Tag: Stories

Stories from the Show- SNL At Home

[Starts with different videos of news reporting about “SNL At Home.”]

Man: Getting to laugh his weekend, tune in to SNL. It is going remote.

[Cut to another news]

Man: Saturday Night Live returns with all new episode from home.

[Cut to another news]

Woman: It’s going to be fascinating to see them in their element in their home.

[Cut to another news]

Man: I can’t wait to see how they pull that off.

[Cut to Pete Davidson at home.]

Pete Davidson: Initially, I was like, “Oh, man. This is going to suck.” [laughing]

[Cut to “Stories From The Show- And SNL Series” video bumper.]

[Cut to the ending of Daniel Craig’s SNL episode.]

[audience cheering]

Daniel Craig: I’m Daniel Craig. This has been Saturday Night Live. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

[Cut to Mikey Day at home.]

Mikey Day: That last show, it didn’t feel like, we wouldn’t be coming back. There was no indication that that would kind of be out live show season finale.

[Cut to Pete Davidson.]

Pete Davidson: I think I got an email that was just sent to everybody and they were like, “Hey, we’re going to do it at home now.

[Cut to Mikey Day.]

Mikey Day: I remember being a little perplexed as to how we would do it.

[Cut to Anna Drezen at home.]

Anna Drezen: SNL’s so much chaos. So, one sort of grounding force we have is the audience.

[Cut to Ego Nwodim at home.]

Ego Nwodim: We do a multi cam live sketch show. So, we feed off of the studio audience.

[Cut to a part of a news sketch ‘Mid-Day News’ with Phoebe Waller-Bridge.]

Phoebe Waller-Bridge: The suspect described as a white male–

Kenan Thompson: Whooow!

Ego Nwodim: Love it!

[Kenan and Ego doing high-five.]

[Cut to Kenan Thompson at home.]

Kenan Thompson: The show has always been at 8H. We’ve always done it at 30 Rock.

[Cut to Ego Nwodim]

Ego Nwodim: But if everyone else is in, I am in and I’m excited. Coz what else am I doing? I’m home.

[Cut to Mikey Day]

Mikey Day: This equipment would arrive at our house. And we’d be like, “What is this? I guess there’s a sketch involving a green screen.” [Cut to Mikey Day fixing camera and his green screen] So, now we have a green screen.

[Cut to Ego Nwodim]

Ego Nwodim: For the first show, we did a Zoom table read.

[Cut to SNL Table Read show.]

Kenan: I hope you guys enjoy our table read here and we’ll see what we come up with on Saturday. This is crazy.

[Cut to Ego Ngodim}

Ego Nwodim: And one of the sketches we read at the table was the dating show.

[Cut to Beck Bennett from the sketch “How Low Will You Go?”]

Beck Bennett: Hello and welcome to “How Low Will You Go?”

[Cut to Mikey Day]

Mikey Day: The most surreal moment, there was a dating show. I got up and stood on the side of my little computer area waiting for my cue as they were doing the sketch on Zoom. And it feels kind of like, the normal show, you’re waiting for your cue.

[Cut to Mikey Day from the sketch “How Low Will You Go?”]

I just remember having a distinct moment thinking like, “I will remember this forever.

[Cut to Heidi Gardner setting up the equipments at her home.]

Heidi Gardner: You’re setting up a ring light and the green screen and all these things that you don’t usually do. So, then by the time you’re shooting the thing, you’re just overwhelmed.

[Cut to Anna Drezen]

Anna Drezen: It was also crazy because our first show back, Hal Willner died.I just like, can’t picture working on the sketch without talking to him. It was very difficult.

[Cut to Ego Nwodim]

Ego Nwodim: This was challenging. It was hard but we were in it together. And that was really nice.

[Cut to Bowen Yang at home]

Bowen Yang: For the SoulCycle sketch, my next door neighbor yelled lines in response to my lines.

[Cut to Bowen Yang from the sketch SoulCycle from home.]

Bowen Yang in sketch: It’s crazy to think that people can be watching this anywhere from Los Angeles to California.

[Cut to Bowen Yang]

Bowen Yang: I heard my neighbor say, “Los Angeles is in California.” Like, they didn’t get that I was shooting a sketch. I knocked on their door. I was just like, “We’re shooting this thing. I apologize. It won’t happen again.” But maybe it will happen again in two weeks.

