by Tom Shales and James Andrew Miller
2014, Little, Brown and Company
An oral history of the show, updated to before the Trump era. One interesting aspect is how show business has changed over these 40 years, going from petty, paranoid backstabbing to supportive collaboration. However, the less toxic the show got, the less compelling the book.
By the last third we're down to repetitions of "I was so excited when I got to audition" and "I was so sad when it was time to go." I haven't watched in the 21st century, so lengthy monologues on digital shorts and Stefon didn't do me much good.
The book seemed to push back on any criticism that SNL was a boy's club or far behind the curve on casting demographics. They spend a great deal of time talking about an opening where a Black actor runs back and forth to play multiple parts because there was only one in the cast. On the one hand it seems like they're acknowledging the issue, but given that the same gimmick was used by SNL and even Fridays in decades past, it's more of an indictment.
Skip if you idolize the early cast members, I think Jane Curtin and Garrett Morris are the only ones that come out unscathed. I'm surprised Chevy Chase can still talk, his jawbone should be powdered the number of punches to the face he's earned.
My favorite story is from Harry Shearer. Garrett Morris had a regular bit as Egyptian President Anwar Sadat. Shearer also did Sadat and lobbied Loren Michaels to switch for that week's show. Loren seemed to agree, but didn't make the change and didn't tell Shearer, who only found out from the call sheet. Seconds before the sketch starts, Morris leans over to Shearer and says "Hey, you do a pretty good Sadat. What's he sound like again?"
A few interesting anecdotes sprinkled around, but a lot of the same ground covered at length. I think there was a solid hour of the audiobook dedicated to how Michaels manipulated insecure actors with daddy issues, which seems to be most of them.
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