LIVE From NEW YORK It's ME Writing THIS

Basically, SNL is 50 and I am The Mango.

I’ve been meaning to write about a bunch of different things for a while now, but I’ve been having trouble landing on a subject I can really sink my teeth into. Maybe, I thought, I should write about the other day when I mindlessly tapped on the plastic cover of my vegan pesto as if it were my phone screen. Perhaps I could write about how being reallyfuckingskinny is BACK in a BIG way and how I think this relates to, and thrives in, the thick, fascistic atmosphere in which we’re currently being suffocated (not smart enough to talk about this, unfortch!!!). Of course, I know what I SHOULD talk about. I SHOULD talk about the thing people ask me about the most these days, which is my very brief stint as a writer at Saturday Night Live. This is, how do you say, relevant, and I do have a lot to say about it, although I’m mostly writing this so people stop asking me about it. Not because I don’t like talking about it! But there’s just so much to say it’s hard to get it all out during short conversations in the back of loud bars.

I’ll mostly be talking about stuff I’d like to remember about my time there, as I don’t want to forget anything because my brain is, against all odds, aging (in a sort of “rode hard and put away wet” kind of way). I’ve already talked about the bad, weird stuff on various podcasts like WTF, where things I talked about were taken outta context and written about in Newsweek of all places which made me um…annoyed and embarassed! I would like to say upfront that I really did, generally, like my time working at SNL, and I particularly loved the people I worked with, all of whom were so funny in their own ways. From the assistants to the amazingly talented people in all the departments, everyone seemed to be great at their jobs. Some I got to know, some I never even met, but I was always impressed with the amount of good shit they got done in such a short amount of time.

One of the hardest parts of working there was seeing immense talent or insanely funny ideas stifled, chipped away at or discouraged for reasons that always seemed arbitrary to me (“Lorne doesn’t like fart jokes” etc etc). Some of the funniest things I’ve ever heard were sketches that were read at Wednesday table reads. Sometimes those sketches would make it to dress rehearsal and die or thrive, sometimes they would make it to air and die or thrive, sometimes they were hacked away at to appease some general idea of what The Greater American Audience would like to watch and something that I once thought was the funniest thing I’d ever heard/seen became just “fine” in the context of the final show. This is “just how it is”, all of which makes it so great, maddening, exciting and mind numbing all at once.

Again, my experience was very brief and I did end up quitting (although my husband’s aunt has been telling people I was fired?? Awesome…) I am so grateful I got to experience this world that so few people get to. It all feels like a complicated fever dream. SNL is basically the reason I wanted to get into comedy in the first place, which means SNL is the reason why everyone I know is a fucking comedian, why I’M a fucking comedian, why I’ve gotten to do so many insanely cool things these past fourteen years, why I end up laughing really hard every day about nothing and everything. I value comedy more than most things, and that all started with my love of SNL. I am also grateful I no longer work there, for the sake of my liver, lungs, and brain.

I started at SNL in February of 2022, the second half of Season 47. I’d turn 32 one week later. My first show was hosted by John Mulaney who was kind and encouraging. I pitched him my sketch idea and he and I volleyed back and forth for a little bit with jokes and lines. I remember specifically him pitching a joke about John F. Kennedy Jr. and, during the table read, hearing other JFK Jr. references he definitely pitched and dropped into other peoples’ sketches. “Damn, this guy is really This Guy.” I thought. Jah bless him. I did not get a sketch on that night, which I came to find out was normal for someone who just started at the show. I only kinda felt like a failure, a feeling that would fluctuate wildly during my time there. The longer you’re there the more attuned you become to what makes the room laugh, what makes you laugh in the context of the show, and how to successfully combine the two. I don’t think I was there long enough to really get into any sort of ~groove~ which I am a bit sad about…It’s not easy, b*tch!

That night at the after party I, tipsy, went up to John to ask him if he could introduce me to Conan O’Brien (who was at the party) before I got too drunk and embarrassed myself. He was kind enough to oblige. I spoke to Conan briefly, telling him about how I was sorta terrified, the type of “first day at a new school” fear, but with much higher stakes. He told me that feeling never went away for him to a certain degree. As I spoke to him I was (I guess) wildly gesticulating with a weird, long lighter I bought earlier that day that seemed perfectly suited for smoking crack OR meth, if ya nasty. It was this day I started chain smoking cigs again after not smoking at all for 3 years or so. “Are you gunna stab me with that?” he said, pointing at my hand. I noticed the lighter gripped tightly in my right hand pointed at his face. I half-explained how it was a lighter blah blah I smoke blah blah. Eventually someone else took my place in the conversation and I floated away, the embarrassment of it all dissipating under a blanket of sheer awe illuminating my whole being. Elliot Gould was there too! Unreal.

One Tuesday night (writing night), a host who shall remain nameless came into my office so I could pitch him ideas. We talked a little about this and that. I asked him if there were any impressions he’d like to try out while on the show, how maybe we could write something around that. He got really excited and said, “OH! Actually! You know what? I can do any kind of gay guy!” Disoriented, I let out a sort of “Oh!” in the style of “Love that, girlie!” This host, of course, was not a gay guy. “Italian gay guy, British gay guy, I mean like, any kind of gay guy!” I’m not sure what I said after that but I do remember very clearly him showing me and the person I shared my office with a YouTube video of a British historian to be like, “See! Like this!” To my knowledge, this historian was not gay but…dare I say…just British. Love that!

