That was like five minutes out of a 24-hour day.
14:03Farley and I became pretty good friends.
14:05We hung out, and sometimes he would sort of open up to me a little bit.
14:10His father was a little bit off kilter, and mine was, too.
14:14And so I think because of that, we bonded and we talked.
14:18And there's something about him, like, he idolized John Belushi.
14:25And soon, Lorne Michaels will bear witness as another one of his biggest stars jokes
14:30his way over the edge.
14:32Watch me, and I'll do a cannonball.
14:35In the early 90s, comedy on TV is dramatically different from when Lorne Michaels first launched
14:50Saturday Night Live.
14:51Now, cable TV and new comedy shows like In Living Color are cutting into SNL's ratings.
14:58They demonstrate that others are hungrier, younger, more diverse.
15:04Two snaps, a twist, and a kiss.
15:10But if you thought Saturday Night Live was boring, you just had to wait for a minute.
15:15In October 1992, SNL is thrust back into the cultural conversation when Irish singer Sinead
15:24O'Connor finally shows up to be the musical guest.
15:28Two years before, she's already canceled one of her performances because Andrew Dice Clay
15:34was going to be the host.
15:35And that's too bad.
15:36She was a cute bald chit.
15:38He, of course, had a reputation of being a misogynist.
15:43Hooker.
15:44Whoa.
15:45Now, a different cause inspires the singer.
15:49She performs Bob Marley's War, changing the lyrics to highlight what she sees as a systemic
15:54problem in the Catholic Church.
15:56Child abuse, yeah.
15:58Afterwards, she takes out a picture of Pope John Paul II and tears it apart.
16:06Fight the real enemy.
16:11If Lorne Michaels created SNL in the 70s to speak truth to power, in the 90s, it's not
16:17this truth and not that power.
16:20He orders the crew to turn off the applause sign, and the audience falls into a hushed
16:27silence.
16:31NBC bans O'Connor for life.
16:34In an interview weeks later, O'Connor defends her appearance and calls out the Catholic
16:38Church long before the truth of her child abuse claim is exposed.
16:44The church must be brought down, destroyed.
16:46Their days are numbered.
16:47Ireland has the highest instance in Europe of child abuse I experienced of myself.
16:51It will take another 18 years before the Vatican apologizes to Ireland's Catholic sex abuse
16:56victims.
16:57But in 1992, Lorne Michaels, who may be on the wrong side of history, is on the side
17:03of his employer and most Americans who are outraged by her allegation.
17:08A pile of Sinead O'Connor tapes and CDs were crushed by a steamroller in midtown Manhattan
17:13in front of a lunchtime crowd.
17:15I will never again watch Saturday Night Live.
17:19The following week, Lorne tries to appease anyone offended by O'Connor by allowing host
17:23Joe Pesci to condemn her actions in his monologue.
17:27I thought that was wrong.
17:29So I asked somebody to paste it back together.
17:31There.
17:32Three weeks later on Charlie Rose, Lorne seems confused why O'Connor thinks SNL is the place
17:37to challenge authority.
17:39It just seemed why us?
17:41He deflects his reaction to O'Connor by making a joke about the true disaster that night.
17:46Tragic part was having to do two comedy acts after that.
17:52Four months later, NBC, stuck in third place among the major networks, makes sports producer
17:57Don Allmayer president of their entertainment division.
18:01Allmayer makes boosting SNL's flagging ratings a top priority.
18:06Don Allmayer becomes the joker to Lorne Michaels' Batman.
18:13He becomes his nemesis.
18:15For the longest time, Lorne Michaels had tremendous power where he didn't have to listen to any
18:22network notes.
18:23But because of the show being questioned, suddenly NBC was exerting its power.
18:29And I can say as a comedy writer, network notes suck.
18:35The tension with the network intensifies when Lorne gives the weekend update anchor job
18:39to fellow Canadian comedian Norm Macdonald.
18:43Murder is legal in the state of California.
