[00:16] Meg: Welcome to Desperately Seeking the 80s.

[00:19] Jessica: I am Meg, and I am Jessica, and Meg and I have been friends since 1982. We got through middle school and high school together there in New York City, where we both still live and where we podcast.

[00:33] Meg: Usually where we podcast about growing up in the 80s in New York City.

[00:41] Jessica: Yes, you do rip from the headlines, and I do pop culture.

[00:48] Meg: Thank you. Absolutely.

[00:50] Jessica: And the reason I said there is because we're doing this, Zoom, because I'm in London. So this is our first international podcast. And thank you, Meg, for doing all of the tech to make this happen.

[01:02] Meg: Oh, it's so scary. It's. But as you said before, I pressed record, it's an adventure, so, you know, we've done scarier things.

[01:15] Jessica: Oh, my God. Yes. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. Let's see what happens. Okay. Loose, baby. It's gonna be loose.

[01:24] Meg: Yeah, it's gonna be very loose. Oh, and one thing I will say, like, let's just try not to talk over each other as much as possible, just because Zoom does that, like, awful thing where they're just gonna, like, silence one of us.

[01:37] Jessica: I can't bear to be silenced. I'll be very careful.

[01:40] Meg: Yeah. So we take turns. We take turns anyway, God help us all. How is London, by the way, Jessica?

[01:48] Jessica: Well, it was very rainy, and I even had to go out and buy a raincoat, and thank God all the sales are on, so I got it 50% off. Who knew? But now it's very sunny, and I actually got a little. I tanned a little on my friend's patio today, but it is going to be work filled very shortly. So I arrived here to get rid of my jet lag two days early, three days early. I don't even know what day it is, so I'm a little zonky and, you know, nutsy cuckoo. So it's just gonna add to the flair of this experiment, this crazy, crazy

[02:31] Meg: experiment that, I mean, who knows? Maybe we'll love doing this, but I'm just very grateful that we have this opportunity to do this in a different way, probably for only one or two times, because I miss you when you are so far away.

[02:53] Jessica: Thank you.

[02:53] Meg: All right, I'm gonna just dive in. Are you ready?

[02:57] Jessica: As ever, rocket, make it happen.

[03:01] Meg: Oh, my God. It's so crazy that you just said rocket.

[03:03] Jessica: Okay, well, clearly I'm picking up on some vibes. Begin. Begin.

[03:10] Meg: My sources are Vulture, Saturday Night Live fandom dot com. Chris Morgan's substack. He's a guy named Chris Morgan. Okay? And YouTube.

[03:26] Jessica: Okay? I'm very excited. That's a lot of sources. Hit it.

[03:31] Meg: On February 21, 1981, Charlie Rocket, a cast member of the sixth season of Saturday Night Live, said fuck on live TV. And he was the second person to say it that night. This was the 11th episode of a tumultuous season. Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi had left the show after the 7879 season to do the Blues Brothers. And Lorne Michaels was itching to do work in movies as well. So he asked if Saturday Night Live could take a year off or if writers Al Franken, Tom David and Jim Downey could just take over the show for him temporarily while he did some movie things. Right. But Al Franken, Al Franken fucked the whole thing up. Did you know any of this?

[04:28] Jessica: Well, I knew that he was a writer. I didn't know and I knew that Charlie Rocket had said fuck on the air, but I'm excited to know how, you know, defrocked Senator Al Franken fucked it.

[04:43] Meg: He's always been a naughty boy. On May 10, 1980, Al Franken did a commentary called a limo for a lame. Oh, during Weekend Update, he was complaining about having to make his own way to work rather than be picked up by an NBC limo. Quote, this is from his Weekend Update thing. But now get this. You know who gets complete door to door limousine service from NBC? Fred Silverman, who is the head of the network. Now here's a guy who was a total unequivocal, unequivocal failure, okay? The guy's been here two years and he's done diddly squad, okay? And he gets a limo. Now here's a list, okay, of the top 10 rated shows this season on TV. Now there's some A's, some C's, you see those? So he's holding up a list. You see any N's? Not one N. So he's like abc, cbs, nothing from NBC.

[05:53] Jessica: Why?

