Ideas and technology and politics and journalism and history and humor and some other stuff.
You are currently browsing articles tagged Lorne Michaels.
To celebrate the 40th anniversary of SNL, here’s what’s likely the show’s most infamous moment, a 1981 performance by Fear, booked at the behest of the punk band’s fan John Belushi during Lorne Michaels’ five-year absence from the program. Donald Pleasence, looking like a defrocked priest who still performs exorcisms to make some extra cash, provides the introduction. Twenty-thousand dollars worth of damage was done to the stage.
Tags: Donald Pleasence, Fear, John Belushi, Lee Ving, Lorne Michaels
Beyond the Fringe, the 1961 comedy revue created by and starring Peter Cook, Dudley Moore, Alan Bennett and Jonathan Miller, is a particular favorite of Lorne Michaels, and it’s easy to see why. The show was a watershed moment in the development of modern satire, in a time before Second City and other such groups were established. I mean, the Beatles hadn’t even hired Ringo yet. This video records the final production of the original run, which stretched from Edinburgh to London’s West End to Broadway.
Tags: Alan Bennett, Dudley Moore, Jonathan Miller, Lorne Michaels, Peter Cook
Lorne Michaels and the original Saturday Night Live cast (the show was initially called Saturday Night because Howard Cosell was using the SNL name at ABC) interviewed by Tom Snyder in 1975 just before the program debuted.
Tags: Checy Chase, Dan Aykroyd, Gilda Radner, Jane Curtin, John Belushi, Laraine Newman, Lorne Michaels, Tom Snyder