I'm Not High (20 page)

In the end, the aborted, maligned version of
Clerks
never did become a midseason replacement and
Buddies
lasted on ABC for five episodes. Looking back on this whole period fifteen years later, I can see that it wasn’t a waste. I learned that I wasn’t a Hollywood kind of guy, and it was good that I found that out in my twenties instead of my forties. And of course I’m
waaayyy
glad that I never cheated on Dee. That would have been chasing short-term gratification at the cost of a long-term journey, and also the worst mistake of my life.

Joining
Saturday Night Live
... and Becoming Joe Pesci

As the
Buddies
debacle came to a close and the
Clerks
pilot stalled, wouldn’t you know, execs from NBC came sniffing around again, basically telling me, “When you’re done with your ABC/Disney deal, let’s talk. No hard feelings about breaking the earlier deal.” I was unbelievably appreciative. Their plan, apparently, was to try to develop something for me for their late-night lineup. By mid-June, they had a new suggestion:
Saturday Night Live
was revamping for a new season. Did I want to audition?

My first thought was, “Dear God, no.” I knew Jay Mohr, whose status as a cast member was in limbo going into the summer of ’95, and he was not happy. A disgruntled Janeane Garofalo had bailed partway through the last season, and I’d heard plenty of horror stories from other people associated with the show. Without fail, they all hated their experience on
SNL.
Everyone coming out of that factory was miserable, and I didn’t want to be angry and ugly, because you know what? I was already there. I needed to get back to doing something uplifting.

After the Fourth of July weekend, NBC came back and said, “It’s gonna be different this year. Please, just audition.” In the end, I decided I’d give it a go. Why not? How could it go worse than my stint in L.A.? If I made the cast,
Saturday Night Live
would at least allow me to stay in New York. And after thinking a bit about the show’s legacy, I had to admit I was honored they were reaching out to me. At the time the show was at its nadir, but it was still
SNL.

One afternoon in July I went to Studio 8H at Rockefeller Center in midtown Manhattan for my first audition. I walked in the room and it seemed like not a single person was there. A female page wielding a clipboard told me to get on that famous Studio 8H stage and go right into my act. It was like walking into a warehouse. My footsteps echoed loudly in the deadly quiet room. Once I was onstage, I spotted Lorne Michaels, pacing and scratching his chin, with a few other executives buried in the shadows behind him.

I’d been warned in advance that no one watching was going to laugh and that the cameras pointed at me were set up so execs at NBC in Los Angeles could tune in. I launched into the Shut-up Guy, a character I’d developed to make my friends laugh. He had a heavy New York accent and would ask questions, not wait for an answer, then tell the person he was asking to shut up as they tried to respond. He was your basic irate New York City jerk. As I’d been told to expect, I heard nothing from the small crowd, although at the end a short giggle escaped from a woman in the back of the room. That gave me enough juice to keep going. And I really needed it, because this was not my normal shtick. I do stand-up, and I feed off the crowd’s response. I did a few other bits, then capped it off with a fake news report on body piercing from a heavy metal show at Madison Square Garden, complete with pratfalls. It was pretty tough throwing myself to the ground without an audience to play off of. I left thinking my performance was somewhere between a 6 and a 7 on a scale of 1 to 10.

The next morning I was sound asleep when I was awoken by a call from Phil.

“Whatever you do today,” he said, “don’t read the
New York Post.
”

“Gotcha,” I said sarcastically. “Sure thing.” I was groggy and had no idea what the heck he could be talking about.

I hung up and bolted to the newsstand. Inside the paper there was a huge picture of Lorne and a story about the hunt for new cast members. The story quoted Lorne as saying, “Well, you can write off Jim Breuer.” Then it went on to say something like “Breuer has in a matter of a few months already had two sitcoms go bust.” Really uplifting stuff. I was
soooo
glad NBC pushed me to audition. I was really confused as to why Lorne would say that to a reporter.

