Live from New York: An Uncensored History of Saturday Night Live

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Live from New York: An Uncensored History of Saturday Night Live

3.95 of 5 stars 3.95 · rating details · 4,856 ratings · 459 reviews

WHEN A YOUNG WRITER named Lorne Michaels talked NBC executives into taking a chance on a new weekend late-night comedy series, nobody really knew what to expect-not even Michaels. But Saturday Night Live, launched in 1975 and still thriving today, would change the face of television. It introduced brash new stars with names like Belushi, Radner, Chase, and Murray; trashed...more WHEN A YOUNG WRITER named Lorne Michaels talked NBC executives into taking a chance on a new weekend late-night comedy series, nobody really knew what to expect-not even Michaels. But Saturday Night Live, launched in 1975 and still thriving today, would change the face of television. It introduced brash new stars with names like Belushi, Radner, Chase, and Murray; trashed taboos that had inhibited TV for decades; and had such an impact on American life, laughter, and politics that even presidents of the United States had to take notice. Now, Pulitzer Prize-winner Tom Shales and bestselling author James Andrew Miller bring together stars, writers, guest hosts, contributors, and craftsmen for the first-ever oral history of Saturday Night Live, from 1974, when it was just an idea, through 2002, when it has long since become an institution. In their own words, dozens of personalities recall the backstage stories, behind-the-scenes gossip, feuds, foibles, drugs, sex, struggles, and calamities, including personal details never before revealed. Shales and Miller have interviewed a galaxy of stars, including Mike Myers, Chris Rock, Bill Murray, Tom Hanks, Adam Sandler, Chevy Chase, Will Ferrell, Dan Aykroyd, Steve Martin, Jon Lovitz, Jane Curtin, Billy Crystal, Martin Short, Dana Carvey, Tina Fey, Jimmy Fallon, Chris Kattan, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Garrett Morris, Molly Shannon, Damon Wayans, Chris Elliott, Julia Sweeney, Norm Macdonald, and Paul Simon-plus writers like Al Franken, Conan O'Brien, Larry David, Rosie Shuster, Jack Handey, Robert Smigel, Don Novello, and others who got their big breaks as part of the SNL team. The Coneheads, the Blues Brothers, Buck-wheat, Wayne and Garth, Hans and Franz, the Cheerleaders, Todd DiLaMuca and Lisa Loopner, "Cheeseburger cheeseburger," Mango, the Church Lady, Ed Grimley-they're all here. And for every fabulous character on-screen there was an outrageous maverick, misfit, or rebel behind the scenes. Live from New York does what no other book about the show has ever done: It lets the people who were there tell the story in their own words, blunt and loving and uncensored.(less)

Hardcover, 608 pages

Published October 7th 2002 by Little, Brown and Company (first published 2001)

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Jul 16, 2008 Kerry rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: fromthelibrary, non-fiction, oral_history

Wow, this took me FOREVER to read. It was in my bathroom, so I only read it sporadically, but STILL. I go to the bathroom EVERY DAY.

I think it could have been shorter if it had been edited better. This was only the second "oral history"-stylee book I've read (the other was Gonzo) and it wasn't put together nearly as well. The interstitial writing was so pandering and complimentary that it made me want to barf. And the interviews themselves were very repetitive (newsflash: Lorne Michaels doesn't...more

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Jan 20, 2011 Julie Ehlers rated it 3 of 5 stars

Well, I feel like I know more about Lorne Michaels--and how people feel about him--than I'd ever want to know. Why did the authors think he needed his own section?

This book was interesting, but the worshipful quality of it was annoying as hell. It's just a TV show. It's not changing the lives of anyone except its stars. But in this book, it's portrayed as one of the most significant things to happen in the U.S. Whoever criticizes the show is wrong, and wrong to do it, and any star who criticizes...more

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Feb 18, 2011 Whit rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Basically, the first cast all slept around, did drugs because they didn't know any better, and became famous overnight without expecting it. No one understands Lorne. Everyone loves Gilda, Chevy was a pompous jerk, and Jane was just a normal lady with a husband and cat. Later they adopted Bill Murray.

