Judd: What kind of humor don’t you like?
Michaeclass="underline" Almost everything. Aside from the stuff I write, there’s not much that appeals to me. I’ll watch—I like individual performances of people like Michael Keaton, who was wonderful in Night Shift. I’ll watch Shelley Long forever. Or somebody like Carol Kane, who’s a brilliant comedic actress. I like Andy Kaufman quite a bit. Richard Pryor’s great.
Judd: You don’t like the normal comedy—you like a different element in it.
Michaeclass="underline" Well, I think Erik Estrada is the funniest man in America. I will say that. I watch CHiPs. I suffer for CHiPs. It’s so stupid, those big yo-yos on motorcycles. Just kills me. You know, like most people, I like The Jetsons. Who doesn’t? But there’s not too much out there for me.
Judd: Are there any topics you think shouldn’t be discussed in comedy? I guess that’s silly to ask.
Michaeclass="underline" No, no, I’ve never found anything that’s—
Judd: Even like topics like cancer?
Michaeclass="underline" Especially cancer. I’ve always found cancer an amusing weapon—I’ve always found, ah, anything that creates tension, tension and release, and cancer creates major tension.
Judd: When did you first start working in comedy?
Michaeclass="underline" That’s hard to say. I was a serious literary writer writing for the Evergreen Review, doing poetry and stuff like that. And then I slid off into a comic strip called The Adventures of Phoebe Zeit-Geist, which I did in the late sixties, middle sixties, and then somehow I ended up at the National Lampoon. Then I slid into show business. It sort of shocks me to realize that I’m in the same profession as Charo and Sonny Bono. But I am—I slid into that at the National Lampoon radio office. Which I started in about ’73, and I quit later and John Belushi took it over.
Judd: Now, what kind of comedy did you do on the radio hour?
Michaeclass="underline" Essentially the sort of the thing that they’re doing on Saturday Night Live. I had very much the same cast—John and Chevy and Gilda and Bill Murray, odd people like Steve Collins, who’s now been in Tales of the Gold Monkey. I had a great group of people, plus a lot of the writers for Saturday Night Live. It was very much like Saturday Night Live, but it was a little freer because radio’s a little freer. But it’s not quite as powerful. We did most of the scenes—John had some great characters, which he never created on Saturday Night Live—
Judd: Such as?
Michaeclass="underline" He did a guy called Craig Baker, the Perfect Master—the eighteen-year-old perfect master—and it was just funny. It’s the concept of—instead of this guy living in India, he was just like this asshole kid who lived out in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois. Which is where John is from. And Indians would come to seek guidance from this dumb kid. It was funny. He just said, “Well, drink a lot of beer and go to Fort Lauderdale, and you need to mellow out, man.”
Judd: How did this all lead into Saturday Night Live?
Michaeclass="underline" Lorne Michaels, the producer of Saturday Night Live, heard the show. And Chevy had let it be known that Marilyn Miller, who had been writing for Mary Tyler Moore, was a big Lampoon fan, and she recommended me to Ed Bluestone, who used to write for the National Lampoon. A very good writer. So Lorne had heard of me in a variety of ways. I was in the middle of starting a new humor magazine at that time, and I went in to sign a contract on this, with Stan Lee—
Judd: Then at Marvel Comics.
Michaeclass="underline" Yes, exactly. And the wing of that company went bankrupt and Lorne had kept offering me a television show and I didn’t want to do television. Then I had no choice but to do television or magazine—I had no way to earn money, so I said, “Okay, I’ll do your television show.” I was sort of backed into it.
Judd: How did they decide what kind of show they wanted?
Michaeclass="underline" Well, they didn’t—this got decided by getting a bunch of smart people in a room. The results were that show.
Judd: Now, when Saturday Night Live started, weren’t you a prime-time player?
Michaeclass="underline" I was for the first show, as a matter of fact. And then, I don’t know why I was eliminated from that slot—I think it was because Lorne was having some problems with Chevy. But I’m not a particularly good actor.
Judd: But you starred in the first sketch of the series?
Michaeclass="underline" I did. I did the first sketch. The Wolverine sketch. God, that was scary.
Judd: Why is that?
Michaeclass="underline" Because nobody’d ever done live television. Twenty million people are watching you. My little heart goes thump, thump, thump, thump. I thought I was going to pass out from fear.
Judd: So it was only for the first show that you were a prime-time player?
Michaeclass="underline" I think I was in the second show as a prime-time player, too. And then I was dumped somehow. I don’t know.
Judd: Why weren’t you on the show more often?
Michaeclass="underline" Lorne didn’t like me in the show that much.
Judd: Really?
Michaeclass="underline" Yeah. I wish I had been on the show more. It was always a problem about writing and acting for that show at the same time. All this crap about—
Judd: Isn’t there a lot of competition being on the show?
Michaeclass="underline" You bet.
Judd: Were you on the show straight through for the entire original run?
Michaeclass="underline" No, I quit after three years.
Judd: Why?
Michaeclass="underline" People were giving me shit. At a certain point, I didn’t want to go through these comic meetings where my work was discussed. I figured I’d proven that I could write stuff. I just wanted to do what I wanted to do. I got fed up with the whole process.
Judd: Because I can see how they would question putting some of your stuff on the air.
Michaeclass="underline" Yeah, me, too.
Judd: I can see how somebody could question, you know, the Mike Douglas sketch. [Michael would come out and do an impression of Mike Douglas if giant knitting needles were driven into his eyes.]
Michaeclass="underline" Well, you know, they actually went for that one easy. I don’t know why. I used to do it at parties with my friends. I originally did it on National Lampoon Radio Hour. And then I would do it to entertain the people at Saturday Night Live, and finally somebody said, “Let’s put that on the air if it gives us laughs.” That was always our standard. If it makes us laugh, it should make them laugh. And it did, in a way.
Judd: The other night, I saw—do you ever watch the repeats?
Michaeclass="underline" No.
Judd: Why not?
Michaeclass="underline" Because I don’t live in the past. That just dredges—I know exactly where I was during that period. It’s like asking about Beatles songs. I don’t care anymore. Game over.
Judd: What kind of arguments did you get in with the censors?
Michaeclass="underline" Well, the censors were actually pretty nice people. They had this concept that people turning the dial would hit NBC and go, “Ah, NBC: the quality network. Oh, now my children are safe to watch this.” But people have no idea what network they’re watching.
Judd: What would be examples of the skits they didn’t let on?
Michaeclass="underline" Oh, a lot of ’em. The thing I got fired over last time was this piece about NBC president Fred Silverman called “The Last Ten Days in Silverman’s Bunker.” It’s built with Fred Silverman as Adolf Hitler and they would not let it on. It was a twenty-minute sketch starring John Belushi as Silverman. Twenty minutes. And they fired me for having written it.