Lorne's Exile

  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...

  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 ...

  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.

  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.

  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 .