Susan Morrison, Author "LORNE, The Man Who Invented SNL" Show #251

Susan Morrison, a seasoned writer at The New Yorker with a rich background in cultural journalism, has crafted an insightful biography titled "Lorne Michaels, the Man Who Invented Saturday Night Live." Her admiration for Michaels' profound impact on American culture and standup comedy through SNL inspired her to explore the enigmatic figure behind the iconic show. In the biography, Morrison delves into Michaels' unique approach to work-life balance and his innovative leadership style, highlighting how his focus on leisure and self-care sets him apart from other entertainment industry moguls. Through meticulous research and interviews, Morrison offers a comprehensive portrait of Michaels, capturing his early career in Canada and his ability to nurture talent and foster collaboration among writers and performers.

The Book is Available in stores everywhere!

(00:00:59) Lorne Michaels Biography Book Promotion Event

(00:05:43) "SNL Creator: Influence on American Comedy"

(00:10:13) Lorne Michaels' Foundational TV Production Experience

(00:15:17) Fostering Teamwork Among Guest Hosts at SNL

(00:17:28) Lorne Michaels' Legacy in American Comedy

(00:18:39) Calm and Empowering Leadership of Lorne Michaels

Transcript

Announcer: 0:04

This is another episode of Stand Up Comedy. Your host and emcee celebrating 40 plus years on the fringe of show business stories, interviews and comedy sets from the famous and not so famous. Here's your host and emcee, Scott Edwards.

R. Scott Edwards: 0:22

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the podcast. We have an amazing interview for you today. This young lady was article writer. She's a professional writer at the New Yorker. She was editor in chief at the New York Observer. She was an editor for Spy magazine. And now she's an official author of an amazing book that just came out a few weeks back. It's called Lorne L O R N E, as in Lorne Michaels, the man who invented Saturday Night Live. Please welcome to today's podcast, Susan Morrison.

Susan Morrison: 0:59

Hello, I'm Josh jumping out of a cake right now. I hope you can visualize that.

R. Scott Edwards: 1:06

That's a great image. Hey, Susan, thank you so much for being on the podcast. We've had a chance to chat before you've done this amazing book that you worked years on, did lots of research, interviews with Lorne Michaels. You've talked to people on the crew, you've talked to a lot of the entertainers. It's an amazing book. What made you do this?

Susan Morrison: 1:29

Well, I, you know, I have been a fan of the show from the very first episode in 1976 when I was in high school. And after the 40th, I started realizing that Lorne Michaels is responsible for what so many generations of Americans think it's funny. I mean, it's an incredibly profound effect to have in the culture. And I just, I wanted to try to understand it better. He is also a lot of comedy. People like you know that Lorne is an object of upset obsession among people in the biz, but people outside of it, just TV viewers, they don't really know this. They just think he's this guy who occasionally shows up on stage for a minute or two. But he really is. They all call him the wizard of Oz, Obi Wan Kenobi. He is this mysterious figure that they all spend their lives trying to figure out. So I figured I'd try to figure him out too.

R. Scott Edwards: 2:25

Well, you took on quite a challenge and your book is amazing. I've had to the opportunity to read much of it, not all of it. It's very in depth, but it is incredible the stories you've shared and the way you've been able to map out Lorne Michaels career from those early days at SCTV in Canada where he was very successful, to the year that he was not on SN&L. Saturday Night Live and how that affected him. I want to ask you about that. But all the way up to his recent awards at the Kennedy center, he's had some great success. But what you've been able to do is encapsulate it in one very thick and in depth book. It's incredible. I really enjoyed it. There's some great behind the scenes stories that he shares. A lot of name dropping. Boy, there was. Everybody we know in show business has been on this show. It's so full of amazing talent. How did you decide who to talk to and how far to take each of those for this book?