[05:54] Meg: Because Silverman a lame O, but he gets limo service. I like to call it a limo for the lame O. So he said this about the head of the network? What, the actual thug? He goes on quote, if enough of you write, Silverman will have to give me the limo even though I just decimated him. That's the way things are around here. He's timid, indecisive and easily pressured. He's weak. And then Al Franken shared Fred Silverman's address and Jane Curtin went to commercial. Well, needless to say, Fred Silverman didn't take that so well.

[06:46] Jessica: Oh, My God,

[06:50] Meg: it's absolutely crazy. There was now zero chance Fred Silverman would give the show to the writers to run. Fuck that. Lauren realized he'd lost all leverage in the negotiations, and he resigned. Brandon Tartikoff, NBC vice president for comedy programming, turned to Barbara Gallagher, NBC vice president for late night and special programming. And she said Gene demanion, the talent coordinator for Saturday Night Live, would be a great producer for the show. Now, Lorne Michaels heard that Gene demanion was being discussed and. And let it be known that he thought that was an absolutely horrible idea. For one thing, she's not a writer. And she'd even had a fight with Al Franken where she credited herself as a writer on a comedy special. Bob and Ray. Do you know Bob and Ray? I don't know.

[07:53] Jessica: They were a big radio act and also had TV specials, but they were from, like, 60s, 70s.

[08:01] Meg: Okay. Well, apparently the Saturday Night Live guys all loved Bob and Ray. So when they did a special. And they also, like, revered them. So when they did this special and Gene Demagnion decided to take a writer credit, they're like, writer? You're not a writer. So they were insulted for writers everywhere. But also, obviously, like, you know, they thought Jean demanion was an idiot.

[08:33] Jessica: Well, if I may.

[08:35] Meg: Yes.

[08:35] Jessica: By doing that, she also gave herself an extra paycheck.

[08:39] Meg: Right. They did not respect that as a reason to do that.

[08:42] Jessica: I'm just saying that's a very classic move, is to horn in on the writers, get a credit and bump another. Bump an actual writer if you're the producer. Very famously, Nancy Meyers did that to some of her writers who I happen to know. Ooh. So just saying. It's a thing.

[09:04] Meg: It's a thing. All right. Well, Al lost his shit and over the Bob and Ray situation, and shortly after she was announced as Michael's replacement, all the writers on Saturday Night Live quit. So here demanion had to hire an entirely new cast and writing staff in two and a half months. So who did she hire? Starting from scratch, she hired Denny Dillon, Gilbert Gottfried, Gail Matthias, Eddie Murphy, Joe Piscopo, Ann Risley, and Charlie Rocket. Now, Charlie Rockett was hired to be the Chevy Chase Bill Murray guy. On the cast. He was wry and sexy. He was tapped to do Weekend Update and play the heartthrobs and the assholes. He was cast in more sketches that season than Eddie Murphy, Joe Piscopo, or Gilbert Gottfried. He impersonated Ronald Reagan, David Rockefeller, Prince Charles, and Marlon Perkins and hosted the Rocket Report, which were segments Filmed on the streets of New York. But the whole season really fell flat. As I'm sure you know, it's known as the absolute worst season of Saturday Night Live. February 21st was the 11th scene. Sorry. February 21st was the 11TH episode of the Gene Demagnion season, and Charlene Tilton, Lucy on Dallas, was the host. Now, I have watched the entire episode with Billy, my son, who at one point said, were people just not funny back then? And usually I'm a little defensive about stuff from olden times, and I'm like, you don't understand what funny is. But. But I had to admit, like, it was painful. It was painfully bad. Everybody on stage just looked like they were in the most awkward, awkward moment that just kept going and going and going with no relief in sight. Because the next skit was just as bad as the previous one. The whole episode is forced and sad. Charlene Tilton is either on cocaine or having a panic attack the entire entire episode.

[11:41] Jessica: She's so. I vote for cocaine.

[11:44] Meg: So frigging amped. The sketches are too long and incomprehensible until you realize they're just. Just not funny. Like, on paper, they weren't funny. They were never funny. It wasn't even that they were doing them poorly. There was just no fun. Funny was not to be had. Two moments showcased the irreverent, ballsy humor that made the show soar. And in its first two seasons, Eddie Murphy introduced Mr. Robinson's Neighborhood, a classic which one doesn't know? It's a spoof on Mr. Rogers neighborhood. And Mr. Speedy, played by Gilbert Gottfried, delivers a package to Mr. Robinson in the ghetto. And that night, the other episode, or the other. Sorry, the other skit that's very clever. Is that night's Rocket Report, when Charles Rockett takes Charlene Tilton on her first ever subway ride in New York in 1980.

