Live From New York Part 29

Gary Oldman, who would be my dream host personally, was booked, and on a Thursday night before the Monday that he was supposed to come in, something happened and he had to drop out. I think Tom Hanks came in and really saved us on that one. Gary Sinise was another one. I was so excited. It's always the ones you're like really excited about that drop out. You call in Alec Baldwin, Tom Hanks, John Goodman; John's done it when someone has fallen out. I mean, this is a major thing to ask somebody - "Hey, can you show up in two days?" - when they're not prepared.

No one has ever dropped out during the week of the show, no, because the minute you get here it's too much fun. I mean, honest to G.o.d, they are treated so well. When Jackie Chan got here, he said, "I want to get on the plane and go home." And I went, "Ha ha ha." I said, "I promise you on Sat.u.r.day night at the party, you will be telling me you want to do this again next year." He goes, "Never," but I was right. Some of them freak out when they get here on Monday, but by Sat.u.r.day they all feel like it's one of the most fun things they've ever done.

You know that nightmare when you didn't study for the exam or you're naked onstage or something? I knew I was really producing the show when I started having dreams about hosts and musical guests not being there. Sometimes I'll be talking to Lorne and I'll go, "How are you not nervous?" I absorb. One host in particular was really nervous. I almost threw up during the monologue because I was so nervous for him.

Gwyneth Paltrow gets more people coming up to her saying, "You were so funny when you hosted Sat.u.r.day Night Live" than there are saying, "You were amazing in Shakespeare in Love and congratulations on your Oscar." People recognize when people are good.

GWYNETH PALTROW, Host: For someone like me, who's usually relegated to corsets and British accents, it's really fun to get to do something like hosting. It's great fun for me to play a white girl who wants to talk like a ghetto chick. I never get to do stuff like that otherwise.

The first time I hosted, I felt incredibly nervous - not only about how it would come off but if I would make it through the night, because I adrenalize so much in those situations. When I was walking out to do the monologue, I couldn't feel my hands and feet. But the last time I hosted, I wasn't nervous. I really knew what to expect, and I just felt very free and very lucky to have an opportunity to be ridiculous. I've had experiences where I've been under extreme pressure, an awards show or something like that, but it's very finite. This whole experience lasts for an hour and a half of live television. When you do a play, there's three hundred people sitting there. Not millions.

My mom hosted once in the eighties. She just told me, "It's going to be great," as opposed to kind of chronicling what it was going to be like. She said, "Make sure you do this kind of accent," that type of stuff, and, "Make sure they stretch you as much as possible and do things that you never get to do ordinarily," because this is such a great chance to do that.

In one sketch I played Sharon Stone and got in all kinds of trouble. She was very offended by it. She kind of talked about it a lot in the press and stuff. I think she was very unhappy with it and she felt it was mean-spirited. But then she proceeded to go on TV and stuff and say I was disrespecting all the women that came before me, and stuff like that. She waged a press campaign against me. I look at it like it's a rite of pa.s.sage to be lampooned on that show. If people are making fun of you on that show, that means you've made it and you're in the cultural lexicon, and it's flattering. I suppose some people are less game for that sort of thing.

ELLEN DEGENERES:.

To be honest, there was a time that I was scared of them, because as you know everybody is fodder. They'd made fun of me, especially the whole situation when I met Anne Heche, that whole situation was on a lot. I'm way too sensitive and my feelings got hurt and it was hard. Now I have perspective on it, and they were right to do so, you know?

CAMERON DIAZ, Host: I don't like making fun of other people. I like making fun of myself. I really don't like playing other celebrities and making fun of them. This program is about current events and parodies, which are fun, but I don't want to partic.i.p.ate as the person who's doing a parody of a person who's possibly at that moment being humiliated publicly.

GWYNETH PALTROW:.

