The First Church of Dan Aykroyd

The Cast of Saturday Night: The Playboy Interview

A nice talk with one producer, maybe six writers, about seven or so performers, including Chevy Chase, who's not really--oh, never mind.

Playboy: Lorne, as producer, do you ever go into battle with the censors to get something on the show?

Michaels: Constantly. There's a censor in the booth Thursday, Friday and Saturday.

Playboy: Can you think of any battles you've won?

Michaels: The show, for one. Aside from that, there have only been a few pieces that've been shot down. Take "Placenta Helper," for example. In terms of taste, would I sit in a room and write "Placenta Helper?" No. Would Franken and Davis? Of course. They wrote it, I read it, and I thought it was funny. But the major censorship that I do simply involves whether or not it works well for the particular host who has to do the sketch. Karen Black wanted to do Placenta Helper", so the question was, do I fight for it? When I was on Laugh-In, the battles with the censors involved getting four-letter words on the air, or stronger sexual inferences, and I don't want to play that way. And I haven't. The tone of discussions between the network and me has been relatively high. I'm not interested in getting "fuck" on the air. When you work in TV, you know the rules. It's a mass medium and it's carried into the home and if you want to write in a certain way, there are plenty of other outlets. What I'm more interested in is intelligence in what we do. It's much more important for us to be able to do the Final Days sketch the way we did it than to get "fuck" on the air.

Franken: Speaking of the Final Days parody, the censors made us change something in that sketch. They made us change the term Christ Killer to Jewboy.

Playboy: What was the context?

Franken: Well, the sketch begins with Pat Nixon in the White House, writing in her diary and looking back over her memories. Then we cut to Nixon talking to the Presidential portraits, saying, "You, Abe, you're lucky, they shot you. Come on, clot, move up to my heart and kill me, kill me." Then David and Julie Eisenhower come in and David says, "Mr. President, Julie and I think you ought to go up to bed." And Nixon says, "Aw, shut up. God he does look like Howdy Doody!: And Julie says, "Daddy, you're not going to resign, are you?"

Davis: And Nixon says, "No, no. A pessimist would resign. I'm an optimist." Julie says, "That's right, Daddy, it's the pessimists who want you to resign, isn't it?" Then Nixon says, "That's right. Remember that Army hospital we visiting in Vietnam? There was a young injured soldier there from Des Moines, Iowa. He'd been hit in the eye with a surface-to-air missile and he had only four pints of blood left in his body. And, as you know, man normally has eight pints of blood in his body. Now, the pessimists would say that that boy was half empty. I like to think that he was half full."

Franken: And then Chevy, who played David Eisenhower, says, "That's right, Mr. President. I was just talking to two reporters from the Washington Post and they said they thought you were half crazy and I told them I like to think of you as half sane."

Davis: Then Julie and David leave and Nixon goes up to the portrait of J.F.K. and says, "You, Kennedy, you always looked so good all the time. They're going to find out about you, too, the President, having sex with women within these very walls. That never happened when Dick Nixon was President. Never." And then he breaks down and we cut to Pat and she's writing "Never" in her diary.

Franken: Anyway, to shorten what was a long sketch, Nixon finally asks Kissinger to kneel down and pray with him. Kissinger says, "Mr. President, why don't we get into our pajamas and go sleepy?" And Nixon says, "Why don't you want to pray, Jewboy?" Now, originally, we had written Christ killer, but they made us change it to Jewboy. Playboy: How did they arrive at that distinction?

Franken: It was total nonsense. They said they didn't want to perpetuate the myth that the Jews killed Christ. Well, first, the Jews did kill Christ--

Michaels: I thought the Romans were involved somehow, but undoubtably yours is more recent information.

Franken: But, secondly, the fact that it was Nixon, the evil character, who was calling Kissinger a Christ killer defused the myth. I mean, since the bad guy is saying it, you're showing how ridiculous it is to call someone a Christ killer.

Playboy: Still, it's hard to believe you got any of that sketch on the air--it's so biting.

Michaels: But that's the point. You fight for the Final Days parody because you believe in it, because it's so honest; every reference in it is right, everything is so true. A big argument last gall involved a Renee Richards joke in "Update," something about tennis without balls. It's a kindo of joke Carson's been doing in one form or another for 15 years, a standard late-night-comedy joke. So we get a review in Variety saying that Saturday Night is irreverent as ever and the whole review centers on this joke. Now, in that show, there was also a very brilliant piece written by Marilyn Miller for Garrett and Lily Tomlin--a moving, stunning piece. But there's no mention of that. So what happens is our rep becomes "tennis without ball."

Shuster: I was amazed we got the Anna Freud piece on.

Playboy: Tell us about it.

Shuster: Danny played Freud and Laraine was his daughter, sitting on her father's lap and arousing him sexually. She was telling him her dream about a man who had a beard and who looked a lot like her daddy, and how everybody was offering her a banana and the only banana she took was Daddy's banana. And Freud says, "Sometimes a banana is just a banana--don't say anything to your mother." It was the most unveiled symbolism.

Playboy: Lorne, do you ever impose your personal tastes on any of the material?

Michaels: Isn't that the point of being the producer? What I do is look at a piece and say, "I think that's funny. I think it's offensive, but I think it's funny. That becomes the criterion. It might not be what I would create, but it deserves an airing--it either works or it doesn't. Taste is just

Playboy: Do you ever get any feedback from the people you've parodied?