The next cast all expected to get famous, and hardly any of them did. Lorne left the show, and so did the rest of America. Eddie Murphy gets discovered, Joe Piscopo becomes creepily possessive of hi...more Basically, the first cast all slept around, did drugs because they didn't know any better, and became famous overnight without expecting it. No one understands Lorne. Everyone loves Gilda, Chevy was a pompous jerk, and Jane was just a normal lady with a husband and cat. Later they adopted Bill Murray.

The next cast all expected to get famous, and hardly any of them did. Lorne left the show, and so did the rest of America. Eddie Murphy gets discovered, Joe Piscopo becomes creepily possessive of his Sinatra impersonation, and no one else has a clue about what's going on or who's supposed to be doing what.

Lorne comes back. New cast is hired, and again, expecting to get famous, they pretty much suck. Really famous people get hired, like Billy Crystal and Martin Short, and all the writers get jealous because they have to keep writing the same characters over and over again. Still no one understands Lorne. We realize that Lorne kind of likes it this way, and is probably doing it on purpose.

Most of the famous people leave, and Lorne assembles another new cast. People rotate in and out until you get to the era of Chris Farley. Things stay the same for a while, then eventually you get the era of Will Ferrell. People still can't figure Lorne out.

Aside from the clinical nature of what I just wrote, I did really enjoy the book. It's almost all interviews, so it reads pretty fast. You often get multiple people's takes on a given situation, including actors, writers, producers and, rarely, Lorne himself. Obviously there are a lot of recurrent themes, and it does get repetitive in parts because comedians, for the most part, share a lot of the same neuroses about things. There's quite a bit of he-said-she-said-he-said-he-said (because there are way more men than women), and some backbiting and hurt feelings even after 30some years, but there are also some really touching moments about lost cast members like John Belushi, Gilda Radner, and Chris Farley from the people who probably knew them the best. No, not you, Michael O'Donoghue. You were just crazy.(less)

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Mar 09, 2010 Steven E rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Ugh. For a 600-page book of interviews with some of the funniest, charming, egotistical, and most dysfunctional people around, LFNY is appallingly bereft of insight or pleasure.

Shales and Miller are waaaay too close to their subjects, and as such treat their heroes/friends like they were delicate flowers. There are, to my mind, only 2 interesting anecdotes beyond the navelgazing. The first involves poor Garret Morris, who apparently freebased so often in his office that the maids were afraid to...more

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Mar 25, 2009 michael rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

this was read solely in the bathroom over several months. dull, repetitive stuff. it was extremely self-congratulatory and basically i wanted it to be a different book. with all these hilarious people being interviewed, you'd think it might be interesting to hear about their tastes in comedy, their writing processes, their favorite moments, but no, this is mostly just about who was taking what or screwing who (literally and figuratively) and who was an asshole and stories about lorne michaels ac...more

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Mar 12, 2013 Melinda rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: non-fiction, memoir, favourites, 2003

I've read this twice from cover to cover, and it was just as good both times. I grew up watching SNL--both the contemporary shows and the reruns with the old casts, and reading this oral history made me feel like I was hanging out with all those actors. My favourite parts had to be the descriptions by the original cast of what it was like to be young (really young!) and a rising star in New York City in the 1970s. The book does an impressive job of evoking time and place; I think you could enjoy...more

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Feb 27, 2012 Joshua rated it 4 of 5 stars

I love this kind of "oral history" approach. Everything told through interviews with the people that lived it. And you're left to weave together the truth and the fiction. SNL is an institution, despite the derision it gets from each new generation of viewers. Taking 90 minutes of television out of the hands of a broadcast media elite in the mid-70s and handing it to what was essentially a bunch of kids to do whatever they want in real time on live television was a huge deal. We take for granted...more

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Jan 31, 2012 Ensiform rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: non-fiction

560 pages of new interviews with the living cast members, past and present, from Saturday Night Live (no old material from the dead), as well as Lorne Michaels and writers. It’s a fairly interesting bit of reading, going from the show’s origins in ‘75 to the 2002 season, and getting views from everyone except Eddie Murphy, who will not talk about the show ever for some reason. There’s a lot of gossip, anecdotes about the crazy all-night sessions, backstage sex, backstabbing, and so forth. And pl...more

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Jan 11, 2012 Clifton rated it 4 of 5 stars

I'm almost to the end of this book. It was a present for Christmas and I love it. I grew up on SNL. It was my Saturday night baby sitter for a lot of my childhood. With the exception of a few interjections from the authors the book is pretty much just interview pieces from former cast members, hosts, writers and executives from NBC.