Susan Morrison: 3:31

Well, that's interesting. I mean, Lorne, as Chris Rock, told me, this guy has been a lot of people's bosses, which makes him a great judge of human character and kind of an armchair psychologist. But really. So I just started at the beginning. I started at the beginning. When you're doing a big project like this, you always go with the oldest people first, you know, because they're not going to be around that long. I had a wonderful interview with Buck Henry, who I had worked with before, but spent an afternoon with him a year or so before he died. Herb Schlotzer, the incredibly visionary president of NBC, who had the idea for SNL and doesn't ever get credit for it. So some of these people who aren't with us anymore, you know, they were the ones to start with. But really I just kind of went through the years, you know, I started with the oldest people first and talk to everybody who was still alive. And I'll tell you, it did happen that I had been researching, interviewing Lauren, interviewing all these people for so many years that suddenly I just said, oh my God, Lauren knows so many people that I could just go on forever interviewing them all and never start to write. So at a certain point, right around the beginning of COVID I just said, okay, I'm stopping for now. I'm going to start to write. And if I have a in any holes later, I'll go back. But there isn't anybody that I wanted to talk to that I couldn't get. And you know, the thing about Lorne, although he's such a great spotter of talent, you know, all the people that he hires, they're not just funny, but they're smart and articulate. So for journalists, you know, they're a journalist's dream. Talking to all of these people was just such a pleasure.

R. Scott Edwards: 5:08

Well, and you have such a background for that. I mean, as somebody that wrote for The New Yorker. You also did some work with the New York Observer. You've really had a life experience in editing and writing, and I'm sure that laid a great foundation. This is your first full book, right?

Susan Morrison: 5:27

It is, yeah. So, yes, in a way, I've been preparing for it for decades. But in another way, it's a particular thing I haven't ever really done before. So it is kind of remarkable that I crossed the finish line and pulled it off and actually like it and that people like it.

R. Scott Edwards: 5:43

Yeah, it's amazing. And you're sharing things that you know. For example, I didn't know that Lorne Michaels didn't actually create the idea of Saturday Night Live. It came from one of the network people and getting a chance to interact with some of the classics like Buck Henry. You've opened up the doors and been able to share stories and information. As you said, many have been lost, and it's been such a long breadth of history with Saturday Night Live. In fact, one of the things we talked about previously, talk about timing. This book just came out. We're celebrating the 50th 50th people year of this amazing show based on stand up comedy and comedy skits. It's just amazing. But you're able to capture all that and put it in this book. And I noticed that it's not necessarily chronological.

Susan Morrison: 6:39

Well, I had this idea, which I was, I think worked out very well. You know, when you're writing a biography, especially someone who's lived for 80 years, like Lauren, you have to be careful that you don't. It doesn't just start to feel like a kind of a plodding march through the years, especially something like snl, which has, you know, you didn't want it to be, you know, season 23, and then goes on to season 24 and season 25. And, you know, that could become a really pedestrian, boring structure. So. But I also realized that aside from understanding Lorne's life and his life experiences and work experiences, what's really exciting about the show and something that not everybody knows is just the very unique breakneck pace at which it's constructed. You know, it's so much closer to theater than conventional television live.

R. Scott Edwards: 7:31

That is so true. And I don't think people know that.

Susan Morrison: 7:33

Yeah. And so every day of the week has a different cast. And I mean, not a cast of characters, but a different vibe. And so after I had been researching for a few years, I said to Lorne, you know, I think what readers are going to want to see is some up close, they're going to really want to understand what happened. So I embedded myself with him at his elbow, really, at the show for a whole week, going to meetings that no one has ever been able to go in. You know, just him one on one with a host.

R. Scott Edwards: 8:02

Oh, I'm so jealous.

Susan Morrison: 8:04

Him giving pep talks to depressed cast members. You know, I was just. I got to see everything. And so the way I wrote the book is I interspersed chapters with the days of the week. Like the first chapter is Monday in Lauren's office, the day the host comes. That week it was Jonah Hill and meets the staff. And that's really a kind of a big love in session, just for the host to start to feel comfortable and, you know, not afraid of having to jump out of an airplane, which is what he has to do on Saturday night, you know. And so those chapters, there's Monday and then there's Tuesday, and they are interspersed among all of the chronological biographical material. So you're reading about young Lorne in Toronto and then suddenly you're hurtling through the week, you know, so the book has this sort of propulsion that takes you through until the sort of crisis point of Saturday night when they're actually getting it on air live. And yeah, I mean, it ended up being a really effective strategy. I'm so glad I stuck with it.