[12:48] Jessica: Oof.

[12:48] Meg: Yeah. Todd Rundgren performed Time Heels. And Prince performed Party up, which is pretty cool. Yes.

[12:58] Jessica: I mean, if anything's going to save it, I guess that's it, right?

[13:02] Meg: But unfortunately for everyone involved, the writers had woven in an ongoing saga told in five parts across the entire episode that set up Charlie Rocket to be shot like JR on the nighttime soap opera Dallas. And again, for those who do not know, J.R. ewing, played by Jerry Sorry, played by Larry Hagman, was shot by an unknown assailant in the finale of season three of Dallas. And who Shot Junior became the biggest television phenomenon since Roots T shirts were made. International bookmakers set odds for the possible culprits and, oh, this is funny. The Queen mother asked Larry Hagman who the culprit was and he replied, I wouldn't say. Not even to you, your majesty. Leading up to the presidential election, the Republicans made buttons saying, a Democrat shot Junior. Did you know that?

[14:06] Jessica: No, I only. My. The only thing that's running through my head is the Simpsons with who shot Mr. Burns? Which was maybe familiar to some people who didn't know about Dallas and they didn't know where it came from. But no, I didn't. I didn't know that the Republicans, you know, but it's so on brand, I'm not surprised.

[14:30] Meg: It's just hard, I guess. I feel like now we have cultural phenomenons like every three or four days. It's hard to describe what a huge, huge deal who Shot JR Was and how it lasted all, all summer long and it grew in its intensity rather than petered out until that. The first episode of the next season.

[14:55] Jessica: Well, and if we've talked about this before, there were so few things on television. It's not only that there weren't as many distractions as now, it's that, you know, to Al Franken's point, abc, cbs, NBC, that's it. So, you know, made it all the more, I don't know, pointed. But I'm trying very hard not to interrupt you. I don't want to ruin the sound.

[15:29] Meg: Okay. No, no, that's. That's great. All right, so this. But this skit, the who shot JR or who shot Charlie Rocket skit on Saturday Night Live. Oh, my God. I mean, it was so dumb. And they did five little segments of it. It's like, guys, this is your job.

[15:53] Jessica: Well, they were new. It was the rookie team.

[15:58] Meg: 11th episode. Get it together. At the end of the episode when everyone is saying goodnight, Charlie Rocket is still in character, having been shot, right? And Charlene Tilton asks how he is. And Charlie said very clearly, oh, man, it's the first time I've ever been shot in my life. I'd like to know who the fuck did it. So that was the moment that the fuck dropped, okay? Everyone on stage burst out laughing and the music starts up and they roll the credits. Now, in Saturday Night Live lore, Charlie's fuck was supposedly responsible for Gene demanion being replaced by Dick Ebersol. Is that true? Was that fuck such a big deal? I mean, honestly, the entire cast, that cast that I just told you about, the 80 to 81 cast, was fired, except for Eddie Murphy and Joe Piscobo. Those are the only two they kept on was Charlie's fuck the end of his career, because that's also part of the lore. Despite many rumors, the answer is no, no, and no. Gene was actually fired because the season sucked and the ratings were in the toilet. So that was not Charlie's fault. Charlie's fuck didn't even break any FCC rules because of how late at night it was. It was safe harbor. So he didn't even, like, do anything that horrible and bad.

[17:42] Jessica: I didn't know that there was a

[17:43] Meg: Safe harbor after 11 o'. Clock. The rules are different. And this was like at one o', clock, right? And Charlie went on to star in very, very cool projects. Earth Girls Are Easy, Dumb and Dumber, Max Headroom, Hocus Pocus Wings, and as David Addison's brother on Moonlighting, just to name a few. He'd gone to RISD with David Byrne and was part of that underground art scene and played accordion on the 1982 B52's album Mesopotamia.

[18:23] Jessica: Really?

[18:24] Meg: I mean, this is a pretty cool career, I would say.

[18:27] Jessica: I would agree.

