Tuesday is the famous all-night writing marathon ahead of every new SNL episode, but the week actually begins with a pitch meeting on Monday morning. It’s the first chance for the writers and cast members to vibe with the host and start getting positive feedback on ideas. Some, like Tina Fey, bring legitimate ideas. Others, like Conan O’Brien, do not.
I was listening to an old episode of Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend earlier this week, and in it, Tina and Conan discussed the process of writing for SNL. I’d heard Fey’s quote about how the system was designed by people on cocaine and is now executed by people not on cocaine before, but I’d never heard their entire conversation. It is fascinating, and mostly because they talk about that Monday pitch meeting and how some people are really into it and some are not.
Not surprisingly, Tina was into it. She would write out ideas ahead of the meeting every week for the host and mark each as being with type or against type. Also not surprisingly, Conan was not into this meeting. He would just make up an idea on the spot, and they would always involve the same location. Here’s how he described it…
You make up an idea that you don’t even intend to do. Mine always involved a blimp. Like, there’s a restaurant on a blimp, and I would say it to every single (host), and they would go like, ‘Huh, OK. Maybe.’ And Lorne would go like, ‘OK. Possibly yes.’ Why didn’t I have a sketch ready to go on Monday? There’s no reason.
The theme of the larger conversation was basically about how no one, even those who are more responsible, work ahead of time. No one is writing sketches on their weeks off. They’re all scrambling at the last minute, and that scrambling either starts before the Monday morning pitch meeting or it starts after your fake pitch comes to nothing and you need to write a new sketch on Tuesday. It must be wild for the upcoming hosts and musical guests coming into the chaos, but it also sounds like no one is called to the dreaded 17 (aka Lorne Michaels' office) because of lack of enthusiasm.
It’s no surprise that people often burn out working at Saturday Night Live. It’s a really common reason writers and Not Ready For Primetime Players cite when they finally leave the show, but there’s something about that chaos that does bring the best out of people. Many famous people who worked at the show have talked about how intensely creative they were during those weeks when everyone is scrambling to come up with ideas on really tight deadlines.
It’s also a great place to meet other incredibly funny people since the show is constantly hiring really talented people. Both Fey and O’Brien have worked throughout their career on projects with people that also came up through the SNL pipeline, either while they were there or during another era entirely.
Fortunately for Conan, his blimp ideas may have been repeatedly rejected by the hosts, but he ultimately got to feature a real life blimp when TBS launched one to advertise his show after he left NBC. It’s the type of success story we all dream of.
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