18:47Norm Macdonald was doing a lot of OJ jokes with the assumption of complete guilt.
18:54It was at that moment that he realized he would never be able to kill her again.
19:00Norm would share with me blow by blow details of what was going on.
19:05Don Allmayer resented all the OJ Simpson jokes because Don Allmayer was a personal
19:10friend of OJ Simpson's.
19:12Therefore Norm Macdonald did more OJ jokes on update.
19:16OJ Simpson demonstrated how to stab two people at the same time.
19:22NBC executives were getting madder and madder at him.
19:26I know that there was a big giant sort of push to get him off the show.
19:30And it will work, but not until 1998.
19:34Norm's fired after four years of Allmayer's complaints.
19:38In 1994, Lorne is also dealing with Allmayer's notes regarding the other young comics on
19:43the show, including Chris Farley and David Spade, who began working on the movie Tommy
19:48Boy right in the middle of SNL's 20th season.
19:56They were flying back and forth.
19:57They were shooting Tommy Boy up in Toronto.
19:59It was all about them just making that work and boy they were tired.
20:03It was really, really tiring on them.
20:05Oh, I'm raring.
20:07In the meantime, the show was going on.
20:10Comedy, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
20:15The grueling schedule is wearing down the surprisingly fragile young star.
20:19You are a son of God.
20:22While out promoting the movie, Farley jokes with David Letterman about managing the work
20:26stress.
20:27We were doing the show at the same time, so we'd like break up the monotony and stuff
20:30like that.
20:31He said that he kept trying to bug me about my weight and said I kept eating when I got
20:35nervous.
20:36I have a little bit of a weight problem.
20:37I'm not sure if I need it.
20:40For Lorne Michaels, Farley's little bit of a weight problem is a big and easy opportunity
20:44for SNL's comedy writers.
20:51But Farley's substance abuse problem can't be laughed off and leads to multiple SNL suspensions
20:57and several visits to rehab.
21:01He wanted to get sober a lot of times.
21:05You'd want to say, Chris, man, I think maybe you need to cut back a little bit.
21:11We would talk getting deep into the conversation about it because my brother had a lot of problems.
21:18My brother went to jail for nine years and he killed himself the day he was getting out.
21:24Farley knew that and we connected over that.
21:29He would say that he wants to stop.
21:33That was on his mind a lot, you know, and yeah, yeah, yeah.
21:40By 1995, Chris Farley is just one of many problems at SNL keeping Lorne Michaels up
21:46at night.
21:47NBC's Saturday Night Live has been canceled.
21:53Oh.
21:59Are you OK?
22:01As ratings drop another 19 percent, the media piles on, condemning SNL for uninspired writing.
22:10People were saying the show's not funny.
22:13It's got all these stars who think they're, you know, bigger than they should be.
22:18It's about the writing, the criticism and so forth.
22:20OK.
22:21Right.
22:22OK.
22:23OK.
22:24And I heard that and I got so mad.
22:27And I went to Lorne's office and I go, did you hear what they're saying?
22:30And Lorne said, well, you know, do you know how many times I've heard Saturday Night Live?
22:35No.
22:36Saturday Night Dead.
22:37But even as the man making all the decisions at SNL believes reports of its death are greatly
22:43exaggerated, New York Magazine is preparing to publish Saturday Night Live's obituary.
22:55Lorne Michaels has masterminded one of the longest running comedy shows on television.
22:59He started Saturday Night Live in 1975.
23:02He helms the feature film franchise being developed from the show.
23:06Wayne's World is sequel Wayne's World 2 and The Con Heads.
23:10You hear around people who make you laugh, doing the work you like.
23:13It's a great life and I have a great life.
23:16But in March of 1995, the SNL fame and fortune factory comes under attack in a cover story
23:24that details the behind the scenes dysfunction that exists under the watch of its mercurial
23:29leader Lorne Michaels.
23:34The New York Magazine piece presented a picture that was by no means a comforting one.