R. Scott Edwards: 9:10

Well, what's nice about it is you didn't take the easy way out. In other words, I've authored a few books and it is easier if you can set up chapters that are either chronological or through a certain pace. And you were able to share lots of information, lots of stories that are just amazing, but you mix them in while kind of telling Lorne Michael's story, for example, getting the opportunity to see how the sausage is made, for example, by being there for a whole week. I mean, I'm so envious and so jealous. It had to just be so eye opening, so amazing to see that interaction with not only the talent, but then you got the production crew and you have all the writers. It's just crazy. Now, going back though his early years in Canada, what can you say about his work at SCTV and as a producer in Canada? And how in your mind did that lay a foundation for his success at Saturday Night Live?

Susan Morrison: 10:13

Well, the work he did in Canada was mostly with the cbc. He and a partner named Hart Pomerantz had a variety show that they called the Hart and Lauren Terrific Hour. And they came back and did this in Toronto after a couple of not so successful years in Hollywood working on kind of lame variety shows hosted by people like Perry Como and Phyllis Diller. So they came back to Canada and they did a show that they thought was pretty innovative. You know, it was sort of a variety show format, but it had slightly more updated comedy and it had rock music. And Lorne always says that the cbc, I mean, I don't know if it's because the budgets were small or what, but as a producer of a show, you really were expected to know how to do everything. He learned how to budget carpentry hours. He learned how to work with the costume people. He learned how to work with the lighting people. He learned how to edit in the editing room. So he came out of that experience pretty much knowing how to do everything. And that made him a big picture guy, which is something. All these skills that are necessary for a producer. And one of the things that's very unusual about his SNL employees, and I don't think this is well known, is that at snl, the writers, they don't just write the comedy sketches and then sit there and watch them get put on. They function as little directors and producers of their own sketches. So let's say Will Ferrell writes more cowbell. Well, that means that he. As soon as that sketch is put into production, he meets with the designers and he says, I want the studio to look like this. I want the wood paneling to be caramel colored. And then he says, tells the costume people, what do you want the costume to look like? And I want a shirt that's really short and shows my big belly. And they even direct it and block it so that by the time these guys have worked at Saturday Night Live for a few years, they have so much experience. It's like, that's why so many of these people end up as showrunners in Hollywood, because they haven't just been the writer, they've done every other job on the production. And it's like a crazy sort of finishing school for television production. And that is pretty much what Lorne got when he was working for the CBC in Canada. He learned how to do all the jobs well.

R. Scott Edwards: 12:40

And that's so important, as you mentioned, that as a producer, you're like the CEO of the company. You have to make sure that every aspect, from sales to marketing to production, in a TV show, you laid it out perfectly. You have the set, you have the cameraman, you have everything a showrunner does to make sure that a scene goes off. And the fact that he was able to learn that in Canada and bring it to the show. Saturday Night Live was certainly, you know, established him as one of the strongest producers even early on. But the fact that he's sharing that knowledge by allowing the writers to direct and produce each of their skits is such a gift to each of those performers. A couple of the writers that have worked for me, Peter Golke and Fred Wolf, I talked to Peter about your book and this, and he was saying that one of the interesting things that he learned was that the guest host, whoever it is that week, gets to pick which skits he's going to be a part of and which not, and that Lorne didn't ever feel the need to force somebody into a specific skit. Obviously, he would make, hey, you'd be really good in this. But he wasn't dictatorial in the sense that he made the guests do certain things, and the writers that were producing that particular skit then had to work with the actors that he was going to get for that skit. So, I mean, as you mentioned, each and every week is like a new play.

