![]() ![]() The head of the network had a particular antipathy towards me and I think I teased him more than I should have. I was fired a couple of times by the network due to disagreements. QYou said you were there steadily, but were there seasons when you did not write for the show?ĪWell, let’s just say I had a couple of interruptions. So, I went to work for David Letterman for a couple of years and then came back to “SNL.” I have been writing for the show steadily since I returned to it in 1984. We were young and naïve and thought that NBC would understand and take this gigantic hit show off the air for us, but they didn’t. ![]() ![]() How did you end up writing for the “Late Show with David Letterman”?ĪWell, in 1980 my fellow writers and I had all decided that had run its course and wanted to leave. QYou left “SNL” for another late-night show. I roomed with Doug Kenney of the National Lampoon and he told me to submit my stuff to the show. I came back a year later and “SNL” had started without me and had become a big hit. He sort of offered me a job for their vision of “Saturday Night Live,” but I surprised everyone by winning a traveling fellowship to the former Soviet Union. QWhen did you start writing for “Saturday Night Live,” and how did you land the coveted job?ĪWhen I was at Harvard, Michael O’Donoghue had come to Harvard to have dinners with the Lampoon staff. I did that very well - I focused on everything but my studies. We would always have crazy dinners, and alumni from the magazine shaped the creation of the National Lampoon and “SNL.” For me, it was a way of avoiding the things that you were supposedly supposed to do at college. It was a humor magazine that had the elements of a social organization. The Lampoon was a vital activity that shaped the rest of my life rather than anything else that I did at the Crimson. QHow did your time at the Harvard Lampoon prepare you for your career?ĪThe first thing I saw that I really liked was the Harvard Lampoon’s Life parody, and I decided to join. The 1975 Harvard College graduate talked to the News about late-night comedy, breaking into the world of satire, and working at the Harvard Lampoon, the humor magazine at Harvard. Downey, who has written over 1,000 “SNL” skits in the past 32 years, is best known for his political sketches of the 2008 presidential election, such as the Hillary Clinton LAW ’75–Barack Obama skit that aired before Super Tuesday. Political satirist Jim Downey of “Saturday Night Live” arrived in New Haven on a drizzly Wednesday afternoon to speak to Suzanne O’Malley’s “Writing Hour-Long TV Drama” seminar. ”Īnd he says, “Yeah, I did that bit for the audience. Remember that homeless idea we had? About the newspaper by and for the homeless? Well, I was out in L.A., you know? And I was doing this benefit for the homeless. I had forgotten all about this conversation, but the first SNL episode back that fall, Norm says to me, “Hey, Downey. We were improvising around that idea, doing the tough newspaper editor handing out assignments to his homeless reporters: “Edwards! I want a thousand words on going to the bathroom in your pants! You! Davis! How about a human interest feature on urine-stained mattresses! Bernstein! Can you give me a long ‘think piece’ on people whose brains are being monitored by the CIA?!” One summer, when SNL was on hiatus, Norm and I read a story about a newspaper published by and for the homeless. ![]() Here’s the account in written form, from Splitsider: It concerns a homeless-newspaper bit that Downey and Macdonald were toying with during one summer between seasons. The story comes from Downey, who wrote “Weekend Update” with Macdonald during Macdonald’s stint at SNL. During his decades with SNL, he experienced firsthand a number of Norm Macdonald stories, but for the purposes of this piece, let’s focus on one Norm tale that’s so good I stumbled on it in two places today. Many of you are likely familiar with Jim Downey, the longtime writer for Saturday Night Live who came in with Bill Murray in 1976 and didn’t permanently leave the show until 2013. ![]()
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