Gasping for Airtime (15 page)

When I got off the elevators back down on the eighth floor, I could hear Joe Dicso was halfway through the casting call for the sketch I was in. Thank God for the intercom boxes, I thought to myself. Thank God for Joe Dicso and his voice.

One day after my dressing room was wired for sound, Michael McKean and his girlfriend were sitting there when Joe Dicso’s voice exploded into the room: “‘Buh-Bye’ will be next! ‘Buh-Bye’ will be next. David, Chris, Tim, Janeane, Ellen, Adam, Michael, Chris, Rob, and Jay! We are behind schedule, guys! We gotta go, we gotta go!” My dressing room was five feet by nine feet and the door was closed, so with the three of us in it the room seemed much smaller. With Joe’s voice chopping us into pieces, it seemed like a prison cell.

I knew that Joe said everything twice over the intercom. The entire cast was in the “Buh-Bye” sketch, and since I knew Joe was going to say all of our names again, I looked at the door and realized it would look strange to Michael and his girlfriend if I sprinted out of the room without explanation. McKean jumped a little and made a joke about how loud the intercom box was. Joe started to murder me. He pushed the button on his belt again and after a few seconds of feedback he belted out another rendition: “David, Chris, Tim, Janeane, Ellen, Adam, Michael, Chris, Rob, and Jay! We are behind schedule, guys! We gotta go, we gotta go!”

But McKean reached the door before I did. As he opened it and stepped out into the hallway, he looked back at me, laughing. “You know there’s a big volume knob on the back of that thing,” he said. I thought, Are you shitting me? My ears have been bleeding for a year and a half and you mean to tell me there’s a big volume knob on the back of the speaker?

The door swung closed and I was alone in the room with Joe and his voice and the speaker box. I pulled the chair under the speaker and climbed up. I put my face against the wall sideways, so I could look at the back panel of the box. The volume knob was an inch from my face and right next to it was a bright red sticker that read
VOLUME
. Why hadn’t I noticed this before? The knob was so big that the box had to be hung a few inches from the wall to make room for it. I grabbed the volume knob and turned it to zero. I got down from the chair and turned toward the door—happy with myself and thankful for Michael McKean—when Joe stabbed me in the back. “‘BUH-BYE’ WILL BE NEXT. WE GOTTA GO, GUYS!” I climbed back up behind the box on the wall. I read the sticker and studied the numbers on the dial. Joe started to read the names again and I turned the volume dial to 5, but the sound level stayed the same no matter what adjustment I made to the knob. I sprinted out of the room after all.

After rehearsing the “Buh-Bye” sketch, I stopped by the graphics department for a roll of duct tape. I spent the rest of the evening standing on my chair putting duct tape across Joe Dicso’s mouth on my wall. None of the other volume knobs in the dressing rooms were broken, just mine. Duct-taping someone’s mouth might be effective, but it had little effect on Joe’s voice coming out of the box. His voice was just as loud as it had been. It just sounded like somebody else’s. I was still being tortured every time an announcement was made, but I was glad the voice no longer sounded like Joe’s, because I liked Joe.

The free dressing room was like the
SNL
presidential suite. It was a two-person corner room with enough space for two couches and two chairs and doors on both sides. One of the walls had a long mirror encircled with bright lights running across it. The place was twice the size of my first dressing room and ten times (no joke) the size of my new tiny one.

On Saturday, Marci kept her word and handed me the keys to the corner dressing room with the two doors. I put my backpack on the floor and started shadow-boxing. I had so much room that I could have jumped rope and jogged. I sat on both couches and measured them up against each other. Which one was I going to sit on all day? I had asked out of another courtroom sketch in which I played another speechless bailiff. Since I wasn’t in any other sketches, I had planned on watching golf with the lights off and sleeping until the show was over. I took off my shoes and lay on the winning couch to settle in. I was drifting off to sleep when there was a knock on one of the doors.

Marci was in the hallway outside my door standing with
Beverly Hills 90210
’s Brian Austin Green, who had a walk-on part on the show, and Tiffani-Amber Thiessen, his girlfriend at the time. Marci introduced the three of us and informed me that they would be sharing the dressing room. We all shook hands and then Marci walked out of the dressing room and shut the door behind her. The dressing room didn’t look so big anymore.