Saturday Night Live
was in trouble. A writer from
New York
magazine had embedded himself with the cast and the article he wrote described the show as “Saturday Night Dead.” The 1994-95 season was the worst they’d ever had and the show was on life support. To ratchet up the pressure even more, in ’95-’96, they’d be going up against the first season of Fox’s sketch comedy show
MADtv.
My agent later explained to me that people at NBC—the ones who called me to audition—stepped in and told Lorne that for the first time ever they were going to be part of the audition process and were going to have a say in who got hired.

Obviously, Lorne’s response was, “Screw you. It’s my show.”

The NBC suits said, “Sorry, it’s our network, and you’re gonna take a good look at Jim Breuer.”

So that explained the chilliness. It was a political pissing match, and I was caught right in the middle of it. At the time I had no clue; I knew only that I’d been insulted. Over the next couple of days, I got asked to go back in to talk to Lorne. He’d told my agent he thought I might have been “on something” at the audition.

When I went to Lorne’s office, he just sat there eating from a big bowl of popcorn. It was the strangest and most awkward business meeting I’d ever attended. He didn’t say much at all as I rambled on uncomfortably about my accomplishments. Eventually he came out with: “I should tell you that some people want you here, and some don’t.” Not exactly a vote of confidence for me.

I had one more audition at Studio 8H and then had to do stand-up for them one night at the Comic Strip on the Upper East Side. In between, I went back into NBC to meet Lorne again, along with one of the show’s writers, Steve Higgins. On my way in, I ran into another writer, Fred Wolf. I knew him from doing stand-up and he was firmly in my corner.

“Do your thing, Jimmy B,” he said, shaking my hand. “Don’t let them rattle you.”

I went into the meeting and sat down with Lorne and Steve. I immediately felt like this was a clique that was going to be tough to penetrate.

“Is that your real hair?” Steve asked.

“My hair?” I had no idea what he was talking about. “Yeah.”

“Okay,” he said. “You cool with it?”

“Yeah?” I said. I was sure he was screwing with me, and it upset me. I felt like asking if he was okay with his weight and glasses.

He continued. “It’s really important that we know if you’re bald or not. You’ll be doing a lot of different characters, and we need to know if you have implants. You know, like David Spade.”

“Oh yeah?” I asked. I thought it was ballsy of him to dish out the gossip to a potential newcomer.

“No,” he said. “Just kidding. He doesn’t.” It felt like a surreal scene from a Coen brothers movie. The rest of the meeting didn’t go any better.

After I did the stand-up gig at the Comic Strip, it still took a couple of weeks for NBC to let me know my fate. Lorne told me he had to go to L.A. to make his final decision, and then he’d let me know. “If you get the job,” Lorne explained, “we’ve got a huge cast, so it’ll be tough to get on. And if you do get on, then you’ll grow and leave the show eventually and you’ll resent me like all the others.”

I figured that Lorne was upset about losing big cast members like Adam Sandler and Chris Farley (though I’d later learn their parting from the show was a mutual decision), and that the show’s struggles were stressing him out. When they told me I got the part, I decided that winning over Lorne would be my number one goal.

NBC held a press conference with Lorne, showing off all of the new and returning cast members. Even Warren Littlefield, the network president, was there fielding questions. Before the festivities started, one of the NBC PR guys made his way through the studio giving out instructions. When he saw me, he stopped and gave me his spiel: “Hustle into makeup, and think about what you’re going to say today. Really focus. Have fun, and you’ll be fine.”

As we all walked down to Studio 8H, it was the first time I realized I was part of something pretty heavy. The hallway was lined with pictures of John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd in their bumblebee suits and Eddie Murphy in his Gumby costume; there were photos of sketches with Steve Martin, Bill Murray, and tons of famous past hosts. The magnitude of the institution began to sink in. A bunch of newspaper and television reporters fanned out in front of a giant table waiting to meet us all. Photographers were snapping pictures, cameramen were shooting video. On the table there was a podium, and behind it stood Lorne and Warren, and behind them, there were bleachers for the cast to stand on. I remember being next to Norm MacDonald—he’d just been admonished for smoking inside the studio—with David Spade positioned one row in front of us. I couldn’t believe I’d made the show.