[18:28] Meg: He was married to his college girlfriend with whom he had a son until. And now it's going to go dark. You like to be warned.

[18:39] Jessica: I am prepared. Thank you.

[18:40] Meg: And this is really, really dark. His mysterious and deeply, deeply disturbing death. On October 7, 2005, Charlie Rockett was found dead in a field on his Connecticut property with his throat slit. He was 56 years old, and 10 days later, the state medical examiner ruled the death as a suicide.

[19:13] Jessica: Who slits their throat to kill themselves?

[19:16] Meg: Well, that's why I said it was deeply disturbing.

[19:19] Jessica: That's, that's that it, it's deeply perplexing, I would say.

[19:25] Meg: Of all the ways to do it.

[19:27] Jessica: That's very bananas. All right, well, sad story, but not

[19:34] Meg: in the way that people think it is. You know what I mean? Like, I think because of the way he died, lots of people are like, oh, it's because he was fired after he said, oh, for God's sakes.

[19:45] Jessica: He had a, he had a whole career, he had a life. He had a field in Connecticut. He's fine. That's, that's, that's. No, no, if you have a field in Connecticut, I'm assuming things are not that bleak for you. You're all right, except maybe you have some sort of mental disturbance, emotional disturbance. There's something else going on. And, and it was 2009.

[20:10] Meg: 2005.

[20:12] Jessica: 2005. So that's what, 25 years after his shitty season. I, I think, I think he's Okay. I. I think he's fine. I mean, I think he. That was not it.

[20:26] Meg: Oh, and I should have told you too. I forgot to say this Prince, that night said. Fuck.

[20:33] Jessica: I was wondering who the other was.

[20:35] Meg: Yeah, it was Princess.

[20:37] Jessica: I thought you were going to say Prince was in the field. And then we had to look at. Oh, my God. Prince killed Charlie Rocket.

[20:45] Meg: No, you heard it here.

[20:48] Jessica: Breaking news. That is a weird story. I mean, and just as a side note, the Ebersol years are also considered wretched. So the one year of. Of Jean de Manion actually in my consciousness and maybe, maybe others sort of blended into the Ebersol years of extraordinary flatness.

[21:17] Meg: Which is.

[21:18] Jessica: I wonder if that's also why Eddie Murphy's star rose the way that it did, is that in addition to being brilliant, there just wasn't that much else going on around him for the first, you know, maybe year or two or three. And he and Piscopo kind of, you know, vibed off of each other a lot. And then. Because I think wasn't Julia Louis Dreyfus during the Ebersol years and Brad hall, those guys.

[21:50] Meg: I think so. Yeah.

[21:51] Jessica: Yeah, it was. It was flat. So who knows? I mean, Eddie Murphy's Eddie Murphy. So I'm not saying that he wouldn't have been exactly who he became, you know, had it been Lorne Michaels hiring all of the usual people who. He would have. But when you are that much of a star and there are that many duds around you, I can only imagine that it works.

[22:15] Meg: Well, I'm not sure if they were. I think maybe Lauren Michaels was right. Jean de Manion was good at spotting talent. All those people were talented. I mean, Gilbert Gottfried and Charlie Rocket, for that matter. They're all talented. The problem was she wasn't a writer. That was the core of the issue. Not that she didn't know talent when she saw it, but that she couldn't help put an entire episode together. She didn't know how to use the talent.

[22:47] Jessica: She didn't know how to get out of the way.

[22:50] Meg: Well, and I'm sure Eddie Murphy wrote all of his own material. I mean, Mr. Robinson's neighborhood, nobody helped with that. I mean, I'm assuming I'm still dead

[22:59] Jessica: over Kill My Landlord C I L My Landlord like, to this day, I remember so much of.

[23:07] Meg: It's so offensive.

[23:08] Jessica: I mean, it's so fucked up, but it's so funny. So again, you know, for those who don't know, easily searchable on YouTube, really, really deranged. And and brilliant. And social commentary. You know, Chef's kiss. Beautiful. So.

[23:29] Meg: Oh, that's all I got.

