Florence Snyder“Saturday Night Live” patriarch Lorne Michaels produced an incredibly entertaining one-hour tribute to himself on the occasion of the show’s 40th anniversary.
Sad to say it dragged on two and a half hours longer than it should have, because who’s going to say “no” to the founder of one of the entertainment industry’s most enduring and profitable franchises?
Baby Boomers, Gen X and “whatever you call those little dummies tweeting the show instead of watching it” have been faithful to Michaels because he spends most of his time doing things that always work, and avoids spending time on things that never work. It’s a good management plan for anyone looking to sustain a government, a business or a sketch comedy show.
By the fourth week of SNL’s first season, Michaels had settled on a formula. Writers, cast, crew, and celebrity hosts and drop-ins who could “ride with the rules did fine,” said Seth Meyers, who succeeded Tina Fey as head writer.
Michaels is a ruthless enforcer of the rules, according to all of the SNL alumni who spoke on the red carpet at the anniversary show. He runs his show “exactly like football,” said NFL quarterback Peyton Manning. “You come in Monday morning, put a game plan together, and then you show up and execute the plan.”
Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. Michaels made plenty of hiring mistakes, and he had no problem using pink slips to correct them. No matter how much he might personally like someone, nobody stayed on the payroll if they did not deliver the goods.
It’s a cardinal rule that cast remains in character during a sketch, but Michaels is secure enough to allow the rule to be broken for good cause. One of the highlights of the anniversary show was the debut of an Adam Sandler-Andy Samberg digital short film featuring moments of cast members breaking character because they, and the audience, were having too good a time to stick to the script.
Perhaps the most joyful segment was Martin Short as himself and Maya Rudolph as Beyonce showcasing SNL’s incredibly rich tradition of “music merged with mirth.” No matter how much you hated the Lawrence Welk Show as a kid, it’s somehow reassuring when SNL resurrects “Marty and Bobbi Culp” (Will Ferrell and Ana Gasteyer) to perform a Welk-y arrangement of Uptown Funk.
It takes an extraordinary work ethic to produce good comedy, and enormous discipline to look spontaneous on stage. Betty White, who’s been in show business since before Michaels was born, says SNL is “so beautifully produced, you’ve got to not do your homework to screw up.”
At 70, Michaels is still supervising every detail of every show. That will change one of these days. People retire. People die.
But SNL can go on forever. All it takes is a producer who knows Michaels’ rules and has the fortitude to follow them.
Florence Beth Snyder is a Tallahassee-based lawyer and consultant. Column courtesy of Context Florida.