Lorne and Warren addressed the reporters, saying, “We’re confident the show is going to rebound. . . . Here’s the new cast; if you have any questions, fire away. ...” So the reporters lobbed some softballs at the cast, nothing too difficult to tackle. Everyone was providing typical sound bites. And then came my turn. Having done stand-up for years by that point, I was pretty confident in my ability as a public speaker.

The first reporter said, “Being from New York, this must be tremendous for you. What was it like watching the show as a kid, and now you’re here?”

“I never watched the show as a kid.” I instantly had no idea why I admitted that. Norm and David snorted and started chuckling.

The rest of the room grew very quiet, and the look on Lorne’s face told me I’d put my foot in my mouth, so I quickly scrambled to make a joke of it: “Yeah, my parents were real sticklers about putting me to bed early.” Then Warren tried to help me out even more.

“Okay, Jim,” he said, smiling. “But what about when you got older? Surely you watched the show on Saturday nights?” I nearly kicked my teeth out scrambling to stuff my foot back in my mouth.

“When I was older, I was out having fun on Saturday nights,” I explained. “I wasn’t a
loser.
”

Warren was slightly staggered by my incompetence, and Norm started laughing even harder. My face grew very warm. I knew Lorne already didn’t like me, and I figured this gaffe was the final nail in my coffin. How could I be so nuts as to sit there and insult this man’s franchise?

Then the questioning pivoted to Norm, and my idiocy was soon forgotten.

“Everyone knows that
SNL
is full of partying and wicked practical jokes,” one mustached, older reporter said to Norm. “So as a senior cast member, Norm, what kind of practical jokes do you have lined up for the new cast?”

“What?” Norm spat. He hated lame questions like this.

The reporter continued. “Sure. Pranks. Have you got any pranks for the new cast?”

“Oh, oh, I see,” Norm said, pretending he now understood the question. “Well,” he said with a completely deadpan expression, “the first thing we’re going to do is anally rape them. Just take their pants off and stuff ’em. They’ll be like, ‘Oh my God, I’m being anally raped.’ ”

Content with his answer, Norm smiled innocently and looked around the room. Crickets. No one said a word. The reporter who asked the question shot Norm an expectant look, like he was waiting for Norm to stop clowning around and elaborate on what real pranks he had concocted.

“So,” Norm asked, still totally deadpan, “does that sound like a good prank?”

We’d barely met, and Norm stepped up and took the heat off of me by saying something so offensive and preposterous no one would ever remember what I said. A few of the reporters laughed uncomfortably, others groaned. David Spade did his little machine-gun cackle. Will Ferrell and Molly Shannon snickered, and I muffled my laughter as best I could because I was already on thin ice. Lorne and Warren just smiled gingerly and went to the next reporter with a raised hand.

After the press conference had sufficiently crashed and burned, I stopped by Norm’s office and asked him how he got away with saying something like that.

He started laughing and wheeled his chair around to face me and explain. “Listen, Breuer,” he said, “the press doesn’t give a shit about you! They don’t care what you say. It doesn’t matter what they put in the papers. All anyone cares about is if you’re funny on television.”

That was the moment I realized that Norm’s the guy who, when you show up for your first day at work and you’ve endured a big formal orientation, walks up and says, “You don’t need to know any of that shit. The best place to hang out is the stockroom, on Thursday mornings you can come in late, and always disregard whatever the assistant manager says.”

Norm was a great guy to know because
SNL
was a much more complicated place than
Uptown Comedy Club.
On
Uptown,
we needed all hands on deck, so if you were alive and remotely funny, you were on the air. It was that simple. We flew by the seat of our pants and had fun doing so.
Saturday Night Live
was fun, obviously, but it was more of a machine. A big, political machine. As those first weeks went by, I discovered that just because you were the funniest, or just because you had come up with the best character, it didn’t necessarily mean you were getting on the air. Nothing was a lock. Making it all the way through dress rehearsal and to the main show meant you had weathered a perfect storm of timing, humor, luck, and the powers that be—Lorne and the head writers—digging it. And as we prepped for the first show, I thought I’d nailed it.