[23:33] Jessica: All right, well, fuck. I was debating what story to tell tonight. And as people know, we don't tell each other what we're going to do. So what I'm going to talk about actually dovetails really well with. With yours. I'm just going to pull up my. Okay, so let me get a little. A little set here. Okay. So we talk about MTV a lot, and we talk about the videos and we talk about how Madonna, Madonna, Madonna. And did you know Madonna, Billy Idol. Billy Idol. Billy Idol, Prince Prince, Doves Cry. Videos, videos, videos. However the tides turned in 1986. In 1986, a TV show that was the first no music involved TV show was being developed at MTV and it aired in 1987. This show was a game show called Remote Control. And Remote Control was the brainchild of a Nickelodeon executive who Nickelodeon had just launched. And they were having some success with game shows. Everyone in broadcasting knows if you want to make money and you want to get advertising dollars, put on a game show because they cost nothing to make and nobody really gets anything. So this was this Nickelodeon person and a few other people I'm going to talk about in a second. But what was Remote Control? Remote Control was all about leveraging pop culture trivia and information. And it was three guests sitting in Barcaloungers that had been spray painted, I think, red. They got them from the East Village from, like, a dump they had. It was tons of television sets all cobbled together. A wall, a breakaway wall behind the Barca loungers that I'll describe in a second. And each of the contestants had a buzzer and remote controls that were really just blocks of wood. So talking about, like, how cheap it is to put on a game show. And the illusion this was really, like, you know, rubber bands and spit. This was nothing. But the concept was that they were going to leverage everyone's pop culture knowledge and make it into this trivia show with so many rounds in the game and so many ridiculous challenges that it would be just moving constantly and really fun to watch. And they were going to have. The people who are gonna present it were all comedians. So Remote Control had. Let's see, they had. I'm going to describe this to you. They had a snack break. They had a lightning round. They had. You had to do things. Like they would show a whole wall of TVs for 30. For 30 seconds? No, for like a second. And it was videos, music videos on all of Them, they would give you, like, a second to register it. And then if you could name all nine artists in within 30 seconds, you got, like, a Suzuki SUV, which, by the way, was really top heavy and would flip over.

[27:37] Meg: Wait, you mean like a car?

[27:40] Jessica: Yeah, but no one could do it. It was. You had it for, like, they never

[27:44] Meg: had to give it away.

[27:45] Jessica: Maybe, maybe a few, like a handful. But it was all just. And, like, they would strap people to a wheel and turn them around, and they had to see the television. Like, there's one up at the top, one at the bottom. So it was just nonsense and people loved it. So I was saying about the breakaway wall. They had the Barcaloungers. I don't know if they were on tracks or if they were just, like, roped. But when you made a mistake and you were disqualified, your chair would go backwards. You would go through the breakaway wall, and it would tip backwards. So your feet are up in the air, and you were declared off the air. The concept of the show, the way that they. They promoted it, was that Ken Ober, the host, had always wanted to be a game show host. And so he put together a game show set in his mother's basement, and that's where they were broadcasting from, which was not true at all. And they had, you know, like, photos of, like, famous game show hosts up on the wall. So it was like his weird lair that they.

[28:55] Meg: So there's, like, there's a fiction around the game.

[28:58] Jessica: Yes, yes.

[28:59] Meg: Okay. But they were actually filming it at an MTV studio.