I loved the cast that was on SNL when I started watching. Dana Carvey, Phil Hartman, Jan Hooks, etc. The cast and the sketches of that era probably shaped a lot of w...more

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Jul 31, 2011 David Sawyer rated it 3 of 5 stars

First two thirds of the book was great. Lots of stories from cast members and writers about what happened behind the scenes. I also learned a lot of the process behind a Saturday Night Live episode. But by the end of the book, I was frankly getting tired of story after story about guest hosts. "The worst host we ever had was..." That may be due in part to the lack of substantive back story to the most current cast at the time the book was written (Ferrell, O'Teri, Kattan, etc.). That cast had a...more

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Jun 18, 2011 Rebecca rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: tv

Ahh, I have been wanting to read this book forever! I think I took it out of the library once in Pasadena and started reading it, but I don’t know what happened but I never finished it. I remember it being really boring, but whatever. The first part of this book totally was if only because I hardly knew what anyone was talking about. I wasn’t even alive when it happened and the way it was written, it was kind of confusing when people would refer to other people, they would use nicknames and you...more Ahh, I have been wanting to read this book forever! I think I took it out of the library once in Pasadena and started reading it, but I don’t know what happened but I never finished it. I remember it being really boring, but whatever. The first part of this book totally was if only because I hardly knew what anyone was talking about. I wasn’t even alive when it happened and the way it was written, it was kind of confusing when people would refer to other people, they would use nicknames and you couldn’t be quiet sure who they were talking about. It was interesting though, once I got through the first part. The book made me feel really freakin’ old though. Most of people who work on the show are no older then 30 and probably like half are under 25. Just kill me now. I found an error in the picture part and corrected it with my pencil!! Yay! If you like, SNL, read it, if not, pass it. Whatever. What is your earliest memory of SNL? I know exactly when I started watching it. Fall, 1993, 7th grade. For some reason, that Saturday I stayed up and discovered it. I don’t remember who hosted, but in school that following week my friend Nicole and I and some other people were sitting in math and she said something along the lines of “SASSY” and said it how Phil Hartman had said it in that sketch and I laughed or pointed out that I knew where that was from and she sniped back that I didn’t and I said, yes, it’s from Saturday Night Live. That shut her up really fast. (PS. If you couldn’t tell, we were even that good friends. We just shared friends, but the two of us weren’t, but you know how it rolled back in 7th.) Anyway, from there on in, I am pretty sure I have seen almost ever episode between that time and now (with the great exception of since I have been in NZ because they don’t show it here. Which they really should! A week delayed on C4 at like 7:30p or something. It would be perfect for them and I don’t know why they don’t!) But the best episode ever was one sometime in 1994. For all surface reasons, it should have been just a normal week, but for some reason, my sister and I just love this episode, hosted by Sara Gilbert, music from the Counting Crows. We still have that episode on BETA!!!
Share your SNL memories!

Grade: C+(less)

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May 17, 2009 W.B. rated it 5 of 5 stars