Susan Morrison: 14:18

Exactly. And the feelings of the host are just one of the many factors that go into deciding what will get on the air. You know, they want the host to be happy. So they do pay attention to the predilections and feelings of the host up to a point. Because sometimes all the writers will tell you that the worst thing is when a host comes in and just wants to be the bosso, funny guy in every sketch, because that kind of squeezes the cast members aside. They love it when a host will come in and happily perform what they call service parts in other sketches. It will really be part of the ensemble. So that was very interesting to watch up close. I mean, I think they all liked Jonah Hill, who was the host that we was there every minute. But I think they also felt that he was a little bit of a spotlight hog, that he wanted to be funny in every sketch, and that threw the balance off a little bit.

R. Scott Edwards: 15:17

I don't mean to interrupt, but one of the things I liked about your book was that you're able to explain how Lorne Michaels, through all these decades of working with celebrities, dealt and managed the prima donnas. You know, the actors that were their ego couldn't get in through the door. When you're on Saturday Night Live, you're one of the staff, one of the crew. You're part of an ensemble. And that's not easy for everybody. Yet Lorne Michaels developed this production, this play that we keep referencing, called Saturday Night Live. And during that week, the ones that really shine are the ones that fit in as one cog in the machine. As opposed to being the machine.

Susan Morrison: 16:04

Yes, exactly. And it's interesting if you go back to the very first season, he picked these five unknowns to be in the cast, and he wanted them to be unknown. He wanted them just to be like, if you're watching at home, he wanted them to feel like you're funny friends, just people that you knew from the corner bar. And so when Chevy Chase started to emerge as a big star that first season, that kind of upset the apple cart. That wasn't what was supposed to happen, because once one person was singled out and he was put on the COVID of New York magazine and they called him the heir apparent to Johnny Carson, that created a little feeling of discord among the cast. It's like, hey, why does everyone pay attention to that guy? And that was, like, one of Lauren's first lessons in how to keep the show going. Like, of course, there would be people who would emerge as stars, and then managing those egos would be another skill set he would have to absorb, and then those stars would leave, and he would have to bring new people in. You know, it's constantly rebuilding and replenishing. And I like to think of the show, you know, it's a reflection of the city that sits home. It's like New York City, which exists in a permanent state of flux. You know, buildings come down, new buildings go up. And that's what he has to do with his cast.

R. Scott Edwards: 17:28

Well, and I think that what we're both saying is that one of the gifts that Lorne Michaels brought to the production was his ability to rein in the cats going in all, every direction.

Susan Morrison: 17:42

Right, right.

R. Scott Edwards: 17:43

You know, there was constantly a battle. From what I've heard in the writer's had a chance to work with Dana Carvey, Kevin Nennis, Miller, all these guys work for me. And they would say that their experience at Saturday Night Live was unbelievable. They learned so much. But there was always this kind of sense of turmoil each and every week that everybody in the cast and Lorne Michaels had to manage, but the cast had to deal with. I'll give you an example, people. Through reading your book, people have had mixed reactions about Lorne Michaels, some good and some bad. And, for example, Tracy Morgan saying that he's the Obi Wan Kenobi, which is basically good, but made mistakes. So your opinion, after doing all this research and writing this amazing book, bottom line, was Lorne Michaels good or bad?

Susan Morrison: 18:39

Well, I think he was good at his job. I think that his intuitive management style, which is really effective and it's something that I think, you know, he didn't get it out of any Harvard Business school management book. I think it just came together through his own life experience with watching so many young people get famous so fast. It's a management style that definitely can be cruel. You know, he has a sort of. He has more in other, in some eras than others, like in the 90s where he could be very aloof and create a real sink or swim kind of environment, which felt cutthroat. But I do think that the way he set it up works. I mean, if you think about it, a week at the show is a little bit like the Hunger Games. You know, they begin the week, great reference. You know, on Wednesday they do a read through and they read four hours worth of sketches. Now we know that by Saturday night there are only going to be about eight sketches in the show. So it's just this drumbeat of anxiety between Wednesday and Saturday who's going to live and who's going to die. It's like Survivor, right? And that's just how it's set up. I mean, there are people who've said, well, you know, what if they didn't write that many sketches and just pick the right amount of sketches on Wednesday and then you wouldn't have had that, you know, that terrible bake off feeling all week. But I think that Lauren recognized that there's some utility in that. It makes people work harder, it makes people adrenaline get flowing. You know, there's something about the zero sum way show is set up that is galvanizing for people. I mean, and it's not for everybody. There are people who just take it, it's too stressful and they bail.