[29:02] Jessica: MTV studio, yes, absolutely. Oh, and by the way, the. The videos, that thing. They took them. Whoever got to the final lightning round, they took them out of the Barcalounger and they were in. Talk about the era, a Craftmatic adjustable bet. And they were propped up. And that was when the remote control was just a block of wood. And they had to keep doing this randomly, which is almost as good as one of the game shows that you and I have talked about, which is on channel 11, how they used to have Asteroids, and they would hit the button to blast the asteroid when some kid on the phone would say, pix. Pix. Because it was wpix. So pick. So it was at that level of production. But there's a lot of interesting stuff that I found out behind the making of this show and I found on the A.V. club. There's an oral history of remote control. Now, remote control, one of the interesting things that the producers said was, you know what kids nowadays. Nowadays the kids don't understand is that MTV was every social media platform in one. It was the only thing that kids were looking at. So the reason that they started to do these shows was because they weren't making any money off of the videos, because advertisers were like, we only have their eyeballs for three minutes maximum. How do you make them stick? And that's how they came up with, okay, we're going to do a show. They had 120 minutes, which was showing videos. They had a couple of shows that showed videos, but they didn't have a show. And this is what gave birth to the Real World and Road Rules and all of the other stuff. So Doug Herzog, now, if you are of our generation and you watched mtv, you know Doug Herzog's name, because he produced basically everything that came out of MTV. So he said in 1984, that was the apex of MTV's video world. You had Bruce Springsteen, John Mellencamp, Prince, Michael Jackson, Madonna. That's who was on constant rotation. And that's why they were like, okay, now we're going to expand and try to do more with our format. So. Now I'm trying to find. I'm sorry that I'm doing this. So, okay, I'll just do it from memory. So here's what was interesting about this to me, because you're talking about how Gene Damanion totally fucked SNL by. By getting the right people but not letting them do anything. What they did with Remote Control was one of the guys who is a creator, a writer, went to Emerson near Boston. Emerson College, Yes. All of his friends were comedians from the Boston area, including Ken Ober, the host, who went to UMass Amherst. But there were a bunch of other guys, like Dennis Leary, like Colin Quinn. So these guys, as the show was getting developed, they were getting baked into it. They also had friends on the comedy circuit. Now their friends were starting to tease them, like, you're not even famous yet, and you're a sellout for doing a game show. And they're like, but we're getting paid now. They were getting paid bupkis. Dennis Leary says they were paid like $400, like a week or something like that. And he had a shithole in New York and a shithole in Boston to do gigs. That was like $200 a month. And he was like, who cares? I'm young. This is it. So that $400 was really meaningful to him. But they're creating this show which is going to wind up being a huge payday for mtv. And they're like, well, we want to get our friends in on this. So the show airs. Colin Quinn was actually not even taken on because of his comedy chops. They thought that his weird voice was so crazy, they made him the announcer. Dennis Leary was just himself smoking on the show and running around doing, like, weird bits. And one of his bits was with the. His, like, fright wig, a white fright wig. And Oliver Stone called him in to audition for the Doors because he thought that Dennis Leary was doing Andy Warhol. Dennis Leary was like, I wasn't doing Andy Warhol. That's just me in a wig running around. And Oliver Stone is like, really? That's. He's like, yeah. He did not get cast, but he did get cast in Natural Born Killers, which was then cut, unfortunately for D. Oh, okay. But so he was on the show. Now, who did they get? Who was their young friend who was an NYU student? And Colin Quinn thought he was the funniest person he had ever seen. And no one else really got him. And he wasn't getting a huge number of laughs when he did his sets, but he was getting better. But Colin Quinn was like, this guy is the shit. So the show airs, and they have a woman who's, like, the hostess. The show airs, and who comes on to be stud boy. That's his character who is, like, romancing older women and trying to, like, get the ladies. It's Adam Sandler. And that was his big break on remote control.

[35:07] Meg: He must have been so young.

[35:09] Jessica: He was a student at nyu and he came out when he did his. His comedy sets. He would come out with his, you know, the backwards baseball hat and a dirty T shirt and, you know, just looking like a slobby college student. Well, he wound up being a huge hit because kids related to him. And that is why in 1990, I think it's 1990, he was hired by SNL first as a writer and then joined the show in 1991. And a mere seven years later, or actually six years later, who else joined Saturday Night Live but Colin Quinn, who does Weekend Update? So this was another launching ground and just sort of proof of how regional this stuff was and how clubby. So the Boston guys, he's like, ugh, I'm putting this show together. Can you help? So you get the Boston Irish guys. And one of them, because all of the comedians would go to. Oh, what's that place on McDougal? Oh, it's like a Middle Eastern place, but underneath it was a comedy club. Anyway, they would all go. It was, like, where comedians would go to try stuff. And they would watch each other. And that's where Colin Quinn found Adam Sandler. So that is Remote Control. That is an important show, even though you can barely find it anyplace. I know, Weird. Now, why is this show also so very interesting for us? Well, Ken Ober, after Remote Control, went on to produce and write a whole bunch of shows. One of them was Julia Louis Dreyfus, also SNL alum. Her show, the New Adventures of Old Christine. On that show, there are a bunch of mean moms, because she's like, the poor mom. And there are all these, like, rich moms who are, like, mean blondes. One of them is played by Alex

[37:24] Meg: Capp girlfriend, Robert Chambers. No wonder she looked familiar. I watched that show. I remember. I mean, I don't remember it very well. Obviously, I must have watched I don't even know how many seasons. But, like, I probably watched, like, a few episodes. But when I saw pictures of Alice Capp as a grownup, I was like, yeah, she looks so familiar.