23:42We hear stories from Jeanine Garofalo to Sarah Jessica Parker about how, you know, I go into
23:50his office and he wouldn't even look at me.
23:54Or you'd have to wait six hours to get in.
23:57The article quotes an ex-cast member who says, Lorne wants people to feel insecure.
24:03It's the same techniques cults use to keep you up for hours.
24:07They never let you know that you're OK, and they always make you think that your spot
24:11could be taken at any moment by someone else.
24:15Michaels is also criticized for creating a workplace that is both sexist and lacking
24:20diversity, an allegation supported by the numbers.
24:23In 1995, the writing staff has four times more men than women and no black writers.
24:31It truly was a white male dominated show.
24:34Well, I love it when you talk to me when your legs run around my neck.
24:41The sketches really did ooze of testosterone.
24:44The Clarence Thomas hearings.
24:46Couldn't have been easy for you to sit here and talk about penis size.
24:52Loretta Bobbitt jokes.
24:56All of that subject matter that was both headline news and perfect for a room full
25:04of snarky, snotty boys misbehaving and farting and belching.
25:14The cast also talk about being overwhelmed by the class clown attitudes.
25:21The show continued to do stuff that one could accuse of being racist or misogynistic.
25:28A great example would be the Gap Girls.
25:30God, I love these fries.
25:32You love them so much, why don't you marry them?
25:36Why are they having men play these women when there's three other female cast members?
25:43The New York Magazine article also highlights Lorne Michaels' several attractive female
25:47assistants known as the Lornettes.
25:51In their early 20s, one of their duties is apparently to keep them supplied with popcorn.
25:59The author also reports that when Janine Garofalo complains that a sketch is sexist, it brings
26:04down the raft of the man who wrote it, Fred Wolff.
26:07It was a hit piece.
26:09There was not a hiring practice, women were frozen out or whatever, and it just wasn't
26:13true.
26:14It was really not true at all.
26:16And I was sort of upset that that was his conclusion.
26:20True or not, the cover story puts more pressure on SNL's King to clean up his castle and improve
26:26the toxic environment and sexism inside his realm.
26:30Lorne was in charge of managing people's behavior.
26:33And unless it was something deeply criminal or violent, no one was going to interfere
26:40with people's behaviors at the show.
26:44At the end of the 20th season, Michaels caves the network pressure to revamp the show and
26:51fires nine cast members, including Chris Farley and Adam Sandler.
26:56It felt like a purge.
26:59They want to change the dynamic overall, the tone of the show.
27:03For SNL's 21st season in 1995, Lorne asked the show's new co-head writer to find some
27:09talented female performers.
27:11Sherry O'Terry, Molly Channel, Nancy Ball.
27:17I was told to do some outreach and see what females out there.
27:21It was a concerted effort to get more of a female voice on the show, and it worked.
27:24It's like fighting a sword.
27:26It's like fighting a sword.
27:28One of the big sketches was, of course, the cheerleading, Will Ferrell and Sherry O'Terry.
27:34Just because we didn't make the squad doesn't mean we don't have a fighting spirit.
27:38Stop the presses.
27:39The woman in that sketch was actually played by a woman.
27:43The historically testosterone-fueled writers' room gets an estrogen injection when female
27:47writers and producers are hired.
27:50Everyone was new when I started, so it was kind of a good vibe.
27:54Like everyone was ready to start over.
27:57I'm Tanya Rino, and in the 90s, I was a producer for Saturday Night Live.
28:01I produced commercial parodies, animation, like the ambiguously gay duo segments.
28:08Good work, Gary.
28:09That ice monster can't hurt us now.
28:12You were basically working around the clock.
28:14This is where we leave.
28:15Okay.
28:16Good luck.
28:17All right.
28:18Thank you, Lorne.
28:19Tanya soon learns that Lorne Michaels' grueling work-all-night schedule, the approach to live
28:23TV production that led many staffers to abuse drugs in the past, is still happening, even
28:29for those making digital segments.
28:32Getting there to 1130 Eastern Time, Saturday Night Live, can kill you.