R. Scott Edwards: 20:31

Well, being an entrepreneur, I know that competition builds excellence and that if you don't have the writers and the cast kind of working against each other, you're not going to get the best. You know, it's that whole lump of coal. With a lot of pressure, you get a diamond. And Saturday Night Live is a great example, as you experienced, is constantly under a lot of pressure. And what's interesting is Lorne Michaels is the producer, the guy heralding over all this. Now, he's only 54 according to your book. So you have to be really strong willed. Was there kind of a little bit of a Napoleon thing going there?

Susan Morrison: 21:11

I don't know if I would go so far as to say that, but I think that probably earlier in his Life. There must have been a little bit of that. I mean, I don't know if he's actually that shrimpy, but he is not tall. But as I think I say in the book, his confidence belies his height. I mean, he's very self possessed, very self confident. I mean, at this point, that comes from years of being the boss. And he is, as I said, he has a very intuitive way of knowing how to make things go his direction. He doesn't yell and scream. He doesn't stamp his feet. You know, in one of my very first notebooks, after I started spending time interviewing him, I wrote down a sentence. Lorne Michaels has never used an exclamation point. You know, he's very. He keeps it very slow and mellow. I think in the book, I say he speaks in the tones of a man. Of a man narrating a golf tournament. You know, it's kind of very. He keeps his cool and he avoids confrontation, and he just keeps his hands on the wheel in this quiet, patient way. And Even in the mid-90s, when NBC was hatching plans to possibly replace him, Judd Apatow was one of the people they interviewed for this. He just kind of waited it out, you know, and didn't fuss, didn't say anything to the press. This is why Conan O'Brien says, you know, Game of Thrones, of Life, Lorne will be the last person standing. You know, if the world ends and it's just cockroaches, Lorne will be in his office feeding his fish and saying to some cockroach, I see you as a chubby cockroach. He'll prevail.

R. Scott Edwards: 23:01

Well, it's interesting that you went down that path, because one of my questions was, I read in the book and I wasn't even aware of this. I don't watch every season of Saturday Night Live. I'm older now, and it kind of is generational. But there was a year that he left the show, and I don't know if he was asked to leave, whatever the situation. But during that year, things did not go well, and they pulled him back rather dramatically. And I was curious what you. You know, it's in the book, but I wanted you to share how you thought Lorne dealt with and felt during that time that he was not with the show because obviously being brought back validated his position.

Susan Morrison: 23:47

Right, Right. Well, you know, he had done the show for five years, and they were completely exhausted. They did more than 20 shows a season, then totally burned out. Belushi and Aykroyd and Chevy were gone. You know, he was really exhausted, and so he wanted time off. They didn't want to give him time off. So he left. And he thought, okay, this is done, over. I'm now going to go back to my other dream, which is of making movies. He had always wanted to make a movie like Mike Nichols, the Graduate, so he jumped right into that. That didn't go so well for him. A lot of the movies he wanted to produce didn't get made. He did make one with Tom Schiller, which was kind of a little art film called Nothing Lasts Forever, and it starred Billy Murray and Dan Aykroyd. But that was never even released because the studio was expecting that it was going to be a bosso movie like Animal House. So, you know, he did eventually do Three Amigos with his friends Randy Newman and Steve Martin, but the whole movie thing kind of cratered. And so when NBC said, would you like to come back to snl? If you don't, we're going to kill it. He realized how much it meant to him. And he told me a story about how when he was thinking of going back, he wasn't sure. And he asked two different mentors. He asked. David Geffen was his friend, and Geffen said, no, you shouldn't go back and do that. You've already done it. Somebody who wants to be you should do it. And Lauren's response was, well, I kind of like being me. But then he asked another friend. He asked Mo Austin, who was chairman of Warner Brothers Record, an older and wiser figure. And Mo Austin said, well, you're good at it. You know, you're good at it. You like it. You like living in New York City? Go and do it. And so he took Mo Austin's advice, and he went back, and he has never missed a Saturday night since. It's obviously. It's his life's work, pure and simple.

