Lorne's Exile

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.  

  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.

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 ...

  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.