This is really great dish, especially if you watched this show for any extended period of time in your life. I've fallen away from watching it the past few years, but watched it for decades. So the dish is great. I guess I had this idealized (and erroneous) conception of how the show works. I figured that it was all about camaraderie and friendship and a shared sense of the mission---simply to make people laugh. Okay, and maybe to make them think too. Sometimes. But not too much. But NOOOOO!!! A...more This is really great dish, especially if you watched this show for any extended period of time in your life. I've fallen away from watching it the past few years, but watched it for decades. So the dish is great. I guess I had this idealized (and erroneous) conception of how the show works. I figured that it was all about camaraderie and friendship and a shared sense of the mission---simply to make people laugh. Okay, and maybe to make them think too. Sometimes. But not too much. But NOOOOO!!! Apparently, it was about ego dominance and survival. Always. Producer Lorne withholds the love to make all the children strive harder and always feel "you just haven't earned it yet, baby!" It's so funny reading these brief confessions from all these people, many of them geniuses. Because so many of them are still so insecure and angry and resentful. Most seem to remember it the way people recall and describe a bad past marriage. So many feel they were never truly loved or appreciated on the show, or feel they were passed over constantly. But that's the life of a comic, right? A few things are repeated so often you're sure they're true, like that performers were expected to write for the show without getting paid for it. Lorne somehow managed to sneak around the Guild on that one. And everyone hated Janeane Garofalo. Okay, not everyone but almost everyone. She tried to sabotage the show quite often and badmouthed it publicly while she was a cast member. Even Paul Simon takes some digs at Janeane. It's so interesting to learn who ran with whom, who formed cabals, who axed whom, etc. If you're a fan of SNL past or present, it's good stuff. But it's odd. Some of the ones that come across as the most arrogant (like Garofalo or Chris Rock, who is not generous at all in describing some other cast members, and especially other black cast members) are often those who went on to amazing careers. Arrogance was often rewarded in that environment. But then you had the quiet survivors who kept their noses out of everything and refused to play the game, like Molly Shannon. There were some class acts who apparently managed that tightrope walk. I find it all fascinating, really. I would have thought these creative minds would be more interested in talking about the art they created, or things they are proud of having achieved, or even what gave them joy and really made them laugh. But almost all of these comics talk about this period of their lives more as a business. They focus on the business end of things, the money and time allotted. I guess many of them saw this as an opportunity to speak their mind to Lorne or other cast members they were still angry at, without looking like a real shitbag for writing their own tell-all. "Hey, somebody was asking me...and I told the truth!" It's sort of exonerative, right lol? Still, it's a good book. It's not literature, it's just dish. But great dish.(less)

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Apr 16, 2009 Christopher Carbone rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Anyone who wants to know why SNL worked

Maybe the best oral history about how the most prominent fixture in late-night TV works so well. It all started because Johnny Carson wanted Fridays off (and thus, wnated "the Best of Carson" to go on Friday -not Saturday -Night. Thus, a need was created.

Enter Lorne Michaels. And John Belushi, Dan Akroyd, Chevy Chase etc.

The book chronicles the 20+ years of SNL from the early days to the lean years (think Tim Kaszerinski) to the boom of John Lovitz to the Conan dynasty where he wrote basically...more

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Dec 29, 2012 Julianne rated it 4 of 5 stars

Here's three things I learned from reading this book:
1) I am not young enough or dangerous enough to be on SNL. Julia Louis-Dreyfuss dropped out of college to be on the show after her junior year. Eddie Murphy was 18 when he started. So bye bye, dream.
2)At different points in the show's first season, Chevy Chase and John Belushi refused to perform sketches written by women because "women weren't funny." (Keep in mind, these were men who worked with Gilda Radner (Roseanne Roseannadanna), Laraine...more Here's three things I learned from reading this book:
1) I am not young enough or dangerous enough to be on SNL. Julia Louis-Dreyfuss dropped out of college to be on the show after her junior year. Eddie Murphy was 18 when he started. So bye bye, dream.
2)At different points in the show's first season, Chevy Chase and John Belushi refused to perform sketches written by women because "women weren't funny." (Keep in mind, these were men who worked with Gilda Radner (Roseanne Roseannadanna), Laraine Newman (Connie Conehead), and Jane Curtin (of "Jane, you ignorant slut!" fame, among other things). Not to mention the likes of Ana Gasteyer, Molly Shannon, Cheri Oteri, Amy Poehler, Rachel Dratch, Maya Rudolph, and Tina Fey (my personal fave) who came through later and helped the show recover after one of its lowest "lows".
3) "It was the '70's" is a get-out-of-jail-free card that can be used to excuse just about anything, and there really isn't a modern-day equivalent that will work to excuse any stupid mistake I make.

I've been a huge fan of SNL for ages. I grew up with my dad talking about how it's never going to be as good as it was in the '70's, but I always found it weird that he kept watching it anyway. I got this book for Christmas, and in spite of the hefty page count I breezed through it. It's so easy to read, partially because it's full of the juicy backstage stories that I love, and partially because those stories are told by the people who lived them-the writers, actors, and producers of SNL. The structure's great, with quick little anecdotes tied together with commentary from the interviewers who put the book together. In the intro, they mentioned that the book had received criticism for seeming to be too reverent of SNL, but I didn't really find that. Even when they talked about good things from the show and iconic moments, they also included plenty about the problems faced by the show.
Reading first-hand accounts about moments, sketches, and people that had taken on an almost-mythological quality in my mind was so interesting because I love the show so much. For people who are content to sit back and just say that the show sucks and it isn't relevant anymore, this book would probably not be very enjoyable. However, this book is great for anyone interested in SNL, television, even history. (less)