[37:52] Jessica: She is an actress, and she was married. She had a. She had. She was Alex Cap. Something starts with an H. God, I can't remember. But she was then divorced and went back to Alex Cap. So, anyway, more proof that everybody knows everybody. New York is a small town, and TV is a weird place, But SNL continues to be the Nexus, the hub. I don't know where. I guess everyone sort of spins out of whatever they're doing. They launch there for a while, and then maybe they leave, maybe they don't. Keenan.

[38:33] Meg: That is his name.

[38:34] Jessica: Kenan. Who's the guy who's been on it now for 800 years?

[38:38] Meg: I know who you're talking about.

[38:39] Jessica: I can't remember his name. I have not watched Saturday Night Live in about a decade. But there you go. That is my story for today.

[38:48] Meg: We should have told the stories in the opposite order. Why? I don't know.

[38:53] Jessica: Why.

[38:54] Meg: Why am I thinking that? Because actually, my story happened before yours did. So why was I thinking that?

[39:00] Jessica: I didn't know.

[39:02] Meg: I didn't know. Oh, I guess because, like, what you were talking about was happening kind of a little bit after what I was talking about. But then you go into mtv. I don't know, some sort of chronology that I have in my head. The other thing that I was thinking about that you mentioned briefly was the fact that you'd be a sellout for taking a job. I feel like that's a very Gen X thing. Well, God forbid you. You make money.

[39:31] Jessica: Well, it's the same. It's the same thing as, you know, actors doing advert advertisements in other countries, because it's like, you can't. Your. Your gloss can't be tarnished at all.

[39:44] Meg: Right. But I'm like. What I'm suggesting is that in the 80s, with Gen X in particular, it was a very low bar of selling out. Like, you would sell out by, like, really just being able to afford your apartment. You were.

[40:00] Jessica: Yes, I. Excuse me. I. I agree with that wholeheartedly. There was one other fun factoid, which is that one of the people who auditioned for the spot that Ken Ober got and did not get it was Ben Stiller. Ken Ober unfortunately died at the age of 52 in 2009 from a heart attack. Oh, yeah. So we both end our segments with death. So comedy. Comedy plus. What is it? Comedy plus tragedy plus. No, no, no. Tragedy plus time equals comedy. I think that's the equation. So it's all in there somewhere, but there you go. That's.

[40:45] Meg: Well, happy experiment. We just did that. We did. Recorded an entire episode on different parts of the world.

[40:56] Jessica: You were very nervous about it.

[40:58] Meg: I mean, I am. I'm very nervous about it.

[41:00] Jessica: Why? Maybe it's that I can't see myself because I only have this little thumbnail of myself, so I'm kind of like, whatever. It's the same thing as just looking at you and talking. I don't know.

[41:11] Meg: I just feel like it's different when we're in the same room. But who knows? Maybe. Maybe it's. We have found that same sort of bond over a little flat screen. I don't know.

[41:25] Jessica: I find the only thing that's difficult is really controlling myself and not getting excited and interrupting you, which I'm sure is your favorite thing. So you're gonna. You're gonna go from hating Zoom to loving Zoom because I'm like, I'm muzzled. But you know what? We've talked about this before. I do so much of my work on Zoom that I'm kind of like, meh, it's okay. I'm doing meetings, wearing a baseball hat and, like, a shitty T shirt. Like, I'm so past caring. I don't know why. Maybe I've given up.

[41:59] Meg: But again, it's not the visual that I'm worried about. I don't actually really care that much. It's the technology of it and the two dimensional element of it. I like to be able to reach out and touch you. I don't like being so. I don't like you being a little postage stamp. I'm not a fan of that. I want you in the flesh.

[42:21] Jessica: I feel very seen and loved.

[42:24] Meg: Thank you. Yay. Well, happy experiment. I think it went okay.

[42:30] Jessica: Yeah, I think it went well. How long did it run? Yeah, good run time. Right on. All right, well, I do it again.

[42:39] Meg: Shall we do it one more time? We're recording two today, by the way, people. All right. All right, let's. We'll sign off of this one and then do the next one.

[42:49] Jessica: Yay.