Lorne's Exile

  Here is the photo of guest host Elliot Gould as well as another  rundown of the new cast members (remember, folks, Eddie Murphy was not included in the opening telecast) of the newly-rebranded Saturday Night Live '80 : Elliot Gould, Guest Host Denny Dillon Gilbert Gottfried Gail Matthius Joe Piscopo Ann Risley Charles Rocket And, for good measure, here are musical guests Kid Creole and The Coconuts.

  It is Saturday, November 15, 1980 and Elliot Gould is guest host of the opening episode of Saturday Night Live 's sixth season, and you can view it here . This is Elliot's sixth (and to this day, most recent) episode as guest host. Kid Creole and the Coconuts are the musical guests on this night. As each episode progresses, we'll touch on individual sketches, starting with the cold opening recalling SNL 's "Glory Days". The opening shot of the opening episode of the Jean Doumanian Era  is of a sleepy Gail Matthius, who realizes the show is about to open, then wakes up next to guest host Elliot Gould, who are introduced to the new cast members and with each describing himself as a cross between two of the cast members from the original era.   Gail described herself as a cross between Gilda Radner and Jane Curtin. Next, up popped Charles Rocket, a cross between Chevy Chase and Bill Murray. Next up, it's Ann Risley, describing herself as a cross between Gil...

In mia-October of 1980, roughly before the Season Six premiere, Tony Schwartz of The New York Times  wrote this piece in which he revealed the names of the new Saturday Night Live cast members. Variety later wrote that producer Jean Doumanian leaked their names to Mr. Schwartz after a disgruntled ex-staffer had leaked the names to The New York Daily News. Nevertheless the Times revealed the names first. As a major consequence of this action, NBC had cancelled a press conference that was supposed to introduce the new cast members; NBC president and CEO Fred Silverman and the head of the Entertainment Division, Brandon Tartikoff were none too pleased with the revoltin' developments about Jean's leak to Tony Schwartz without Fred's or Brandon's knowledge.  

  Alongside the newly-hired head writer Mason Williams, here's a list of Saturday Night Live 's new writers: Barry Blaustein from 'round New York town, a former associate producer of the then-Hollywood-based Mike Douglas Show , who, in one of Jean Doumanian's best moves as producer, teamed up with Mississippi -born ex-ad man David Sheffield. John DeBellis, who succeeded in getting Joe Piscopo and audition. Brian Doyle-Murray (Bill Murray's brother), the lone holdover from the previous season's staff. A West-Coast team, David Hurwitz and Larry Arnstein, who were behind the San Francisco-based television show The Chicken Little Comedy Show . Sean Kelly, an Irish-born, Canadian-raised  veteran of The National Lampoon . Artist, writer , and actor Terrence (Terry) Sweeney. Patricia Marx, a native of Abington, Pennsylvania who was a humorist and writer. The aforementioned Richmond, Virginia-born Mitchell Kriegman, who was an actor, writer, comedian, and filmmaker ...

Following the firing of Peter Tauber, Jean Doumanian hired Abilene, Texas-born guitarist, composer, singer, writer, comedian, and poet Mason Williams .  A former writer and regular on the original Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour , Mr. Williams scored a major instrumental hit in 1968, with his own composition "Classical Gas." After her unhappy experience with Peter Tauber, Jean thought that with Mason and his experience in television comedy writing aboard, that the situation with the writing staff would become more stable. That was what she thought.  

Here's another preseason photo of the Saturday Night Live '80 full-blown cast  . Left to right, Denny Dillon, Charles Rocket, Ann Risley (sigh!), Joe Piscopo, Gail Matthius, Gilbert Gottfried.  

  During Saturday Night Live 's fifth season, to help compensate for the recent departures of Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi by making featured players out of several writers---and musician Paul Shaffer. Among the "featured players" were James Downey, Peter Aykroyd (Dan's brother), Brian Doyle-Murray (Bill's brother), Don Novello (on most cases, using the nom de plume Father Guido Sarducci), Al Franken and Tom Davis, Tom Schiller (who was a filmmaker as well), Alan Zweibel, and Harry Shearer (who at midseason was promoted to the Repertory  Company formerly known as The Not Ready For Prime Time Players). New producer Jean Doumanian ultimately hired five "featured players."  In this case, these---save for writer-filmmaker Mitchell Kriegman-----were "glorified extras." Here is your roster for Season 6's featured players (one would be fired before Christmas, another became one of SNL 's greatest-ever cast members, three others were axed by Je...

  Originally set to be Saturday Night Live 's new head writer, novelist, journalist, and stand-up comic Peter Tauber had disagreements with his boss, producer Jean Doumanian. He even wrote a memo to Jean, and when she dismissed it, he sent it to NBC programmer Brandon Tartikoff and his boss, embattled NBC president and CEO Fred Silverman. It just wasn't working out so Jean fired him shortly before the new season started. Here's a bit of Peter's memo:  '' you are very largely surrounded by sycophants, yes-men, fawning admirers, gushy-lucky-kids, flatterers and people who are dependent on you for approval and position. This would not be the end of Jean's problems with the writers.

Here is an actual promo for the November 15, 1980 sixth season premiere of NBC's Saturday Night Live  with guest host Elliot Gould; shown here are Ann Risley, Gilbert Gottfried, Charles Rocket, Elliot Gould, Joe Piscopo, Denny Dillon, and Gail Matthius.