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Jan 21, 2012 Patti rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: memoir

A good guilty pleasure read, but seriously uneven. Five stars for the section on the 70s (drugs! sex! drama! blues bars! all night parties! crazy people!), four for the early 80s (hot mess! intrigue!), and three for the rest of the book (basically, there were guest stars; Janine Garafalo hated the show and everyone hated her; everyone has daddy issues with Lorne Michaels). This waning excitement is probably a combination of the show itself getting into more of a routine over the years and the fa...more

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Feb 23, 2012 Jeff Verthein rated it 3 of 5 stars

Understandbly the book dwells upon the first cast from the show. I am the same age as the show. I remember begging my mother to let me stay up in case the Coneheads were on, and we still love to say "Landshark" when we visit ceratin family memebers, but I am not old enough to attach any cultural cache to that era. Lorne Micheals is not a celebriy to me. It comes through loud and clear why the show was (is?) as important as these authors make it out to be, and sex and drugs are naturally juicy to...more

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Mar 26, 2013 TrumanCoyote rated it 5 of 5 stars

Probably not as good for someone who hasn't read a bit about the subject beforehand. An oral history of SNL--filled with all sorts of great quotes about people and things; plus they interviewed everybody--even pissed-off people like Laraine (though I guess they weren't lucky enough to get in the court of Murphy the First). A few surprises (Chris Kattan not gay?--hm). Only lame part was the pompous epochal italicized links--the only actual contribution from the writer goobers. Okay, I'm being mea...more

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Aug 12, 2011 Lee rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: non-fiction

I really enjoyed hearing about the original cast and crew, how the show got started, the challenges faced by Lorne Michaels and the cast in simply getting skits on the air. And while I'm very familiar with the cast and crew from the first five seasons, I found some of the most interesting parts of the book dealing with the fumbling around of the 1980 season, and the Dick Ebersol era as well.

No punches are pulled, you get all of the highlights and all of the low-lights straight from the mouths of...more

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Jul 16, 2011 Lisa rated it 4 of 5 stars

I'm a big fan of oral histories, and the authors did an incredible job sifting through all the folklore, interviews and chapters of SNL history here. As a big fan of television, this proved to really be one of the most interesting stories out there (one suspected it would be and is proven correct). You forget how tethered to even just a passing knowledge of SNL our lives are, be it through the sketches we've all seen to the impact that people who came from the cast had.

Also, this was an interes...more

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Feb 11, 2010 Kid rated it 3 of 5 stars

Compulsively readable and haphazardly compiled, Live From NY is a hagiography of Saturday Night Live and Lorne Michaels. It's an oral history and it's not completely without voices critical of Daddy Lorne but the overall gist of this thing is that SNL is a cornerstone of American television comedy. That's true I think.

What's kind of ridiculous about this book is the interstitial comments by the editors - they are so cliche-ridden and vapid that you wonder if they were still in high school when...more

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Apr 02, 2012 Joe Barlow rated it 3 of 5 stars

A disappointing look at one of television's most innovative shows. Tom Shales has penned a rambling, unfocused book that focuses heavily (and understandably) on the Belushi era of SNL, while almost completely ignoring Andy Kaufman and Garrett Morris. One of the show's most legendary incidents, Sinead O'Connor ripping up a picture of the Pope live on the air, earns no more than a couple of paragraphs, but repetitive tales of Chevy Chase being a complete a**hole to other members of the cast seem t...more

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Jan 03, 2009 Mary rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: nonfiction

This was an engrossing and sometimes infuriating read. SNL is an undeniable force in pop culture, launching career after career and influencing the cultural memes, but I still had a hard time dealing with the self-important tone of the authors and the people they interviewed. The overall impression was that they'd been participating in a cult that still held them and the rest of us in thrall. And Lorne Michaels = Jim Jones.

The book was fun for the bits of insider-y gossip it offered--everybody...more This was an engrossing and sometimes infuriating read. SNL is an undeniable force in pop culture, launching career after career and influencing the cultural memes, but I still had a hard time dealing with the self-important tone of the authors and the people they interviewed. The overall impression was that they'd been participating in a cult that still held them and the rest of us in thrall. And Lorne Michaels = Jim Jones.