The three of us sat in uncomfortable silence for a few minutes. Finally, Brian asked me if he could change the music on the boom box that I had brought to work that day. The CD that was playing was Miles Davis’s
Kind of Blue
. I asked him if he was serious and informed him that it was one of the greatest albums ever made. Brian Austin Green looked at me and said, “I only listen to rap.” Great. I was no longer spending the evening alone, napping in a giant dressing room and listening to jazz. I was now sharing a dressing room with two teen idols who took over my radio and played rap all night. I like rap a lot, but the fact that Brian Austin Green was picking which songs we were listening to was torture.

My evening was ruined until I started thinking about how much it must have sucked for Brian Austin Green. This poor guy flies from L.A. to New York to have a walk-on part on
Saturday Night Live
. It’s such a big deal that he brings his celebrity girlfriend with him, but when he arrives at the show and everyone is finished kissing their asses, they get shoved in a dressing room for three and a half hours with someone they had never met. They were both very polite about the whole awkward situation of sharing a dressing room with a guy who didn’t need one. Episodes like this didn’t bother me much. I just wanted to get on camera.

G
ETTING YOUR
legs broken
was a euphemism my manager and I used to describe what it was like not having a sketch on the show. It was appropriate because when I wasn’t in anything, I felt like I could hardly walk. The most painless way to get your legs broken was not to have anything picked for the show on Wednesday night. If Lorne’s corkboard didn’t have an index card with your sketch, you knew right away that you were shut out and it was time to start drinking heavily.

Sometimes it wasn’t until Thursday night rehearsals that the sledgehammer hit you. Perhaps the show was running long and your sketch had to be removed from the rundown so the show would stay on time. The bad news could also find its way to you on Friday night. If you were still in the game on Saturday, you still had to clear the live dress rehearsal at 8:00
P.M
. before the 11:30
P.M
. live show. Even after the live dress rehearsal, something always had to go.

An hour before the show, everyone would wait outside Lorne’s ninth-floor office for the final verdict. We all knew that no matter what happened, at least two sketches would be removed from the corkboard and thumbtacked to the side. No one spoke much during this time. Too much was on the line, and everyone was a little nervous, always knowing how arbitrary the process was. Sometimes the funniest sketch would be cut. I don’t know why, but it happened regularly. Even if your sketch survived the live dress rehearsal, it could still be bumped if the show started to run long.

On “Good Morning, Brooklyn,” my legs got broken not with a snap, but slowly and gently, which was even more painful. I first pitched “Good Morning, Brooklyn” when Marisa Tomei hosted, which was the second show of my second year. She seemed like a real nice gal. When I said hello, she said hello back. With memories of how my first year had ended still fresh in my head, I needed no more. Say hello back to me and you were forever cool.

“Good Morning, Brooklyn” was perfect for Marisa Tomei. It was basically a parody of
Regis and Kathie Lee,
but with Italian hosts and the show set in Brooklyn, with all the guests being people from the neighborhood. My character, the host of “Good Morning, Brooklyn,” was named James Barone, and his cohost was Angela Tucci. I was particularly pleased with myself in naming the characters because James Barone was actually a classmate of mine in high school. We had remained friends, so I derived great pleasure knowing that he was about to be immortalized on television—assuming the sketch didn’t get cut.

The sketch generated huge laughs from the normally tough crowd, both when I pitched it on Monday and then again at read-through on Wednesday after Steven Koren, a writer, and I fleshed it out. I felt good about its chances because it passed the
SNL
litmus test. Rule number one: Make the host funny. Marisa had several zingers in “Good Morning, Brooklyn.” Rule number two: Put the female cast members in your sketch. I had written parts for Molly Shannon and Janeane Garofalo, and made sure they would get laughs as well.

I waited around the writers’ room while Lorne, the producers, and Marisa decided if “Good Morning, Brooklyn” would make the cut. For an hour and a half they deliberated behind closed doors. None of it bothered me. I waited like everyone else and felt no anxiety. Everyone knew the sketch was hilarious, and they knew that I knew. It was almost assumed that my sketch would be chosen. After everyone got to know each other a little better during my first season, we started hanging around together after read-through, trying to predict which sketches would be picked for air. We were pretty successful.