[Cut to Pete Davidson]

Pete Davidson: The first thin I did was I did the Drake song and the Andre 2000 song. It was super weird. We would go outside and dance in the middle of the street. And then like, my neighbor would come and get his mail and just look up. And I’d be like, [smiling] “SNL at home. Ha-ha-ha.”

I had this other song that I was working on that I just on a whim sent to Sandler, and he ended up liking it. And then, he was just like, “I’m gonna do a verse on this.” And I was like, “Holy [bleep]. This is crazy.” And that is, by far, my favorite SNL moment that I’ve ever had for sure.

[Cut to Heidi Gardner.]

Heidi Gardner: It got better as the weeks went on.

[Cut to a sketch “FaceTime with Rudd”]

Mandy: Hello?

Paul Rudd: Mandy?

Mandy: Yeah. Mandy.

[Cut to Heidi Gardner.]

Heidi Gardner: I guess slowly, things just stopped being as overwhelming.

[Cut to Kenan Thompson]

Kenan Thompson: And then the second one, we cranked it up a notch because now we had time to send wigs out and send costumes and it was obvious in that second episode.

[Cut to Mikey Day]

Mikey Day: I guess one of the best part was how our families got involved. My 7-year-old son, he would be in our read through.

[Cut to SNL cast having Zoom meeting. Mikey Day’s son is with him.]

Mikey Day on meeting: It’s hard on them too.

Mikey Day’s son: Like this bitch knows anything.

[everyone laughing]

[Cut to Mikey Day]

Mikey Day: We worked on this dad prank sketch.

[Cut to clips from the sketch ‘Dad Prank.’]

I wrote him a thank you. Right now, it’s just kind of annoying to have to go up and shoot and stuff. But when you’re older, I think you’ll think it’s pretty cool that you got to be a part of this show.

[Cut to Kenan Thompson]

Kenan Thompson: Watching my daughter watch herself in my intro on the show, she was just beaming. She just couldn’t stop smiling. I mean, I could have cried watching that.

[Cut to Kenan Thompson with his daughters waving ‘bye’ at the camera] To see what you do immediately impact your child like that, that was a very touching moment.

[Cut to Ego Nwodim]

Ego Nwodim: At home episodes sort of felt like, we got a job to do here. And it just sort of felt like an experimental thing.

[Cut to Kenan Thompson]

Kenan Thompson: Specially when Brad Pitt said it like, “Live–

[Cut to sketch with Brand Pitt.]

Brad Pitt: — kinda’, from all across America, it’s Saturday Night.

[Cut to Kenan Thompson]

Kenan Thompson: It’s like, “Okay, we’re getting a glimpse into an invincibility with this show.” Like, whether we do it at 30 Rock or not, I think we can figure out a way to get it done.

[Cut to Ego Nwodim]

Ego Nwodim: For the “Dreams” sketch, I didn’t know what everyone else was doing.

[Cut to Kent Sublette at home]

Kent Sublette: I had been reading an article about  COVID dreams and how intense they were to people and I’d had some myself. So, I started to think what would it like to see dreams of the cast? What they miss and you know, maybe we all sort of miss about New York?”

[Cut to Mikey Day]

Mikey Day: The director Paul Birganti directed over Zoom.

[Cut to Paul Birganti directing over Zoom.]

Paul Birganti: And action!

[Cut to Bowen Yang]

Bowen: We did a read through of it. After we finished it, all of us just looked at each other’s little tiles on Zoom and we were silent. And then I remember breaking the silence by being like, “I hope everyone has a good summer.”

[Cut to Mikey Day]

Mikey Day: Seeing the city and us being digitally put into the city was kind of bitter sweet and sad, but at the same time uplifting, seeing us all together again.

[Cut to Kenan Thompson]

Kenan Thompson: I guess we just never thought that we would get to a point where we wouldn’t be able to have New York, walk in Time Square, be bumped into on 5th Avenue or any of that. It was very emotional.

[Cut to Bowen Yang.]

Bowen Yang: The show was a nice reminder that this was still possible. That it was still possible to sort of be there for each other, even though we were so seperate.

[Cut to Ego Nwodim]

Ego Nwodim: Getting to watch that episode from the comfort of my home in New York made me feel so connected to the city.