The nicest thing Lorne ever said to me was after the first time I hosted. There was a sketch at the very end of the show where I was supposed to say, "I'm Gwyneth Paltrow and you may know me from Emma and all this stuff but what I really like is hard-core p.o.r.n." And the sketch at dress was like a minute and thirty seconds, and he came up to me and said, "We're unfortunately going to have to cut it out of the live show. I don't want to - I love this thing - but we're going to have to cut it because it's thirty seconds too long. We're over." And I said, "I can do it, I'll shave thirty seconds off." And he was like, "Are you sure?" and I said, "Definitely." And so I did it and I shaved exactly thirty seconds off, and he came up to me after and he said, "No one has ever been able to do that except" - I think it was Bill Murray and someone else - "and no girl, I mean no woman." So I felt very good about myself.

LISA KUDROW, Host: When I hosted, I wasn't really looking at it like, "Wow, I wanted to be part of the cast of this show and I didn't get to do it, and now I'm hosting. Yay for me." It didn't feel like that, because it's too terrifying to host. It's this speeding train, and you feel like there's no choice but to smash into the brick wall.

I didn't feel confident enough to impose my own taste on the sketches. I know some people do, and they are pretty firm with Lorne Michaels and the writers about, "No, this one's no good, I don't want to do that sketch, and you've got to do that sketch." I didn't feel right about that, because I thought, "Lorne Michaels has been doing this for fifteen years and who am I to say that sketch won't work? He thinks it will work." And I deferred a lot.

Thursday or Friday, you're feeling, "No good can come of this! It's not possible this is going to work out." But on Sat.u.r.day night, when you're behind that door, about to be introduced, you have to gear up, focus, and commit to, "It's going to be just great. It's going to be okay." I'd been told a lot of hosts end up in tears before the show starts. I thought, "Well, at least I'm not crying. It's not that bad. So I'm going to be okay."

At Groundlings I had done a lot of live work. It did have that great feeling of you get to own the material when it's live. It's between you and the audience. Unless your mind starts wandering to, "When this is over, then I have to run over there and change into something else." That's when you're in trouble, because you can't then be dealing with the task at hand.

WILL FERRELL:.

The worst host was Chevy Chase. He was here the first year that we were here, and then he came back the next year and that was the kicker, the following year. It started right from the Monday pitch; you could just tell something was up. I don't know if he was on something or what, if he took too many back pills that day or something, but he was just kind of going around the room and systematically riffing. First it was on the guys, playfully making fun, until, when he got to one of our female writers, he made some reference like, "Maybe you can give me a hand job later." And I've never seen Lorne more embarra.s.sed and red.

In hindsight, I wish we'd all gotten up and walked out of the room. It was just bad news. I will have to say Chevy's been nothing but nice to me personally, and I think he thinks I'm funny, so I'm cool with him, but yeah, he's been quote-unquote the roughest host. A little sn.o.bbish, and he'd yell at someone down the hallway - scream and yell - and you would look at him, and he'd see you were looking at him and he would smile like, "I'm just joking." We'd be like, "No, I don't think you are."

The other kind of cla.s.sic one - and he wasn't so much abusive, but he was just all over the place - was Tom Arnold. Even Lorne was like, "This will be a bad show, this will be a bad week," and sure enough, it was like, "Oh, this guy is horrible." Once again, though, he wasn't mean. I think you'll find a consensus on the Chevy Chase thing.

DAN AYKROYD, Cast Member: You know, it's a funny kind of little I-don't-know-what, but I don't want to host. I'm a superst.i.tious guy, like I have these little things in life - I won't fly on the thirteenth, I don't go under ladders, and if a black cat crosses my path, I'll chase it with a white spray gun or something. And I just really actually would prefer to be remembered as a cast member, formerly, a Not Ready for Prime Time Player. I came in and did Dole, I did Haig, I did the thing with John Goodman when we were doing the Blues Brothers revival. I'll sort of fill in and play music and be a part of the show, but I just want to be remembered as a cast member, not host. I know it's kind of strange. If they need me, we'll do the ghost of Nixon haunting Bush, or Dole anytime you want, or Carter or a Conehead. I'll come back and help, but I just kind of want to be remembered as a cast member, that's all.

ANA GASTEYER, Cast Member: The one miracle is that every host makes it through. I've seen really drunk people make it through, I've seen really stoned people make it through. Everyone makes it through. The system has been around for twenty-seven years now; it's pretty well oiled and sensitive - it just happens.