R. Scott Edwards: 25:50

Yeah, and we're all glad that he did, because it really did have an impact on the show. You mentioned briefly that it went into movies. I know that one of his other companies is Broadway Video. You talk about that a little bit in the book.

Susan Morrison: 26:02

Yeah.

R. Scott Edwards: 26:03

Was that meant, or is it gonna be his exit plan? I mean, he's ready for retirement, but he's still engaged in production. How do you see him moving forward, let's say, the next five, ten years?

Susan Morrison: 26:16

Well, it's a good question. I mean, I think Broadway Video was his exit plan in 1981. That's what he thought he was gonna do when he Left the show, but now Broadway Video just kind of services all of his various other projects that he does. I don't think that the exit plan would involve something like Broadway Video. I know a lot of names have been floated, people who would do a great job running that show. Seth Meyers, Tina Fey. But my suspicion is that it would be something more hybrid. I don't think Lorne wants to get up in the morning without having SNL in his sights. I think it's his whole life and his personality is so inextricably tied up in it. What I could see happening is that he cuts back. What I mean by that is there are two days a week where he is completely essential at the show. One is Wednesday afternoon at Read Through. They read all the sketches, and then he and a handful of deputies pick the 12 or so pieces that are going to go in production. And then the next time he's really essential is Saturday at read through, at 8pm I'm sorry, at 8, dress rehearsal at 8pm he watches from under the audience bleachers, makes a million important notes and decisions, and then cuts some more things, trims some more things, and wham, bam, you know, then you have the show. But I think that if he just came in Wednesday afternoon and Saturday evening, all the other stuff could be left to his able group of deputies. And to me, that's the way I could see a person in his 80s doing it without really letting go, but not having to have all the work a day. Wear and tear, right.

R. Scott Edwards: 27:55

We're learning to delegate and trust the people that you trained. I think that's so important. I wanted to touch on something that only you, as somebody that spent so much time with Lorne Michaels, could maybe answer. In 2021, he won a performing arts award at the Kennedy Center. And I was. You kind of made it sound like he went along with it, but it wasn't like a goal of his. Would you say that he took that award with pride? Or was it. Did he feel unworthy? Was there a lot of modesty? How did that fit into his career, in his life?

Susan Morrison: 28:32

Yeah, I think he took it with pride. But here's the thing. I think Lauren is very smart. He knows that a lifetime achievement award is very often kind of a way the culture has a shuffling you off stage. You know, there's a sort of a downhill from here implication. But okay, next. Now you're done. And he still had a hell of a lot going on. You know, he was doing the show. He was doing Mean Girls on Broadway. He had a lot of other shows he was producing with Tonight Show, Seth Meyers. And I think Alec Baldwin told me that he just held off as long as he possibly could, that the Kennedy center had wanted to give him that honor for years. And he just kind of kept holding it at bay because, you know, I think it, you know, it's like seeing the undertaker coming in the door. I mean, I think he didn't want to feel like he was almost at the end. And those awards sometimes suggest that, you know, Joni Mitchell, a fellow Canadian, was there getting at that time in a wheelchair. You know, I think he thinks of himself as still vital. If anything, if there was any reluctance, it was just that. But I do think he was moved. And he often says that the most important thing in life is showing up. And so many of his people from over the decades showed up. You know, Kevin Nealon, Seth Meyers, Kristen Wiig. You know, Amy, there were just so many people there for him. And I think that made him really happy. I do think as he's gotten older, you know, he's not a sentimental sort, but I think he's gotten a little bit more emotional about this huge family that he's created over the decades.

R. Scott Edwards: 30:14

Right. And he's basically written his own life story. And it's really great how you're.

Susan Morrison: 30:20

No, I did that.

R. Scott Edwards: 30:22

Well, that's true. Ladies and gentlemen, get the book. Lorne, the Man Behind Saturday Night Live. No, no, you're true. You wrote the story. But I mean, emphatically.