The book was fun for the bits of insider-y gossip it offered--everybody thinks Chevy Chase is a dick, George Steinbrenner was a terrible host--though many of the interviewees stuck to generalities without talking about specific people or sketches, which kept you wondering who or what they were talking about. You got the history of the controversies, the deaths, and the cycles of "good seasons" and "bad seasons," the network beefs, etc., etc.

Long-time writer James Downey gave some revealing interviews. He's known for writing a lot of political sketches and getting into a huge feud with one of the NBC execs. When Norm McDonald started anchoring Weekend Update in the mid '90s, Downey wrote most of his material. That always seemed like one of the most unfunny things in the history of the show to me. Not surprisingly, Downey and MacDonald had extreme contempt for the audience, more interested in doing what they thought was smart humor than getting laughs. In the book, MacDonald says, "I have more faith in me and Jim that I did in any audience. I just like doing jokes I like, and if the audience doesn't like them, then they're wrong, not me." I suppose many "comics" have that attitude and some express it regularly (hello, Carlos Mencia), but it always seems stunning to me.

That passage sort of crystalized the whole book for me, though, because it addresses the central question: Who and what was (is) this show for? Clearly it was breaking ground when it began (as they will never let us forget), but when the participants reminisce and celebrate and fulminate, they talk endlessly about the pressure, the ideas, the performances, the opportunity, the relationships. It's all inside baseball -- the rarefied air of their club. Many describe the show as a intense training ground for performance and celebrity. Which makes sense: they set it up so only a week's work goes into each show. It's performed live. If they were trying for perfection, they'd do it differently. As a member of the audience, what it amounts to is a weekly exercise in watching people improve their craft. Often it's funny and great and, just as often, it's kinda lame. The book's tone was one of reliving the glory and assuming immortality. But the glory isn't for us, it's for them and their careers. They kinda need to get over themselves.
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Aug 05, 2012 David rated it 5 of 5 stars

“Gilda got married and went away. None of us saw her anymore. There was one good thing: Laraine had a party one night, a great party at her house. And I ended up being the disk jockey. She just had forty-fives, and not that many, so you really had to work the music end of it. There was a collection of like the funniest people in the world at this party. Somehow Sam Kinison sticks in my brain. The whole Monty Python group was there, most of us from the show, a lot of other funny people, and Gilda...more “Gilda got married and went away. None of us saw her anymore. There was one good thing: Laraine had a party one night, a great party at her house. And I ended up being the disk jockey. She just had forty-fives, and not that many, so you really had to work the music end of it. There was a collection of like the funniest people in the world at this party. Somehow Sam Kinison sticks in my brain. The whole Monty Python group was there, most of us from the show, a lot of other funny people, and Gilda. Gilda showed up and she’d already had cancer and gone into remission and then had it again, I guess. Anyway she was slim. We hadn’t seen her in a long time. And she started doing, “I’ve got to go,” and she was just going to leave, and I was like, “Going to leave?” It felt like she was going to really leave forever.

So we started carrying her around, in a way that we could only do with her. We carried her up and down the stairs, around the house, repeatedly, for a long time, until I was exhausted. Then Danny did it for a while. Then I did it again. We just kept carrying her; we did it in teams. We kept carrying her around, but like upside down, every which way—over your shoulder and under your arm, carrying her like luggage. And that went on for more than an hour—maybe an hour and a half—just carrying her around and saying, “She’s leaving! This could be it! Now come on, this could be the last time we see her. Gilda’s leaving, and remember that she was very sick—hello?”

We worked all aspects of it, but it started with just, “She’s leaving, I don’t know if you’ve said good-bye to her.” And we said good-bye to the same people ten, twenty times, you know.

And because these people were really funny, every person we’d drag her up to would just do like five minutes on her, with Gilda upside down in this sort of tortured position, which she absolutely loved. She was laughing so hard we could have lost her right then and there.

It was just one of the best parties I’ve ever been to in my life. I’ll always remember it. It was the last time I saw her.” ----Bill Murray

"I had read how Adam Sandler, in his meeting with Lorne, had humped a chair and had him laughing so hard, he signed him on the spot. So I thought, I'm gonna go in there and be funny. I had a briefcase full of fake money, and as Lorne starts talking, I was gonna open it and start stacking piles of money on his desk. 'Lorne, you can say whatever you want, but we all know what really talks. And that's cold, hard cash. Now, I'm gonna walk outta here. You can take the cash if you want. Or not.' And then just leave and not come back.