Of course, you see a lot of true colors. I mean, even the coolest person in the whole world at some point s.h.i.ts their pants because they're so nervous or so elated that they made it through this terrifying thing and wasn't it fun.

I credit Lorne and Marci and the show for kind of making each host feel like that was really the most special show, because I've seen people who we've unanimously thought stunk up the barn still really experience elation when it was over and, you know, feel so celebratory and excited by their experience, and it's cute. You see it even in people that are very, very hip and cool.

It's scary. People act like idiots when they're scared. You know, total idiots. Jerry Seinfeld was fearful. Totally fearful. He was very controlling and weird about knowing what sketches had been picked. He was like, "What about this idea?" He made people mad, but then once he knew what sketches had been picked, he was lovely, it was amazing. So everybody has their shtick. Obviously we prefer it when there's somebody like that who brings something to the party - over, you know, somebody who's like, "Well, she's a pretty girl."

CHRIS KATTAN:.

There are some weeks where the writers are just kind of unmotivated and it's like, "What are we going to write for this person," you know? She's so generic, she's like this person, or he's like this person, and it's like the same thing again. And then there's the obvious ones, like when Jennifer Lopez was here, it's like, "Oh well, we've got to hit these jokes and these jokes," and then it turns out she doesn't want to make those jokes, so then how can we do it subliminally?

JIMMY FALLON:.

It's kind of an amazing thing when you're with a writer. You see the joy in the human face, and not because of what they're writing, or the job of writing it, but the excitement that they're going to unveil a good reference or a good bit, kind of like a mad scientist rubbing his hands together and giggling: "If this monster works, I'm a genius, and if it fails, it's back to the drawing board."

They're excited not about writing it, but about what the audience's reaction will be. It's kind of exciting that way for the writers. Writing itself is tedious. No one ever really enjoys writing until it's done. But you're excited to see people read it, excited to think, "Will they get it? Will they like this line?" It's line by line. It's just cool to watch how insane these guys are.

MOLLY SHANNON:.

Kevin s.p.a.cey was really great when he came. He was an amazing host. He's just like a machine: "I want to do this, I want to do that." He just creates the whole thing. He just comes in with a plan and he follows it through, and he was like masterful. He was amazing to watch. He just came in and had great ideas and he's funny.

TINA FEY:.

Part of the beauty of the show is that at its longest it's only a week; come h.e.l.l or high water at one A.M. on Sunday, it's done. It's like taking the SATs; they will say, "Put your pencils down," at a certain point. It is best when the host trusts us. It's easiest for us when people come in and trust us. When someone comes in and they're really diffi-cult, it kind of brings us all together against them.

MARCI KLEIN:.

The host drives the show much more than people realize. When I first started working here, I was shocked that the host had anything to do with this show. I think people kind of have the image that the host takes a limo in on Sat.u.r.day after reading their part - they just don't know.

I think the best host that will make a good show is somebody that is confident and trusting enough to let go. When you come here, you need to trust that we're not going to let you go out there and destroy yourself. Lorne and the writers, all of us, really want the hosts to be as good as they can be.

Tom Hanks, when he comes here, he's here until five o'clock in the morning almost every night really working on the show, because he wants it to be funny, and that's why he's a good host. Christopher Walken is another great host, because he's so easy for the writers to write for. He's a great guy, and he doesn't come with a bunch of people who are telling him, "Hey, that was funny." You'd be surprised at the people who do that.

STEVE HIGGINS:.

Christopher Walken is always a great show. You can't lose no matter what he does. I love having John Goodman and Alec Baldwin around. Gwyneth Paltrow and Jennifer Aniston were a lot of fun too. We've had some clunker shows, but they all blend together. I think when the hosts come here they're on their best behavior. If they're not, they have everything to lose and nothing to gain.

TINA FEY:.

My advice to anyone that hosts: Don't bring your own writers if you want people to love you. That was one thing I thought that Conan O'Brien was very smart about, because he has a staff of writers downstairs but he didn't bring anybody, he came up here and put himself in our hands, which was a good move. Sometimes people with a large entourage can be difficult. It's difficult when a host will have like a publicist in their ear telling them what's funny. That always seems like bad news when you go down to talk to the host in their dressing room and you're talking through a publicist.