28:38I just worked myself to death.
28:41Tanya also learns that Lorne Michaels remains uncomfortable speaking truth to power when
28:46she produces a TV funhouse cartoon called Conspiracy Theory Rock.
28:52The schoolhouse rock parody, written by Robert Smigel, attacks media corporations, including
28:57GE.
28:58The good old GE?
28:59The parent company of NBC.
29:02They're PCBs.
29:03They come from electric power plants built by Westinghouse and GE.
29:07The digital short airs just once before Lorne locks it away.
29:14Lorne's excuse was that it wasn't funny.
29:16Like, I mean, it was funny, but it was ironically funny.
29:18I mean, we were told not to do it again, basically.
29:22Mariel Hemingway!
29:25To mark the supposedly more female-friendly season of SNL, the first episode is hosted
29:29by Mariel Hemingway.
29:31Ironically, the granddaughter of Man's Man author Ernest Hemingway, but best known for
29:35playing Woody Allen's underage girlfriend in the film Manhattan.
29:38Welcome to a brand new season of Saturday Night Live.
29:42There's been a lot of changes over the summer.
29:45I've never done anything live, so I said, look, I'm not a stand-up comic.
29:52So I would love to be able to introduce this new cast.
29:55There's Dave Keckner.
29:56And Will Ferrell.
29:57Hi!
29:58How are you?
29:59There are so many lesbians that I thought it would be really funny if I just ignored
30:04all the men and made out with all the women.
30:07I just love her.
30:12Mariel's idea is female empowerment, with just a hint of SNL's men enjoying an adolescent
30:18lesbian fantasy.
30:19Hey, Lorne.
30:20Oh, Lorne, don't forget to introduce me to your wife at the party tonight.
30:27In her one-week crash course at SNL, Hemingway experiences the atmosphere created by Lorne
30:32Michaels.
30:34Working on SNL really is survival of the fittest.
30:38You really feel like, okay, I'm gonna make it out of here, you know, like I'm a warrior.
30:46But it accelerates at a pace that you're like, it's just not normal.
30:51And that's why I think there's burnout on the people that are there.
30:57They're doing it week after week after week after week.
31:01That's intense.
31:02That's a lot of pressure.
31:05I want to thank everyone, the band, the cast, they're incredible, I love you all.
31:12While Mariel Hemingway proves she's a survivor, Lorne will soon invite someone to host who
31:17should be returning as a conquering hero.
31:20Instead, he'll be thrown to the lions.
31:22Okay, all right.
31:23I'm the new Chris, okay, fellas?
31:32Every vote counts.
31:35With the release of the Lorne Michaels-produced Black Sheep in 1996 and Beverly Hills Ninja
31:41in 97, former SNL cast member Chris Farley is a box office movie star, but watching him
31:47promote his movies...
31:48Yeah, it's funny.
31:50It's hard to be funny, you know?
31:51When you try to be funny, you're not.
31:52So, just try to be real.
31:53One can't help but wonder if Farley's 17 trips to drug treatment centers and ongoing struggle
31:59with obesity is too high a price to pay for fame.
32:03I don't know what's happening.
32:06You're drawing a blank.
32:08He was not in great shape, you know, not in great shape at all.
32:13He had pushed the partying really hard, and it just felt like he was giving up or something.
32:18There was something just had changed about him.
32:21I told Norm MacDonald, I think he'll be dead in three months.
32:27Farley is relapsing at 33, the same age his hero, John Belushi, overdosed and died.
32:33He wasn't going to kill himself on purpose, I don't think, but I think subconsciously
32:38it was on his mind that he wanted to leave at the same age that John Belushi was when
32:42he died.
32:48It's against this backdrop that Lorne Michaels decides to bring Farley back to SNL to guest
32:53host.
32:58People were more than concerned about Farley that week.
33:01There was a lot of inside talking about why the hell is Farley even hosting the show.