One time on the set of a pre-taped segment I watched Benedict Cumberbatch watch playback of one of his takes on a monitor. Someone asked if he needed headphones to hear his performance and he said no thanks. I watched him as he just studied his physical performance, making sure he looked…correct. Like oh, I guess football guy GRONK(?) watching a play he made during the first quarter(??) on his coach’s iPad(???) during halftime(????). I felt like I was witnessing something special for whatever reason; I was in the presence of a real actor. Someone who can tell, just by watching his face and body move in space (on screen) that he nailed it or completely ate shit. He was pretty great. Gronk.

I learned a lot about famous actors in that short amount of time. As far as I can tell and based on my limited experience, it seems that the acting part is easy (if you’re good at it), and the “being famous” of it all is extremely difficult. Not news to me or you but very interesting to witness up close. Some famous people I met at the show were kind, generous, normal ass people. Others were not. And NONE OF THEM gave me any money!! What da fuck?!??!?! I guess that’s the biz, Jizz…

On my fifth week at SNL I got my first sketch on the show (one that was my idea as opposed to someone else’s that I helped out on). Jake Gyllenhaal was the host. When we first spoke in my office that Tuesday I asked him how he dealt with travelling all the time for press or whatever. Like, if the time changes ever fuck him up. He said he generally tries not to schedule anything until after 11am. Wherever he is in the world, this particular time seemed to be ideal, no matter how much sleep he got. This, I have found, is very good advice that I abide by whenever I travel. I pitched him my idea: a commercial for a compilation CD of trucker songs (songs for truckers) about trucking. I am, spiritually and unfortunately, a 68 year-old caucasian American man from, lets say, Peoria. Jake liked it for whatever reason and I wrote the sketch, songs and all, with the wonderful Dan Bulla. Somehow it made it to air, the last sketch of the show. About 20 minutes (maybe less) before my sketch was set to air, we were told we had to cut a few pages from the sketch for it to actually fit on the show, time-wise, at that point. We cut as quickly as we could, having prepared some cuts in advance, as Dan suggested we do. He’d been at the show for a while and knew what to expect, how to expect it, and was so helpful and patient with me while I farted my way around the studio, leaving sweaty handprints on every draft of the sketch. After we made cuts I ran to cue card HQ to update the cards, dressing rooms to tell cast which lines of theirs had been cut for time, sent an updated script to everyone who needed it, and eventually the only thing I had left to do was watch it happen…LIVE. They brought in a lifesize, real, front half of a semi-truck that the cast piled into and sang dumbass trucker songs in. I stood on the floor of 8H watching it all happen and go off with only a few hitches. To my left, Steven Spielberg stood next to Lorne as they both watched the sketch play out. It looked great and the actual sketch turned out okay! Could’ve been funnier, of course, but that’s just how it is.

I’ll never forget Steve Martin playing my banjo in my office. Before I could blurt out my sketch idea, he and Martin Short were whisked away as they were “running late for dinner”. I was told I could pitch my idea on foot, following them on their way out of the building. I stood in the corner of the elevator with Steve, Martin, and a security guard. Martin Short talked about how last time he got “the fish” at the restaurant they were going to. I reminded them of my presence when I piped up during a moment of silence. “Um, so you guys know Shark Tank?” “Uh-huh.” They replied. I’ll spare you the dumb idea, but at the end of my shpiel they laughed, thank god. The elevator doors opened and they went off to eat “the fish” while I headed back upstairs to the seventeenth floor.

During the season 47 finale, when I didn’t have any more work to do and I could just relax, my friend gave me a small piece of mushroom chocolate. Sitting in the writers room on the 9th floor with everyone as the show was ending, I started to feel…bad. The mushrooms had “opened me up” to every single bad vibe that had permeated that writers room. All the desperation, frustration, sadness, insanity hit me all at once. It felt so bad so quickly that I just had to laugh, almost maniacally. That room has a picture of every person who has ever written on SNL on the walls, and there honestly aren’t that many. Regardless, I “felt” them all. And honey? I had to get the fuck out there. The party was pretty fun though :)

I found myself writing lots of sketches with musical elements, having to write full ass songs, or snippets of songs, and getting the musical director Elijah to make music for said songs. I also had a lot of sketch ideas that revolved around being a kid, or written from a kid’s perspective. A nervous, awkward kid. In retrospect, I was clearly reliving all of the insecurities I had when I was a kid, wanting to be liked and respected, thought of as cool and talented. SNL brought that out of me in a crazy way and I really had to wade through that shit for a bit. Also I guess I love music!! I really do love writing songs, honestly more than sketches. So it only makes sense that I’d lean into musical stuff while I was there. Ultimately, music makes me feel safe and comedy makes me feel alive.

Answers to some commonly asked questions:

I worked there from the 2nd half of season 47 to the end of the first half of season 48.

My favorite host was Keke Palmer.

No, I never got to meet Pete Davidson.

Yes, it’s insane to work there.

Yes, we worked long hours.

I didn’t get to know Lorne well enough to say whether he is “nice” or “mean”. All I know for sure is that he likes popcorn and is rich.

I think Dave Chappelle sucks.

Any questions??? (David S. Pumpkins)

Happy 50th SNL. You’re fucking nuts.

Thanks for having me. And thanks for…the Mango…

<3 Clare O.