So I walk in with the briefcase, and I can tell right away the atmosphere is tense. It's just all business. Lorne's there, Steve Higgins, the producer, is sitting there, and I'm carrying this briefcase, thinking, I don't think the money thing's gonna work.

Lorne goes through everything, and he says, 'Steve, anything you'd like to say?' And Steve just goes, 'Nice briefcase.' " ---Will Ferrell
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Nov 08, 2011 Jake rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This book is phenomenal, and you really get swept up in the history of this show, which the authors love to refer to as "an American treasure." In an ideal world, though, the authors would have researched more, as many times they delegate the story-telling to the cast, writers, hosts, and executives without any context or clarification. A perfect example would be when someone discussed the episode in the mid-80s where a light fell as Madonna hosted, and they claimed that Damon Wayans shrieked in...more

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Jan 01, 2013 Christina rated it 4 of 5 stars

This is a compilation of interviews with cast members from the entire history of Saturday Night Live (up until about 2002) covering a range of topics including the origin of the show, Lorne Michaels’ influence over the cast, drug use and office romances, and the first show post-9/11. They seem to have gotten stories from everyone involved with the show (provided that they were still alive, and not Eddie Murphy, who declined involvement). It feels like a conversation between friends. All the stor...more

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Oct 05, 2011 Megan rated it 4 of 5 stars

For comedy nerds, I think this book is great. For all other normal mortals, I really can't say. The behind-the-scenes life of a program that has spanned the years, and shaped (or better, reflected) popular culture and opinions is fascinating. The oral history-style of the narrative gives the book an opportunity to converge the diverse voices and ideas of what is truly a collaborative project. Though, it at times diverges and loses the storyline briefly, on the whole I think this is well structur...more

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Aug 16, 2010 Molly rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: nonfiction

I like SNL, so I thought I'd get the behind-the-scenes story. Parts of this book were great -- lots of interesting insights from cast members and writers (Al Franken's baby shower story, for instance, had me laughing out loud). However, it was very uneven and the organization and editing were just odd. I really wondered why some interview excerpts were even included.

Also, the reviewers who called this a "hagiography" were quite right -- the editor/authors were nearly sycophantic in their praise...more

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May 31, 2012 bfred rated it 3 of 5 stars

SNL was one of my earliest TV obsessions (I began watching it with my father in the late 80s, Dana Carvey-Phil Hartman-Dennis Miller era), so my expectations were high when I stumbled across this exhaustive oral history, which was first published in 2003. It's hard to screw up a book comprised almost entirely of as-told-to anecdotes, and TV journalists Tom Shales and James Miller do a pretty comprehensive job of prodding a wide variety of key players for their memories. My complaints are pretty...more

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Oct 07, 2012 Will rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: favorites, lent-out-books

It's been a while since I loved a book simultaneously for such lofty and such smutty reasons. Probably the last time was Mario Puzo's The Godfather which, for those who haven't read it, is the trashiest novel to ever have been adapted into a classy movie. Live From New York, Shales and Miller's oral history of America's favorite (or at least most enduring) late night sketch show, is at turns hilarious at heartbreaking. Comprised of interviews of virtually all the major artists and executives inv...more

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Apr 11, 2012 John Hartnett rated it 3 of 5 stars

"A fast, entertaining read that chronicles the start and evolution of Saturday Night Live. While a little sloppy and disjointed (much like the show was at times), the collection of first person interviews with writers, producers, performers and guests is often insightful and very funny. Lot's of great anecdotes and commentary that fleshes out the personalities of those who contributed to SNL over the years.

Perhaps not the right choice if you're looking for a comprehensive chronology of each seas...more

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title link	preview: Live from New York: An Uncensored History of Saturday Night Live
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BBCode	[url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/55095.Live_from_New_York?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book][img]http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1344265116l/55095.jpg[/img][/url] [url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/55095.Live_from_New_York?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book]Live from New York: An Uncensored History of Saturday Night Live by Tom Shales[/url]

Live from New York: An Uncensored History of Saturday Night Live

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