33:07In what's become the show's style when confronting an out-of-control performer, be it John Belushi
33:11or Sinead O'Connor, Lorne and the writers mine those concerns for a joke.
33:17With Farley, it's leaning into the anxieties everyone has about Chris's ability to host
33:22in the show's cold open.
33:23How do I know he's not going to screw up?
33:27Because I won't.
33:29When I saw him, you know, hosting, he was very, very heavy, very, very, very, very loud.
33:37But this time, I am not going to let you down, boss.
33:41You'd said that before, Chris.
33:43Chris's behavior in the scene, like a troublesome kid seeking his dad's approval, offers insights
33:50into the relationship Lorne Michaels has with many of his performers.
33:54He birthed their careers, he midwived their fame.
33:59He is, metaphorically, very much a father figure who everybody really wanted to please.
34:05And I think that doesn't go away.
34:09There still is this, I want to please dad.
34:13I want dad to love me.
34:15Can you still fall through a table?
34:18Can I?
34:19I do.
34:26Laughing off at star's addiction issues is one of the rituals of the show Lorne created.
34:31You know what I've learned?
34:32I've learned lessons about responsibility.
34:34Responsibility?
34:36The monologue and sketches in the rest of the show, that mine Farley's wait for laughs,
34:42are also right out of SNL's how-to manual.
34:45The uniquely pathetic quality of Todd's condition convinced us to enlist some help.
34:51I produced a Ted Jurgen.
34:53What?
34:54What did you say, Ted?
34:55I said, I love Italian food, can you tell?
34:59On a podcast in 2021, Farley's fellow cast member, Jim Brewer, reflects on that week
35:05and remembers Chris calling him to his hotel room to confess all the fears and anxiety
35:10returning to SNL has provoked.
35:12He goes, Jimmy, am I funny?
35:16He goes, or am I just a fat, stupid guy?
35:19Girls don't like me, I have to get hookers, and I'm just fat and stupid.
35:24I'm like, no you're not, no you're not.
35:28The next day, we went and did a read-through.
35:31Every sketch was a fat, stupid guy.
35:36I don't have much of the brain department, but when Fatty falls down, everyone goes home happy.
35:44Even though that became his big thing, is to falling into the furniture,
35:48there was always that sense of vulnerability.
35:51I am in dire need of a dance partner, so.
35:55This was a guy that needed a hug.
35:59Whatever motivates Lorne Michaels to bring Chris back to host.
36:02Get your fat ass in gear, it's 1997.
36:05I wear special pants.
36:08The sketches that night fuel all the personal doubts Chris shared with Jim Brewer.
36:14Farley is pushed so far physically during the show that he needs a nurse offstage to give him oxygen.
36:20Jim Brewer believes that something more should have been done.
36:24He clearly needed help.
36:28He had a serious high alert drug issue going on.
36:33Is anyone going to step forward and say, what are we doing this for, raiding?
36:40The man's going to be dead soon.
36:42Does anyone care about his soul or his health?
36:46No? We're products and money?
36:49Oh.
36:51Despite the backstage nurse and other signs that Farley is struggling.
36:57El Nino is Spanish for the Nino.
37:04Chris perseveres through the show's final sketch,
37:07which has him playing a wrestler named after a weather front.
37:14Pushed to the breaking point, it appears the exhausted comedian really has had enough.
37:20No, boss. No, boss.
37:22You heard it, fellow. It's unbelievable.
37:24Ric Flair has subdued the powerful weather phenomenon known as El Nino.
37:35Six weeks later in Chicago,
37:38Chris's brother John discovers the comedy legend in the hallway of his 60th floor condo, not breathing.
37:46My manager called early in the morning. He said, Fred, I have some bad news.
37:49And I'm thinking, OK, I got fired off SNL.
37:51And he said, Chris Farley died.
37:59I was not super surprised to get that phone call, but I was shocked and it wasn't fun.
38:05It wasn't fun at all.
38:09Friends and fans of Chris Farley have gathered outside the Hancock building,
38:13waiting for just any information police and investigators may give.