Comedy people are hard sometimes, because they have their own kind of comedy that they do and they can be very resistant to what they will and won't do. I think they're usually my least favorite. A host who actually writes on the scripts and hands it back to the writer is usually bad news.

JAMES DOWNEY:.

It was ironic when Jerry Seinfeld came, because some of the people he brought used to work here at the show. I can tell you that that approach has a terrible track record. I mean, almost without exception, when they bring writers along their stuff doesn't get on. We will have the read-through without there being any kind of prejudice against them. It's just that often they write stuff that eats it.

HORATIO SANZ:.

Tom Green brought in a few of his own writers and was kind of more preoccupied with his image as a guy who doesn't give a f.u.c.k. And the show I think suffered.

JON STEWART, Host: It was the first time I'd been asked to host, and I jumped at it immediately. I didn't bring any of my own writers with me; they've got plenty. They're very, very talented people over there who already know their thing, and hopefully I went into it thinking I'd bring a little something to the process and shape it in a way that would give this show a little different flavor than it had the week before. We had a great time doing all that stuff. It's a very collaborative environment. I really had just a mind-blowing good time.

I thought the process that they used to hone material was really smart. The way the show came into focus makes complete sense. It's very linear, it's not arbitrary. There's obviously politics a.s.sociated with any organization, especially one that's been alive for that long. As the host you obviously are a guest, and it's a different atmosphere. But when you're around some place for a week, you can pick up what's what and who's what and where's what and that kind of s.h.i.t.

CHRIS KATTAN:.

When people recognize you for the first time, it's really a shock. And especially when you're like in a restaurant somewhere pretty public and somebody's looking at you and you go, "Why is that person looking at me, what's your problem?" Now if I were to go, "What's your problem?" that guy would probably think I'm an a.s.s-hole. But I still do that.

CHERI OTERI:.

It makes me feel good when people say, "Yours was my favorite cast." Especially older people who have been around. That just makes me feel good. But I don't feel compet.i.tive at all. Why put that pressure on you of what happened before?

CHRIS KATTAN:.

Will gets written for a lot because he's, you know, an Everyman. He's hilarious, he's brilliant, and the writers love him more than anybody. I think Will is even better than Phil Hartman in some ways. He's the utility man, yes, but he also has characters like the Cheerleaders and the Roxbury Guys that I do with him.

RACHEL DRATCH, Cast Member: Oh my G.o.d, I love doing that "Lovers" sketch with Will so much. That comes from when I was in college. There was a professor; my friend had her and kind of got to be friends, and before the break for Christmas, she asked my friend what she was going to do and she said, "I don't know." And the teacher goes, "Yes - just take it easy - read a book, take a bath, eat a bonbon, spend time with your luv-uh." So that became for me and my friend just this big thing we would say all the time, "luv-uh." Later Will and I were writing something together and he's like, "What about that 'lover' thing that you said in that other scene?" Those are the funniest things, the things you joke around with friends. So then we developed it. We're like, eeeuughhh, you know, when we write it. I laugh so hard, it makes me sick.

The first time at read-through we could not get through it, just like on the show we cannot get through it. I try not to laugh too much, because I don't like it when I'm watching TV and I see someone breaking up all the time; it becomes sort of cheap. But sometimes you just can't help it. I've never been chastised by Lorne for it, but I don't know what happens while he's watching it. Will will just make a face or go like, "unnhhhh unnhhhhh," or something, and it just gets me.

WILL FERRELL:.

I like to sneak out on the floor a lot of times during the show and watch - you know, when I'm not having to run around somewhere - and I'll catch Lorne just like chuckling to himself, something no one ever gets to see, and I don't know if all the times that you don't see him laugh are just part of a facade he has to wear, like being princ.i.p.al or something.

We have these Tuesday night dinners where we will go out with the host. Lorne's a fascinating guy to sit and talk to. The times when Lorne gets frustrated is when - the typical thing of, "What is all the fruit doing in the background there?" Or it will be some suggestion where he's like, "I want you to remove something." Okay, we'll cut that. "No, no, no, but I actually like that." But I thought you said... So he can be very vague at times, and the thing you end up losing from a sketch or a piece is a thing. You'll be like, "What did he mean?"