Wow! An actual promo for the Season Six premiere of NBC's Saturday Night Live  with voiceover by the legendary Don Pardo! Shown in order of appearance: Denny Dillon, Gilbert Gottfried, Gail Matthius, Joe Piscopo, Ann Risley (sigh!), and Charles Rocket.

With worries concerning the new Saturday Night Live regime, the staff had trouble finding a guest host for the sixth-season opener, scheduled for November 15, 1980.  There seemed to be a campaign to keep prominent show business figures from working of the Jean Doumanian-produced show, some did it out of loyalty to Lorne Michaels. Several reasons were made for the late start to the upcoming season, most prominently, the use of Saturday Night 's traditional home, Studio 8H, was being used by NBC News for its' 1980 election coverage; rather than use the studio in Brooklyn, where three of the Season 2 episodes originated from four years earlier, they decided on the mid-November. With barely a week before the season premiere , they finally were able to snag Original-Era favorite Elliot Gould to open the new season with Kid Creole and The Coconuts as musical guests. Elliot had hosted the show five times previously. Here's a promotional advertisement from the November 15-21, 1980 ...

  Here's another preseason photo of the new Saturday Night Live cast. From left to right:  Charles Rocket, Gail Matthius, Joe Piscopo, Ann Risley, Gilbert Gottfried, and Denny Dillon.

  Once again, the new cast of NBC's Saturday Night Live . Sitting at front, Charles Rocket and Denny Dillon; standing at rear, Gail Matthius, Ann Risley, Gilbert Gottfried, and Joe Piscopo. I

  With the new cast of NBC's Saturday Night Live cast, atop the RCA Building at Rockefeller Plaza in New York City! Left to right, Gail Matthius, Charles Rocket, Denny Dillon, Ann Risley, Joe Piscopo, Gilbert Gottfried. Gail, Charles, Denny, and Ann seemed really excited while Joe seemed a little less excited and Gilbert, maybe even less.

Here's the promo for a CBS unsold pilot entitled Off Campus (telecast on June 6, 1977), The redhead is future Taxi star Marilu Henner; the brunette is future Saturday Night Live cast member Ann Risley (Sigh!)

  After auditions during the summer of 1980, here are the members of the new cast of Saturday Night Live , as chosen by producer Jean Doumanian: Cleveland-born Denny Dillon, an actress and comedienne, whose previous experience on TV including appearing as a guest in the show's third-ever episode in 1975 (hosted by Rob Reiner) doing a stand-up routine dressed as a nun with comedy partner Mark Hampton, also dressed as a nun.  You can find the episode here . She appeared on Broadway in Gypsy  and Harold and Maude .  She even had a small role in the motion picture Saturday Night Fever . More recently, Denny was a regular on a short-lived (1979-80) NBC Saturday morning kids' show Hot Hero Sandwich . In another post, you'll get to see a segment from that show's premiere (November 10, 1979). Brooklyn-born Gilbert Gottfried honed his act on the Comedy Shop circuit by acting like a manic madman.  There are doubts the Gilbert's manic style would go over on television, but...

That's future Saturday Night Live cast member Denny Dillon, appearing as a regular on the short-lived NBC TV series, Hot Hero Sandwich.

  With the upcoming season on the horizon, producer Jean Doumanian had to assemble a new cast---and a new writing staff . Bill Murray's older brother, Brian Doyle-Murray, was the only holdover from the season 5 staff.  He, like brother Billy, knew Jean.   Brian was one of several "featured performers" on that fifth season, made up almost entirely of staff writers (Al Franken, Tom Davis, Jim Downey, Don (Father Guido Sarducci) Novelo, Harry Shearer (before he was promoted to the full-pledged cast at midseason) among others; and exception was musician Paul Shaffer). Among others Jean hired were the team of David Hurwitz and Larry Arnstein, who previously worked on the Chicken Little Hour ; Pam Norris, who previously worked at The Harvard Lampoon ; Sean Kelly, from the National Lampoon , Mitchell Kriegman (who was a filmmaker and who would appear as an occasional performer), and Mason ("Classical Gas")Williams, songwriter/guitarist/comedian and a former writer for ...

  Chicago-born Jean Doumanian was appointed into the tough job of trying to fill Lorne Michaels' shoes as the new producer of NBC's Saturday Night Live . Jean joined the staff as talent coordinator in early 1976, shortly after the show she had worked for in the same capacity, Saturday Night Live with Howard Cosell , was cancelled by ABC cancelled in January of 1976. Before that, Jean worked for Dick Cavett (who hosted SNL twice). It was her job to find a new cast and new writing staff----and her budget, $350,000, was roughly a third of what Lorne worked with in the 1979-80 season. In 1979, she produced and took a writer's credit for the NBC Special, Bob and Ray and Jane, Laraine, and Gilda .

  That made  all this possible. Negotiations between embattled NBC president and CEO Fred Silverman and Lorne Michaels were cancelled as a result of Al's " Limo For A Lame-O " bit on Weekend Update .  That led to Mr. Silverman breaking off negotiations with Lorne and so Fred asked one of his key assistants, Barbara Gallagher with a suggestion who should replace Mr. Michaels.  Barbara suggested her good friend, Saturday Night Live 's talent coordinator-turned-associate producer Jean Doumanian, who eventually got the gig. Lorne had wanted the show to be put on hiatus for several months, than return around the start of the 1981 calendar year, starting fresh and re-casting the show; if that weren't possible, he suggested that writers Al Franken, Tom Davis, and Jim Downey to become the show's new producers.   But Al's "Limo for the Lame-o" bit made Fred angry, and as one might say, the rest is history.