SNL Transcripts: Candice Bergen: 11/08/75: CIA Records



 Saturday Night Live Transcripts


  Season 1: Episode 4





75d: Candice Bergen / Esther Phillips

CIA Records

Clerk…..Dan Aykroyd
…..Garrett Morris

[FADE IN on a shirt-and-tie clerk with a pencil behind his ear. He is sitting at a desk in an office which looks like a disaster area. Paper is piled all over filing cabinets, and drawers are wide open helter-skelter. The phone rings, and Dan reaches to answer it.]

Clerk: [in a bureaucratic voice] Hello, CIA, Department of Records, Scramble Line 6. [pauses, then sounds annoyed] Well, thank you! Why are WE always the last to know?

[He bangs down the phone and picks a framed photograph off his desk. Sighing heavily, he walks back to the corner of the office, where a photo of CIA Director William Colby is hanging.]

Clerk: Down with Colby… up with Bush.

[He replaces the William Colby photo with one of George H.W. Bush.]

Clerk: Way to go, Bill!

[The door opens, and Garrett Morris walks in and marches up to the clerk’s desk. He wears a denim jacket and jeans with a blue beret on his head.]

Garrett Morris: I was told that, as an American citizen, I got a right to know if the CIA’s got a file on me, and that by law, you’re supposed to show it to me!

Clerk: Wait just a minute, there. Can’t you preface your remarks with a simple “good morning”?

Garrett Morris: Good morning.

Clerk: Can I help you?

Garrett Morris: The law says that, uh, if you got a file on me, I’ve got a right to see it!

Clerk: Yes, you have the right to see it, but having the right to see it and actually seeing it are two different things. VERY different.

Garrett Morris: What you mean by that?

Clerk: [gestures around him] Well, look at this, man. Does this look like order to you? This isn’t order, this is absolute chaos! Everybody in Washington has been through this office! I’d like to know who was in here last night. I can’t find a thing. [ruffles papers] I can’t even find a paper clip in here! But that’s not your problem.

[grabs a pencil and starts writing on a form]

Clerk: [in an impatient tone] NAME?

Garrett Morris: I beg your pardon?

Clerk: I said: NAME?

Garrett Morris: Garrett Morris.

Clerk: [resigned] That’s unfortunate.

Garrett Morris: Uh, I never liked it that much myself.

Clerk: I have three thousand, six hundred and seventy-seven Garrett Morrises in this filing bank alone. [ruffles papers] I have Garrett Morrises here, here, here… [looks at blue paper] Here with the packing clearances! Have you ever changed your name to X?

Garrett Morris: [searching his memory] Uh, uh, I, I did change it to Garrett Borocca.

Clerk: Borocca. You were on the African kick for a while! You and thirty-two thousand, six hundred and eighty-eight other black Americans. Something else! Did you ever commit an illegal act, or something?

Garrett Morris: Oh, oh, yeah, uh, I, I ran guns.

Clerk: Oh, Mr. Morris, are you aware of how many people illegally transport firearms across state lines in this country each year?

Garrett Morris: Well, hold on, uh, wait a minute, I, I also, uh–

Clerk: MILLIONS!! Millions of them!! Millions! I have sheaves of files! Something outstanding! I can’t work with this!

Garrett Morris: Wait a minute, I also sold illegal narcotics, since 1968–

Clerk: I’ve got no time for jokes, Mr. Morris.

Garrett Morris: Well, in Oakland, man, I was, uh, minister of defense for a radical organization–

Clerk: Radical organizations! In a dimly lit vault down the hall here, I have six POUNDS of material on radical organizations. You’re just going to have to give me something MORE, Mr. Morris, if we’re going to find your file.

Garrett Morris: Uh, I, I actively, uh, advocated the overthrow of the American government, and…

Clerk: [waves file] You and 6.4 percent of the American populace. [slaps file down on desk]

Garrett Morris: Oh, waited, wait a minute. I also conspired to incite a riot. That’s right, I crossed state lines to incite a riot.

Clerk: [mockingly] “Conspired to incite a riot!” [waves hand in circular motion] Well, yippee! You’re going to have to do better than that!

Garrett Morris: Hey, man! Wait a minute! Hey! I bombed! That’s right, I bombed the Federal Reserve Bank!

Clerk: Not good enough. Anything else?

Garrett Morris: The big one! FIVE assassination attempts!

Clerk: [losing patience] Look, look, look, look. You’re being no help at all, here. You come in here, you want us to find a file on you, you come in here with this patsy-fied drivel of knowledge and expect us to WORK here? I can’t find anything in this office! I don’t know who’s been in here, these Congressional aides that are walking in here asking me for tape recorder batteries, I don’t even KNOW them! They don’t have security clearance! We–

[He stops cold and attempts to collect himself.]

Clerk: Give me some time on this. Perhaps a month, perhaps a year, I don’t know, I frankly don’t know. Fill out this card here, put your name and address on it, vital statistics. If something comes up–

[Garrett uses the clerk’s pencil to start filling out the card. The clerk grabs another pencil and yanks the first one out of his hand.]

Clerk: Not that one, this one here. That’s MINE.

[The clerk snatches back his pencil while Garrett quickly finishes the card.]

Clerk: [sighs] If something comes up, we’ll let you know. Don’t fill out the last two spaces, they don’t matter at all.

Garrett Morris: Okay, thanks.

Clerk: [in a tired voice] All right, then.

[Garrett rises and leaves the room.]

Clerk: [babbling on] These young-faced Congressional aides. Couldn’t be 25 years of age! The–

[The instant Garrett closes the door behind him, the clerk bites off his words and punches a button on his telephone. He speaks in a tight, authoritative voice.]

Clerk: Russ, I want a tap on 1-4-3 L Street, Apartment 8. Sally, come in here and get some prints off this pencil. We’re opening a new subject file on Morris: M, O, double R, I, S.

[dissolve to audience wide shot, zoom in on a long-haired blonde woman]

[SUPER: “Older Sister of Ex-Mouseketeer Cubby”]

[FADE to black over applause.]

Thanks to Joe Cornfield for this transcript!

SNL Transcripts

Author: Don Roy King

Don Roy King has directed fourteen seasons of Saturday Night Live. That work has earned him ten Emmys and fourteen nominations. Additionally, he has been nominated for fifteen DGA Awards and won in 2013, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, and 2020.

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