Saturday Night Live Transcripts
Season 7: Episode 3
81c: George Kennedy / Miles Davis
Tuna Melts & Typing
Written by: Marilyn Suzanne Miller
Secretary…..Christine Ebersole
Janitor…..George Kennedy
[ open on office setting, as Secretary types at her desk ]
[ the Janitor enters with a bag lunch and a portable radio playing “Witchcraft” ]
Janitor: Tuna melt?
Secretary: Yeah.
Janitor: I got you an orange — I know you always like an orange.
Secretary: I’m looking for a left parenthesis.
Janitor: Ah… you’ll find it.
Secretary: I’d use right parenthesis, only I have a feeling it’s on the same key as the left parenthesis.
Janitor: You’ll find it. Relax.
Secretary: Oh, I’d use any parenthesis, I don’t care what key it’s in! Plain typing. I’m MUCH better in my own field: Keypunch.
Janitor: You just gotta relax. You’ll find it. Yeah, it’s like waiting for the dial tone sometimes. THat ever happen to you?
Secretary: I EXACTLY know the keyboard in my own field!
Janitor: You know… I like they’re making these tuna melt sandwiches on muffins now. I like them better, they’re crisper. It gives a contrast with the creaminess, the tuna fish part.
Secretary: I can’t fidn the hyphen.
Janitor: It’s hot on the bottom. It’s a good, warm dish. Eleven o’clock at night, you want a nice, warm dish. I’d like some cream and tomato soup — but what do you want, the sky? [ he chuckles ]
Secretary: How do you spell “lend-lease”?
Janitor: Approximate it.
Secretary: “Lend-lease”!
Janitor: Look, you can’t make yourself sick over these things. Take tonight, for example: Somebody spit up on the third floor. Am I gonna make myself sick over it? No! Because I know that life is too short. [ he points to the radio ] Sinatra knows that. Yuo can hear it in his singing, with all the emotions and stuff. He’s the voice. We used to listen to him in the Service. I was in the Service when he was singing. He was The Voice then.
Secretary: Uh-huh.
Janitor: He’s the voice now. Sinatra is The Voice.
Secretary: I like Marilu Henner.
Janitor: Who’s that?
Secretary: She’s the girl on “Taxi”!
Janitor: She ain’t “The Voice”.
Secretary: Well, she’s the only girl in the world of other cabdrivers.
Janitor: But Francis Albert Sinatra — all those emotions and stuff. He’s “The Voice”! That man fills Carnegie Hall, and he’s over 60 years old!
Secretary: Hey — what metal do you think my engagement ring should be — gold or white gold? I’m earning the money after hours, so it’s my decision.
Janitor: I bought my wife’s ring straight out of the Service. The stone was small, but it was serviceable. We got a split-level out on the island. They were all the same house, but we were paying different notes. We got a 10-inch TV, and we watched “Person To Person”… we watched “Omnibus”. I paid — right out of the Service.
Secretary: Yeah, well, I’d like something nice. I had this idea, of how you’d look at it in the sun all your life.
Janitor: [ chuckling ] Well, if you’re gonna be looking at something in the sun all your life…
Secretary: That’s what I say! It should be able to reflect the sun’s rays, and you should be able to enjoy it. Nothing gaudy — something like Marilu Henner would wear.
Janitor: I don’t think that’s too romantic, paying for your own engagement ring. That’s not to pass judgment on your engagement, I mean that’s nobody’s business.
Secretary: Well, it’s NOT romantic, but let’s face facts! If you added up the price of an engagement ring, you could buy yourself half of Fort Maverick!
Janitor: I can see that.
Secretary: Hmm. Yeah, you’re up against that — you can’t make a move now.
Janitor: But, but an engagement ring. You — you start speaking about an engagement, and — and — and there’s emotions and such.
Secretary: It’s no more less emotional if I work for it or not! And I get the ring I want! It goes with my clothes… it goes with my shoes… I walk out on the street, and it matches everything. I mean, I drop change in the bus stp, and even I’m looking at my left hand. I can’t wash with soap in the ladies rom, because the soap gets right in the ring there… I can’t even leave it on the sink! I go out to an expensive evening… I pull out my Visa card… I got a ring, and it’s got a size to it. I look like Cher on Chastity’s birthday. Like Marilu Henner in an exclusive Post photo. I pass myself in store windows, and I look like EXACTLY what I think I should look like.
Janitor: Because you want a big ring, with a big stone. Look at it in the sun, it’s all shiny, and half of Fort Maverick! What happened to emotions and such? This is the possibility for a GREAT time in your life — a small and serviceable ring, and something you can’t give yourself: Romance. You can’t just turn on a radio and get Sinatra all the time! You get Helen O’Connell, you get Patti Paige, even William b. Williams only plays him once every four cuts. This is the BEST time you’re ever gonna have in your life, and you’re sitting they’re worrying how to spell “Lend-lease”!
Secretary: Well, you don’t have to get so offensive. You know, no one can tell you ,i>anything,/i> without it going RIGHT to your head!
Janitor: But, sometimes, you don’t know WHAT you need! Sometimes, maybe you just need a… a… good autumn dish, I don’t know. [ the song changes on the radio ] That’s Helen O’Connell.
Secretary: Working for my engagement ring was my own idea.
Janitor: That’s a nice tune… that’s got emotions and stuff. She sang with Jimmy Dorsey.
Secretary: Yeah, I saw her on “Miss Universe”. She’s the one that tells you how to get your hair done before the commercials.
Janitor: She ain’t the Voice, but… that’s a nice tune.
Secretary: A nice tune.
Janitor: Yeah, she ain’t bad.
Secretary: Yeah.
Janitor: I kinda like her. Life is too short.
[ they finish eating thir tuna fish sandwiches ]
[ fade ]