Mike Shoemaker, one of the producers, announced to us that the door was going to open soon, so we all walked to Lorne’s office and milled around the wall with the letters, which was in front of the half-dozen secretaries stationed outside his office. When the door opened I was reading a protest letter from a guy who was appalled that we used the word
nut
over and over again. I never read where the guy lived because the wind from the door caught all the letters, blowing them up into the air, leaving them desperately clinging to their thumbtacks. I turned from the wall, walked into Lorne’s office, and at the top of the first column of the corkboard was a yellow index card that read
GOOD MORNING, BROOKLYN
.

Oddly, I didn’t feel particularly elated. I knew it deserved to be up there. I walked back to my office and a few people patted me on the back and offered congratulations. When I saw Steve Koren, he was beaming. “First sketch!” he called out, stretching his hand up for a high five. Being first was a big deal because it meant that we had written the funniest sketch of the week. I instinctively walked to the phone to tell my friends that there was a reason for them to watch the show. Shortly into my first season, I had stopped calling because whenever my sketch was cut, the first question they asked when I saw them was “What happened?” But because “Good Morning, Brooklyn” was scheduled to lead the show, I decided that it was safe to spread the word.

After I had finished calling everyone—except my parents, who had long since gone to bed—I walked back toward Lorne’s office. I was going to see if Marisa Tomei was still around so I could thank her. I found her in Marci Klein’s office, reintroduced myself, and told her how much fun we were going to have. She was very engaging and bright, and we chatted for ten minutes or so. But the conversation took a turn when she asked me how long I had been a cast member.

Without sounding the least bit defensive, I explained that I wasn’t a cast member yet, I was still a featured performer. Her face dropped. “You’re not even a cast member?” she said, half as a question, half as a statement. It became obvious that she didn’t want to talk to me anymore. Her answers grew shorter and she stopped making eye contact with me. I said good night to her and went home, carrying with me a funny feeling that it was best I hadn’t awakened my parents.

When I arrived on Thursday night for rewrites, Jim Downey pulled me aside. I was about to learn how many different ways you could get your legs broken. “We’ve got to talk about ‘Good Morning, Brooklyn,’” he said ominously. He explained that Marisa Tomei didn’t want to do the sketch, though he promised to try and talk her into it. I decided I would do the same.

I found her again by Marci’s office and confronted her. “Why don’t you want to do ‘Good Morning, Brooklyn’?” I asked her straight out. She began rambling that after the movie
My Cousin Vinny
, she didn’t want to be typecast as an Italian chick. She didn’t want people to think that was all she could do. I told her that the sketch was great for her and it was funnier
because
she was in
My Cousin Vinny.
People wanted to see her do something like this, I pleaded. She wouldn’t budge.

I knew that if I pressed her further I would run the risk of pissing the host off. I didn’t think Marisa Tomei telling Lorne what an asshole I was would be a good way to get more airtime. You could try and change the host’s mind, but if he or she didn’t want to do your sketch, what could you do? Nothing. It was eliminated. For the rest of the week, with your legs broken, you would crawl in and out of studio 8-H and curse every sketch that was being rehearsed.

I never believed that everything happens for a reason. I have always known, however, that everything does happen. My campaign for the sketch to remain in the lineup was legitimate, and I was grateful to Downey for going to bat for me. But I hated Marisa Tomei. I didn’t believe that she was worried about her public perception. I still don’t. She didn’t want to do the sketch the moment she found out that I wasn’t a cast member. I wanted to choke her during Good-nights.

But in the fifth week, I had a reversal of fortune. “Good Morning, Brooklyn” was back on the corkboard as the lead sketch, with Sarah Jessica Parker hosting. Suddenly I was walking on air. The sketch was slotted first, so it must have had universal approval. I figured that “Good Morning, Brooklyn” was my “Wayne’s World,” my “Church Lady,” my “Hans and Franz.” It was going to be the sketch that broke me.

Rehearsals went off without any glitches. The sketch was practically uncuttable. The host was getting big laughs, as were Farley, Sandler, and Janeane Garofalo. But during the Saturday afternoon rehearsals, a new storm began brewing. One of the producers pulled me aside and told me we had a big problem: A group called the Sons of Italy were going to protest the show if my sketch aired. The Sons of Italy apparently thought my sketch portrayed Italians in a negative light. It was further explained that unless I toned down some of the Eye-Tal-Yan jokes, the sketch would be yanked from the show.