[Cut to Heidi Gardner]

Heidi Gardner: Coming off the elevator Saturday night and seeing a neighbor who was like, “Are you going to watch your show?” And I was like, “Yeah. Are you going to watch it?”

[Cut to Ego Nwodim]

Ego Nwodim: I am waiting for us to be able to get back in 30 Rock. Oh, man. I wish I could get a goodnight’s hug right now.

[Cut to Bowen Yang]

Bowen Yang: I can’t wait to go back. I can’t wait to go back and see everybody.

[Cut to Pete Davidson]

Pete Davidson: I’m really like, grateful that we had those three shows. I won’t forget and I’m appreciative to have been a part of it.

[Cut to a clip of SNL casts on Zoom meeting.]

[Cut to Kenan Thompson]

Kenan Thompson: What I want to say is we’ll get through this thing together but we’ll also come out on the other side with a little more compassion and appreciation for our world that we live in, you know? Show some more love to each other, show some more love to our planet. That’s all I can hope for. Peace.

SNL Stories from the Show- Unreleased (Eddie Murphy, John Mulaney and More)

[Starts with “Stories From the Show- An SNL Series” intro]

[Cut to John Mulaney]

John Mulaney: Josh Brolin, when he hosted, Sarah Palin came on, which was the same night that Will Forte first submitted ‘Fart Face.’

[Cut to a short clip from the sketch ‘Fart Face’]

Bill Hader: Given name is Carl but he likes to be called Fart Face.

[Cut to John Mulaney]

John Mulaney: So, at dress, the sketch does terribly.

[Cut to a short clip from the sketch ‘Fart Face’]

Bill Hader and Will Forte: [yelling] Fart Face! Fart Face! Fart Face!

Josh Brolin: No! Oh, god, no!

[Cut to John Mulaney]

John Mulaney: But it gets in. Everyone has a sense everyone in America is watching. And then, Josh Brolin, he’s looking up here at the bleachers like this. [looking up] And he’s just nodding at them. And he looks at Forte and Bill and he goes, “Let’s shut these [bleep] up.” And that was the Emmy episode.

[Cut to Will Ferrell]

Will Ferrell: They’re not really pranks. We did a lot of stuff waiting for Lorne at the read-through. Coz, you know, you’re always waiting a little bit and so, we sang ‘happy birthday’ for him when it was just not his birthday. He was like, “Oh, good. Thank you.” But he kind of was smiling. I think– yeah. [laughing]

[Cut to Eddie Murphy]

Eddie Murphy: There wasn’t a screen test. There was a series of audition. The first time I came here was just Neil Levy. Just me and Neil in his office, and he said, “Make me laugh.” And he sat back and I did my stick. And luckily coz I was doing standup already– See, I think a lot of actors come, somebody say, “Make me laugh,” and you don’t have an act, it might be pretty daunting. I did Muhammad Ali and Howard Cosell and Jimmy Carter. That’s how long ago it was. Jimmy Carter impression. And I did Bill Cosby. And he didn’t laugh at all. He just kind of sat and looked at me and said, “Thank you.” And then I left. I was like, “I guess I didn’t get it.” Then couple of weeks later, they call me and said, “Come in, we want to see you again.” Then I went back. This time, it was two people in a row. And they said, “Make me laugh” again. And I did the same thing again. And they said, “Thank you.” Then another week or two went by and they called me back again. And then I went. It was Liz Welch, Neil Levy and Mike Zanella. He was one of the producers on the show. And they said, “Make us laugh.” And I did all my stuff. Mike Zanella was in back and he did like this. [laughing unimpressively with one exhale.] That was my big laugh. That was the big laugh of the three auditions.

[Cut to Aidy Bryant]

Aidy Bryant: We did a sketch called “Block Buster” where I played like, a hobo woman. And we literally shot all day and all night until about 7:30 in the morning. And then had to be back here at noon. So, the turnaround was horrible And I basically slept here as if it was my home. And then washed my hands and feet in the sink. Like, I’ve mostly used this space to recoup in some way. I think when people think of ‘SNL,’ they think of people doing coke, and mostly it’s me sitting right here with a blanket on.

[Cut to “Stories From the Show- An SNL Series” outro]