JIMMY FALLON:.

I got all these zits on my face, as you can see; I've broken out from lack of sleep. It's tiring. It's just so tiring. Man oh man.

DAN AYKROYD:.

Some of the greatest moments in a comedian's life are when you are dying. Horatio Sanz and Will Ferrell told me they sometimes watch shows or material they have done on the show that didn't work but that they thought was great, and they sit there and laugh at how dead it is, and at how little the audience is reacting. I remember watching Johnny Carson; Carson was funniest when he was dying.

TINA FEY:.

There are a lot of places every week where you're seeking approval. First you want your piece to kill in the read-through. Sometimes your piece kills in the read-through, and even though it doesn't end up in the show, you can still hang your pride on that. Then you want it to work in dress and then you want it to air. If you get some of those things and not all of them, I always figure, well, I got two out of three. At least you can walk with your head held up somewhat. You want the things that you think are genuinely funny first, and then beyond that you start thinking if something has a topicality - that maybe it wasn't in the best shape at the table but it's very topical and we can make it work. And then as the meeting goes on, it comes around to who's not in the show. Who in the cast is not being represented in the show? Well, what do we have for them? Is there anything that worked enough for them at the table that we can make it work better by air?

RICK LUDWIN, NBC Vice President for Late Night: There have been a couple of times where I had to play Judge Wapner in a dispute between broadcast standards and the writers or performers. There was some line in a David Spade "Hollywood Minute," I forget exactly what it was, where broadcast standards said "absolutely unacceptable" and David Spade said, "Well, I'm doing it," and it went back and forth, a ping-pong thing, and finally broadcast standards said, "If you do it, we're going to drop audio." And he said, "Well then, drop audio, but I'm doing it. I'm saying the line." And so he did it. He said the line, and broadcast standards dropped the audio.

Robert Smigel, who pushes the envelope about as far as you can push it on broadcast television, has had a number of dustups. The first time I met Smigel, he and Conan O'Brien were writing partners on Sat.u.r.day Night Live. Conan denies this, but my recollection is they had written the famous p.e.n.i.s sketch for Matthew Broderick, with broadcast standards saying, "There's a tonnage issue here. We'll let you say it three times, but we won't let you say it ten times." So there's this odd debate back and forth: "We'll give up this p.e.n.i.s but we want to keep that p.e.n.i.s."

Another week Smigel did a cartoon about global businesses, GE being one of them, and their connection to Ted Kaczynski, the serial bomber. The notion that global businesses were running the world was basically the theme of the piece. It was a very clever sketch. When I saw it, I immediately pa.s.sed it on up the line, to whoever was in charge, because I wanted everyone to know what was going on. Standards tentatively okayed it, and we put it on, and it aired once. But then it got pulled from the repeats. And Smigel, I remember, was all upset about it being taken out of the repeats. I said, "Robert, it got on the air. You were not censored. It got on the first time." It got on once - but never again.

ROBERT WRIGHT:.

Lorne and I had a couple of issues one time with Smigel on one of his pieces, which I think neither Lorne nor I thought was funny. It was just kind of a GE shot without any point to it. If it had been funnier - there was one done on Jack Welch that was a little funnier that we did run. We didn't stop it. The other one ran, but I think it didn't get repeated. It seemed like it was too pointed without being funny.

ROBERT SMIGEL, Writer: I do raunchy and sometimes nasty stuff, I guess, and I get a lot of attention because Lorne puts my name on the cartoon - but it's embarra.s.sing because there's a million funny people here. I have mixed feelings, because sketch writers in general don't get enough credit. It's a thankless position. You get pretty well paid if you hang out for a while, but there are guys here who are just brilliant that I've worked with and people don't know who they are. One great thing about my cartoons is that people know I wrote them. It's a great thing right there for people to know what you wrote specifically. On this kind of show you're just at the end of a long crawl, and sometimes they don't even have time to run the crawl. I mean, a guy writes one play and everybody knows who he is, even if it's a lousy play, but you can write a hundred great sketches and still be anonymous. I feel lucky to have found a venue that was interesting where I could get this kind of freedom and a little bit of attention.