I pleaded my case. The entire sketch was about Italians, and toning it down was the equivalent of making it less funny. A one-sided compromise was reached: I could probably keep the sketch on the air if I made it less Italian. Were they kidding me? How was I supposed to make a sketch about Italians less Italian? Mike Shoemaker asked me about the names of the two hosts: Did they have to be so stereotypical? Stereotypical? I had named the lead character after someone I knew. Go tell the Barone family in Verona, New Jersey, that they’re too stereotypical! There was no way I was changing the name James Barone. Instead, I changed Angela Tucci to Angela Evans. My legs were fractured but not broken.

It was a move that bothers me to this day. In the original version, when we both said our names, the audience knew right away what we were doing. We were doing a sketch about Italians hosting a morning talk show. Now, with Sarah introducing herself as Angela Evans, the audience wasn’t sure what they were about to watch.

The sketch remained atop the corkboard between dress rehearsal and air, but murmurs of protests from the Sons of Italy made their way to my ears. I remembered when Adam Sandler had done a Canteen Boy sketch that the Boy Scouts of America objected to.

A popular character of Adam’s, the Canteen Boy was slow, if not slightly retarded. Whenever you wrote a character that was an audience favorite, the trick was to ride that character as long as possible. This particular week, Canteen Boy was going to take place at a Boy Scout camp (with cohost Alec Baldwin playing the troop leader). In the sketch, Alec would eventually wind up sharing a sleeping bag with Canteen Boy and begin fondling him. We all thought it was hysterical. The Boy Scouts of America did not.

After the “Boy Scouts Canteen Boy” sketch aired, the wall outside of Lorne’s office where the letters to the show were posted was covered in letters of outrage. The most prominent letter had the Boys Scouts of America letterhead on it. The brass at Boy Scout headquarters were less than thrilled that a troop leader was portrayed as a pedophile. What made the situation worse was that the wardrobe department had outfitted those of us in the sketch in actual Boy Scout uniforms. They weren’t replicas, and there was no possible substitute for Boy Scouts in the piece. We called ourselves Boy Scouts, we dressed as Boy Scouts, and Alec Baldwin played a Boy Scout leader who molested Canteen Boy. The Boy Scouts threatened the show with litigation, which I never understood. What was the show supposed to do? Take the sketch back? Turn back time and rewrite it? So periodically someone from outside would get a red ass about something that aired and write a letter telling us how much trouble we were all in, but eventually, more interesting letters would arrive and the protests would go into the trash can.

As airtime neared, I blocked out the threat of letters from the Sons of Italy papering the hallway outside Lorne’s office and tried to focus on the sketch. It was a big break for me to have the first sketch of the night, and I didn’t want to experience anything but satisfaction.

“Good Morning, Brooklyn” got huge laughs on the live show, but something was gnawing at me. In the wee hours of the morning, after the wrap party, I was home in my bed when I had a troubling thought. The “Canteen Boy” sketch was protested by the Boy Scouts
after
it aired. “Good Morning, Brooklyn” was being protested
before
it left the building. How could people object to a sketch if they hadn’t seen it? It was just words on pieces of paper that went from my office to the read-through table to the eighth floor for rehearsal. Did the Sons of Italy have the writers’ room bugged? Did they watch rehearsals? Or was it all a prank?

I still don’t know, but when Courteney Cox hosted later that season, I brought back “Good Morning, Brooklyn.” Again, it was the lead sketch. I obediently wrote “Angela Evans” into the sketch to avoid any pre-show controversy. I also resolved not to be pushed around by a dubious-sounding organization named the Sons of Italy—and to emerge with my legs intact.

As we were coming back from commercial break during the live show, I leaned over to Courteney Cox. “There’s been a rewrite,” I whispered. “No matter what it says on the cue card, make sure you say Angela Tucci, not Angela Evans.” She introduced herself as Angela Tucci, and the audience burst out laughing.

The Sons of Italy didn’t show up at the wrap party to take me for a drive into the weeds in Secaucus. I checked the wall for the next few weeks to see if there were any letters complaining about the sketch being too Italian. If there were, no one took the time to post them. For the rest of my time on the show, I was really bothered by the whole situation. However, after the sketch had worked twice, I decided that I no longer wanted to strangle Marisa Tomei.