Aykroyd: Tom Snyder snubbed me on an elevator once.

O'Donoghue: I heard Tony Orlando said, "The minute they stop their stuff about me, I'm going to be worried.

Playboy: He was no doubt referring to your sketch about what it would be like if Tony Orlando and Dawn had their eyes gouged out.

O'Donoghue: Right. I originally did that on the National Lampoon Radio Hour with Ed Sullivan gouging his eyes out. We were going to do the Mormon Tabernacle Choir gouging their eyes out. I kid the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, but I love 'em. Can you imagine 90 people gouging their eyes out?

Newman: But Tony Orlando told me his feelings were hurt by the things we do. I feel bad about that. I really do. I don't want to hurt anybody.

Curtin: Sure, it makes you feel bad when you hurt somebody's feelings, but people hurt each other's feelings every day. I once told Gilda that I thought she should put Emily Litella to sleep for a while and I hurt Gilda's feelings.

Radner: We were in a cab when she said it and i went [sobs], and then I got real quiet and went home and cried some more.

Playboy: Laraine, you've parodied Luciana Avedon. Have you ever heard from her?

Newman: She's in outer space. I mean, now she's doing a new commercial that focuses on a little girl making a flower centerpiece and she says [impersonating Luciana Avedon], "Lo-o-ok at her. She is be-yoo-tiful. When I was her age, I was a mess." That woman's out to lunch.

Playboy: Gilda, has Barbara Walters said anything to you about your Baba Wawa character?

Radner: I don't think she's seen it, but I've heard she knows about it and enjoys it. Someone told me she was flattered and that she said that sometimes she feels that she talks just like that. I once got in an elevator with Tom Snyder and he said hello.

Playboy: What did you say?

Radner: I said, "Hewwo, Tom, it's wewy, wewy wondewful..."

Playboy: Talking about feedback, Lorne did the Beatles ever respond to your generous cash offers--which eventually got up to #3400--for them to appear on the show?

Michaels: Well, George Harrison did do a show in Novemeber, you may remember. And as for the others, Paul McCartney told me an interesting story. He said that he happened to be with John Lennon watching the show, when I made the offer. He said they decided then and there to come down to the studio and surprise us. At the last moment, they realized the commotion they would have caused and decided not to.

Playboy: One thing we haven't discussed is your treatment of sex. How far would you go--

Radner: You're trying to finagle sex into this interview!

Zwiebel: Oh, my God!

Radner: I knew this would happen. We knew all those other questions were just a sham. You were just getting to this!

Aykroyd: There's so much of this sexual inference these days! [Turning to the female interviewer] By the way, I'd eat you out with handcuffs and a suit on and you wouldn't ahve to do anything at all. I'd have the handcuffs behind me and a suit on. Of course, right now I'd like to retract that statement. You can print it, certainly, but you must also print my retraction. I'm very sorry. Playboy: Apology accepted.

Aykroyd: What I really meant was sunglasses and handcuffs, OK?

Playboy: That makes all the difference.

Aykroyd: Fine.

Playboy: We were really going to ask a very innocent question. How far would you go on the show if there were no restrictions at all? Would there be nudity?

***O'Donoghue:

Playboy: In what context?

O'Donoghue: You're not going to lead me into this answer. I'm not going to say I'd love to fuck Mamie Eisenhower in front of 50 billion people and send it by Telstar all over the globe so even the Phillipines could see it. Perhaps I would. That could be amusing. I could get into that. But it wouldn't be the basis of my life.

Franken: We'd use sex humorously, I think. There's a certain humor in graphic sex.

Playboy: Can you give us an example?

Franken: Well, like a penis entering a vagina.

O'Donoghue: There's certainly a movie in that.

Franken: There's a lot of humor in pornography and a lot of people doing X-rated films that are satires of X-rated films and things like that.

Playboy: What do you think about all that, Gilda?

Radner: You mean nudity? I've always believed that you don't have to take all your clothes off to be funny. I happen to have the best legs in the business; they're large, but they've got a good shape. I ws once in a scene with Peter Boyle and I played a French maid and I got to wear net tights and Michael followed me around a lot. When I took off the outfit, he didn't talk to me. I'll do almost anything if it's funny. But I still have trouble kissing somebody in a scene. I get real confused if I have to kiss somebody on the lips.

Playboy: Why?

Radner: Because when you don't know him, it's like kissing a doorknob.

Beatts: I've always felt the show didn't have enough sex in it. It's had enough violence but not enough sex. But that's a trend everywhere. By the time television gets sexy, probably nothing else will be.

Playboy: X-rated television, you mean?

Beatts: Inevitably. Frontal nudity could happen on this show any night. All you need is to have the camera pan the audience and someone flash. I've always wondered why that's never happened.

Playboy: Maybe one of your viewers will oblige after reading this. While we're on the subject of sex: Chevy, did you ever indulge in any of the unspeakable practices you alluded to on the phone right before "Weekend Update"?

Chase: Even as we speak, I'm indulging in one.

Playboy: Can you describe it?

Chase: It's something that I'm doing underneath the table. It involves something nearly as big as a breadbox. I know you can't see it. I wear a brace of sorts that prevents people from discovering it, but at the snap of a finger, I can have an orgasm to my great satisfaction.