Susan Morrison: 30:31

No, it's a great story that he's lived.

R. Scott Edwards: 30:32

Yeah, yeah. Well, one of the great things about the book is we mentioned earlier some of the name dropping. There's so many important people and our culture, especially the creative culture that have been a part of this show and Lorne Michaels life. And you got verbiage from each of them about Lorne Michaels or the show and shared some really interesting thoughts. And based on what you just said, this one seems perfect. Chris Rock, his quote was, lorne Michaels definitely can pass down some wisdom. My favorite thing he always says is, you can't make an entrance if you never leave. And I try to live by that every day. That's from Chris Rock. But it's so funny because it ties in with his award at the Performing Arts at the Kennedy center, is that, you know, you do have to leave if you're, you know, he's already had the entrance. At some point there'll be him leaving. But I think it's great. And you explain, well, in the Book how the award was appreciated and an important maybe benchmark in his life, but that he still gets up every day with a goal in mind. And that exit is not yet in the picture.

Susan Morrison: 31:48

Right. I don't think he's thinking about retiring at all. I just don't think that's on his mind. Part of it is that he's constructed his life in this way where he has a lot of leisure time. You know, he, unlike a lot of other moguls who came of age in the 80s. I'm thinking of people like Barry Diller and all of these junk bond kings. You know, you'd read magazine articles about them in the 80s and they would say, I sleep four hours a night, I get up at 4 o'clock and work for two hours with a trainer and then I deal with my stocks. And then I, you know, he's never been that kind of braggy workaholic. He, he goes on vacation a lot. You know, he, he goes to beautiful places and hangs out with his friends. Quality of life. I like to say he was decades ahead of his time in terms of self care. Well, that's important. That means a lot to him.

R. Scott Edwards: 32:41

Yeah, that's important. And that's a good lesson for everybody out there. Well, Susan, you've written an extraordinary book, ladies and gentlemen. It's now available in bookstores. Lorne L O R N E. Lorne Michaels, first name Lorne. The man who Invented Saturday Night Live by Susan Morrison. It's a Random House book. It's really good, very in depth, amazing stories connecting you as the writer with the world, all these famous people that interacted with the show over the years. It's a tremendous book. It is out and it's right in time with the 50th anniversary of Saturday Night Live. Now, Susan, you've been an article writer and editor and now a very successful author. What's next for you?

Susan Morrison: 33:29

I think I'm going to lie down.

R. Scott Edwards: 33:34

Great answer.

Susan Morrison: 33:37

Just getting back to my magazine work and I'm going to clean out 10 years worth of closets, honestly.

R. Scott Edwards: 33:43

Well, we really appreciate you being on the podcast, but bringing this book and the story of Lorne Michael's life and really the story of Saturday Night Live through this amazing book. We're really appreciative, ladies and gentlemen, if you have any interest in entertainment, television, comedy producing, anything like that, even just like to hear about the who's who in the television world, go out and get this book. I have read much of it. I will finish it and thought it was Amazing. Ladies and gentlemen, Susan Morrison.

Susan Morrison: 34:19

Thank you very much. Well, I'm bowing.

R. Scott Edwards: 34:24

You did a great job. We appreciate you being on the podcast. Go out and get this book. Susan, is there anywhere special they can get the book that you. That benefits you?

Susan Morrison: 34:35

Oh, I would just say go out to your neighborhood bookstore. Go out on the street and walk into a bookstore and get it that way. I hope there's a bookstore in your town.

R. Scott Edwards: 34:43

There you go. Barnes and Noble, any of those great bookstores. Lorne, it's out there. It's on the shelves already, flying off the shelves. We appreciate you being on the podcast, Susan Morrison. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen. This has been Stand Up Comedy host in mc. We hope you enjoyed this interview as much as I did. Susan, thanks for being on the show.

Susan Morrison: 35:04

Thank you. Pleasure.

R. Scott Edwards: 35:06

We'll be back next week with some more great comedy. Bye.

Announcer: 35:11

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