38:17I couldn't believe it.
38:18I was really saying Chris was a puppy.
38:21He was funny. He made everyone laugh.
38:28He was 33, the target age.
38:36Farley idolized John Belushi.
38:38They died with virtually the same poisons in their veins.
38:48After a four-day drug-fueled binge,
38:51Chris Farley overdoses from a speedball of cocaine and morphine.
39:00Lorne Michaels has now witnessed two of the talented men he helped make famous
39:04die at the same young age and under eerily similar circumstances.
39:10Anytime that anyone has a drug abuse problem,
39:13you can go back and probably see that someone knew,
39:16and probably someone could have stepped in.
39:18It's a tragedy that could have been prevented.
39:30Chris's death is mourned by the SNL community.
39:36I feel relief for Chris that he's not in pain.
39:41I'm thinking he can hear everything I'm saying,
39:43and I'm still trying to make him laugh, and I miss him.
39:48Five months after absorbing the loss of Chris Farley,
39:55the SNL family is once again rocked by tragedy.
40:10Affirmative, we're open 9-1-1-9.
40:13I think there's been a shooting here.
40:16What's up? How many people were shot?
40:18In the early morning of May 28, 1998,
40:21police are called to the home of former SNL cast member Phil Hartman
40:25and discover him murdered by his wife.
40:32Mr. Hartman had been dead for a while.
40:35He did not die at the same time that Mrs. Hartman apparently killed herself.
40:40Police believe the couple's 9-year-old son and 6-year-old daughter
40:44slept through the murder of their father and the suicide of their mother.
40:50Like, what happened here? What the f*** happened?
40:53Because that's insane, obviously.
40:56And no one knows, really, what happened, still.
41:01The SNL family was ruined by that because it came out of the clear blue sky.
41:05As I said during the campaign, I'm just a caveman.
41:09Phil Hartman's ability to do a seemingly endless number of impersonations
41:13You damn dirty ape, what have you done?
41:17puts him on the Mount Rushmore of SNL cast members.
41:20Did somebody say sassy?
41:23His nickname was Glue.
41:25We go for the gold. Yay team.
41:27Because he was the guy that held the sketch together.
41:30Everyone thought that. He could play anything.
41:33And he was solid as a rock.
41:35Brutal. Just brutal, really.
41:40Hartman left SNL in 1994.
41:42In a touching final scene with Chris Farley
41:45Goodbye
41:51the man of a thousand voices says goodbye in voice number one.
41:56His own.
41:59The SNL family, when they lose a member,
42:02even as admired as Phil Hartman,
42:05there's sort of a sense of the show must go on,
42:09that even Phil Hartman wouldn't want people to simply
42:12grieve and fall apart and not be able to be funny.
42:17Despite the show's tragedies in the outside world,
42:20at 30 Rock, Lorne Michaels has always made sure
42:23that Saturday Night Live does go on.
42:28It's a very clear thing that we have a job to do.
42:31We have to get it done.
42:32With SNL's 40th celebration now in its rear view,
42:35it's approaching its incredible 50th season.
42:38And after surviving threats of cancellation,
42:41controversy and tragedy,
42:43the weekly live show performed in the iconic Studio 8H
42:47remains a late night institution.
42:49I think the show's legacy is the fact that,
42:53number one, it survived.
42:55But also, SNL has roots in many different generations.
43:01It has some of the greatest comedians of all time.
43:05They've come, they've gone.
43:07And the legacy is that they've planted a statement
43:12of who we were in each generation.
43:15Live from New York!
43:16Live from New York!
43:17Live from New York!
43:19It's Saturday Night!
43:22Saturday Night Live, however it does it,
43:25has been incredibly efficient.
43:28The fact it's been run by the same cultural warlord
43:33is something of a legend.
43:36And it's still going.
43:38Do you see a day, Lorne,
43:39where you're not sitting in that office?
43:41My plan is to be here for the 50th.
43:44And by that point, I really deserve to wander off.
43:49applause