TOM DAVIS, Writer: Every once in a while, I'll show up and be a guest writer on a show if the coffers are getting low out here. Lorne will let me come back and appear on the show and make some money right away. It's not because they need me or that Lorne particularly was going, "Jeez, I wish Tom Davis would come back to the business." Although the cast and the writers all tell me that they're glad to see me, and I believe them.

Things aren't going well, but I'm a happy guy. I've been separated from my wife for just about three years now. She's still my best friend and I speak to her on a daily basis. My ex-wife is a veterinarian, a really good one. And we have all these animals between us. And they're all getting old now. When she leaves town, I go to her house and all the animals stay there. When I leave town she gets my animals. All my parenting instincts have gone into just a couple of cats and dogs. I think I made the right decision not to have kids. I seem to be a bachelor, 'til the results are in now. I don't mind it. I kind of like living up in the woods, with a couple dogs and cats. And I can go into the city occasionally. That's my life. I live rather modestly, and that's fine with me.

JACK HANDEY:.

Lorne has always been very kind about saying there's an open door there, and I think when the show got in trouble with the critics and the ratings about '94, '95, they thought to bring in some of the old guns. And so they brought me in, and I think they brought Robert Smigel back. Lorne and Jim Downey, I think, would encourage me or ask me to come back.

CHRIS KATTAN:.

We do all love each other, and we all get along great, but there is a little generalization of casting people just in the sense of like, "Well, this character's tall and skinny, get Jimmy." Or, "He's the dad or somebody, get Will." And, you know, "He's gay, get Chris." I would be the guy who would dress up in drag or dance or something.

I know some people do think I'm gay. I've had people ask me if I'm bi more than gay. And I'm okay with it, and I like it, because I'm not gay, so actually, for women, it means I'm not threatening. It doesn't bother me too much. I think there's femininity, something feminine, in my characters that's easy for me. The way I move my body and my rhythm - it comes out a little gayish.

The character of Mango was actually kind of based on an ex-girlfriend. There was a manipulation to her that was incredibly charming. You could nail it like, "Oh, don't you see, you're doing that thing again where it's the whole 'come here, go away' kind of thing, and it's charming and coy and really, really mean." And the joke was that she was a bad dancer but for some unG.o.dly reason, men just fell for her. It's very much like the Blue Angel thing too. I don't think I was conscious of it, but it's very Blue Angel, you know. I mean, men aren't turning into chickens, but yeah, there is that Blue Angel quality. It's really a frightening movie, and in the end the poor guy, I remember him being a chicken.

Monica Lewinsky was going to be revealed as Mango's wife on one show, but Cuba Gooding, who was the host, didn't want to do that. On another show, Mango had a crush on Matt Damon, and then Ben Affleck pretended to be Matt Damon so he could get Mango for himself.

JAMES DOWNEY:.

There has been a big trend lately where we do an impression of someone and sooner or later you know the real guy is going to do a surprise walk-on and startle the cast. And it's always played as if it's supposed to be threatening: "Oh my G.o.d, this is going to be awful, here's the real Alex Trebek, he is going to be bulls.h.i.t." That kind of makes sense if it's, you know, Mike Tyson, but why is it "dangerous" that the real Tony Danza shows up in our Who's the Boss? parody?

At the very least it says that whatever we did, it didn't offend them in any way. I guess it depends on if you really feel strongly that a certain person is so malicious and such a menace that it's important that they really be taken seriously, and here we are with the kid gloves, and the proof that we're not really laying a glove on them is that they'll happily appear on the show.

A thing that actually kind of shocked and stunned me was when Monica Lewinsky was on the show. I guess I can understand the reasons to have her. I don't think she's evil, but it seemed a little trashy. I felt that if you had her, you should at least acknowledge that you were not proud of it.

If I were producing the show, I would have said no to Monica coming on, but I wouldn't say no to Bill Clinton, because he was the president of the United States. But it's something that could never happen. He might agree to do something taped - although if I were him I would like to think that if we called, he would go, "After the s.h.i.t you a.s.sholes have done about me, you have a lot of nerve asking me to do something for you."

