Creator of Saturday Night Live Donates Historic Archive
by CINDY MCCREERY
When the director of the Harry Ransom Center, Stephen Enniss, shared the news with me that Saturday Night Live Executive Producer and renowned TV comedy writer/producer Lorne Michaels would be donating his collection to the Center, I literally gasped. I nearly cried.
I was, like Linda Richman on Coffee Talk, quite verklempt. Immediately, I called my husband to tell him that I had just received the most thrilling news since arriving at The University of Texas at Austin. My reaction might seem overdramatic, like an SNL parody of a crazy person. However, Lorne Michaels’s body of work has profoundly inspired my creative career.
I was born in 1975, the same year Michaels launched SNL, and grew up with the iconic series. Despite the show’s adult content and its airing way past my bedtime, some of my fondest early memories are of watching it with my family. SNL quotes infused our family lexicon. If someone spilled milk, one of my siblings would inevitably squeal, “Oh no, Mr. Bill!” My brother would break an awkward silence at dinner by randomly announcing, “I’m Gumby, dammit.” All of us kids would point at each other in the pool insisting, “I’m not a strong swimmer.” My mom would constantly quote The Church Lady, “Well isn’t that special.” Even now, if you visit my office on campus, you will find comedy records of SNL cast members and SNL dolls adorning my shelves. Needless to say, I am just a bit of a fan.
Beyond the memorable one-liners, I have treasured, like so many millions of viewers, the wildly original characters (at least three Halloweens I was a Conehead), and brilliant comic performances that Lorne Michaels inspired. What makes Michaels such a virtuoso is his keen eye for talent, his unparalleled skills to curate and develop those writers and performers, and his ability to showcase that talent to a wider audience. He just knows funny. Without him, we might never have heard of my all-time hero Gilda Radner or the Blues Brothers or Will Ferrell playing more cowbell or 30 Rock. And for that, we should all be grateful.
Moving on from my super fan role, as a screenwriting professor and the chair of the Department of Radio-Television-Film, I am equally elated about the opportunities the Lorne Michaels collection brings to our University community. These archival materials—which complement the Selznick, Mad Men, and Erle Stanley Gardner/Perry Mason collections—will be deeply meaningful in contextualizing the impact of Michaels’s body of work within American broadcasting history as well as for tracking our national comedic sensibilities over the past five- plus decades—not just through the lens of nostalgia or fandom, but through tangible artifacts documenting ever-changing topics and themes, historical players, and cultural contexts.
The pedagogical possibilities the collection will afford faculty and students are also exciting. Personally, I cannot wait to dig into these materials and use them in my screenwriting classes where students can read notes, sketch ideas, and original drafts. I anticipate the collection will inspire students to greater flexibility, to think on their feet—an important skill in comedy writing—as they study how professionals have taken creative risks, navigated network notes, and even pivoted an entire show on a minute’s notice because of an unexpected historical event.
I anticipate the collection will inspire students to greater flexibility, to think on their feet—an important skill in comedy writing—as they study how professionals have taken creative risks…
—CINDY MCCREERY
The extensive Lorne Michaels collection documents Michaels’s full career, beginning with his teenage years in theatre productions, to his early work in television, and through the 50-year history of Saturday Night Live and many other projects. The archive includes correspondence, scripts, production files, photographs, and press and media materials relating to Michaels’s early work in television for The Beautiful Phyllis Diller Show (1968), Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In (1968–1969), The Hart and Lorne Terrific Hour (1970–1971), and other projects.
The heart of the collection documents the 50-year history of Saturday Night Live, a show that has made an indelible mark on our culture. Michaels’s files relating to SNL include internal memos and correspondence documenting the origins of the show and materials that reveal various facets of the production process, from planning, writing, rehearsing, broadcasting, and marketing to interactions with cast members, hosts, musical guests, and fans. Show scripts and revisions, including many that are annotated, production binders, sketch lists, schedules, editing notes, and index cards trace the creative process behind each episode. Extensive audio and video materials include shows and rehearsals, audition tapes, specials, and interviews with Michaels, cast members, and others. Photographs capture experiences of the show both on-set and behind the scenes. Tickets, passes, posters, advertisements, marketing materials, memorabilia, and awards round out the collection. These materials document not only the series but also the many specials and productions associated with SNL throughout its long history.
The collection also features a significant volume of scripts, production materials, photographs, and publicity materials from other television and film work produced by Lorne Michaels, including such seminal shows as The Kids in the Hall, Late Night with Conan O’Brien, 30 Rock, Portlandia, and The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. Films represented in the collection include The Rutles (1978), ¡Three Amigos! (1986), Wayne’s World (1992), Coneheads (1993), Tommy Boy (1995), and Mean Girls (2004), among many others.
Now, we can all look forward to consuming mass quantities of this glorious material.
Cindy McCreery is a professor and Chair of the Department of Radio-Television-Film at The University of Texas at Austin.
Archiving Lorne Michaels
The Lorne Michaels collection is vast, varied, and full of surprises. Our archivists have seen items ranging from SNL tapes, script notes, behind-the-scenes photographs, and memorabilia, such as the signed Gilda Radner Cut-Out Doll Book.
When assessing the scope of these items, historical significance truly begins to shine. A digitized photo of the New York Fire Department on the set at Studio 8H instantly evokes an emotional response when you realize it was immediately after 9/11. The dynamic cast of the women from season one of SNL demonstrates the depth of talent and space given for their voices to be heard on a national platform, particularly during a time when the fight for women’s equality was at a societal forefront. A Blues Brothers Elwood bobblehead shows the legacy these items have had in media and pop culture, being one of many sketches performed live before an audience and then transformed into a beloved movie that has a nostalgic hold to this day.
These items tell a story. For that story to be shared, every piece is meticulously documented, assessed, and housed properly to ensure this collection can be studied and researched for years to come. This process is one that takes time, sometimes years. Digitization plays a vital role in ensuring items are then accessible to a wider range of audiences, particularly with items like photographs and script notes.
Lorne Michaels has kept us up late and laughing for 50 years, and I’m confident for years to come his archive will be studied by students and researchers looking for insight into the social, political, and cultural history of our time. We are deeply grateful to him for entrusting this rich legacy to us.
—STEPHEN ENNISS, RANSOM CENTER DIRECTOR
Even if the work to get to the laughs was, at times, difficult behind the scenes, we are grateful to see the process. As we enter 50 years of SNL, the items within this collection will take that much more to analyze the true impact these items have had on us as a society.