I registered my dissent about Monica coming on by writing a couple of sketches, neither of which got on the air. One was about Monica winning "the presidential kneepads," and the history of the kneepads and that kind of thing. I wrote it and called Lorne and said, "Let me try this, it's like painless," because it involved nothing live other than Jimmy Fallon playing Kenny G and Monica Lewinsky standing there and a little bit of voice-over.

Anyway, Monica Lewinsky's publicist read the sketch - I actually watched the guy read it - and after he flipped through it he just went, "Uh-uh. Not interested." And it was like, "Oh, I'm sorry, does she have some long glorious resume of achievement - or did she blow the president?" There was this att.i.tude like, "Monica Lewinsky does not do kneepad stuff." I thought if I were Monica Lewinsky, I would have a little more sense of humor. I don't remember people forcing her out onstage at gunpoint. It seemed to me she enjoyed the celebrity.

When Gore and Bush did that special, it was different. I don't think by agreeing to appear they were betraying weakness or humiliating themselves or anything, because I think we'd stuck to basically fair commentary on them. I didn't think they'd do it, though, just because I a.s.sumed they'd have teams of advisers who would say, "You're nuts to go on a comedy show when you're running for president. It just makes you look altogether too unserious." But I'm glad they did.

Bill Clinton, I think, would be a whole other thing, because a lot of the nature of what we've done about Clinton was about his personal life. And I would like to think that he was really offended by it. Not that the show shouldn't have done it, because he was president and it was all fair game. And I think down the road they will ask him to do something. I would think he wouldn't do it. I'm sure he'll come to a party, though. That's a different thing. Clinton still makes me laugh - though not in a way that I think he would appreciate.

I'm sure there were times especially in the past few years when someone called up and said, "I saw you guys took a shot at me on the show, I'll come on." For the most part, whether they'd put them on is entirely a matter of would it help the show. It can't be a ratings thing in the sense that people heard a rumor that Alex Trebek's going to do a walk-on so everybody tunes in. I guess it's the idea that you have to watch the show every week, because you never know which TV or movie personality is going to show up. I have no way of quantifying it, but I know there's just been an awful lot more in recent years than in the years I was producing.

DARRELL HAMMOND:.

I'm probably on less than anyone else in the cast. I don't know. I would like to be able to fit in more, but I sit out entire shows sometimes. If I'm in the show usually it's in the opening. It's my understanding that Lorne hired me to be able to learn voices fast and to do topical material, and it turned out when it came time to pull material, the big story for weeks and weeks and weeks was Clinton, so I ended up doing mostly him. I had to follow Phil Hartman's Clinton, yeah, but I wonder if mine is actually an impression. I wonder if mine isn't just a characterization.

You know, sometimes when you get out there you become aware that you'll be funnier if you let the voice slip a little bit and cheat. For instance in "Jeopardy," when I first did Sean Connery, I had a really accurate Sean Connery. Now what I do is really a b.a.s.t.a.r.dization of who he is, because it just seems funnier to me and it's funnier to the writers and it gets more of an audience response. Sometimes they just don't want to see accuracy, they just want it to be funny.

JOHN GOODMAN, Host: I was in town doing a movie - I can't remember if I was hosting the show, I don't think I was - but they needed a Linda Tripp for the cold opening one week. And they called me. Like, I guess there's a resemblance. And then of course I did it a few more times after that.

You know, I always felt a little bad about that. For one thing, after the scandal was over, it was kind of beating a dead horse. I certainly don't like her politics or agree with what she did, but after a while, I felt like I was picking on her.

ALEC BALDWIN:.

One time we did an opening with John Goodman, and he blew his lines and he f.u.c.ked up the biggest joke in our opening and I almost called him an a.s.shole. I think if you watch the tape, I mutter it under my breath. Because he walks away during this Christmas show where he was like the Ghost of Christmas Present, I think I'm literally mumbling the word "a.s.shole" under my breath, because he's bungled the lines and ruined the whole sketch.

The live aspect of the show is to me the most important aspect of the show. It's a challenge. If I was not doing what I'm doing now, I would try to get on the show regularly. It's like getting high, it's like being stoned out of your mind, it's like being shot out of a cannon.