Free Live From New York: An Uncensored History of Saturday Night Live by Tom Shales, James Andrew Miller Page A

comfortable when he sits down in the chair and starts to talk: “You want me to do something here?” No member of the Not Ready for Prime Time Players, perhaps ever, has been more at home and less inhibited on-camera, ironic considering that Chase originally wanted to be only a writer on the show.
    Immediately, Chevy becomes the fatuous anchorman he would immortalize in the “Weekend Update” segment of Saturday Night Live. He is holding a few sheets of paper and reads from them — or perhaps simply recites the material from memory:
    “Our final note concerns the birth of a baby sandpiper at the Washington Municipal Zoo this morning at 9:13. It’s the first such birth in captivity on record. The chick weighed in at just under fourteen grams, and it is said to resemble its mother quite closely.
    “A final note of humor: the bird was stepped on and crushed to death by the baby hippo that was born on Wednesday.
    “Said zookeeper John Pinkett: ‘Well, I guess I’ll have to pour kerosene on the mother and light it and hope for the best. Later, perhaps, we can take an electric cattle prod and drive it into the ears of the baby hippo. Or perhaps shove a couple of cherry bombs up its ass, light them, and hope for the best.’
    “Well, that’s the news this Wednesday. Good night, and have a pleasant tomorrow” — basically the same ending that would be used for “Weekend Update” once the show premiered. Chevy is asked to hold up a few of Edie Baskin’s New York photographs so the camera can zoom in on them. Baskin’s pictures will be used for a montage under the opening credits of Saturday Night Live. Originally those credits featured only images of the city at night and no pictures of cast members.
    Jane Curtin, up next, performs what seems for her unusually “sick” material, once she gets a mock commercial for “Jamitol” (Geritol, an iron supplement) out of the way. “In show business, I’ve had a fairly limited career,” she continues. “It’s hard to perform on stage in a wheel-chair. However, I entertain a lot of people at my parents’ family parties. Having a catheter, a lot of people think, is funny, and they like to see me dance. Thank you.”
    A voice from the wings asks about what she does “in the privacy of your own home,” and Curtin replies, “That’s between me and my cat, isn’t it?” Murray steps into the frame and begins massaging her shoulders.
    Garrett Morris — who, like Chase, signed on only to be a writer — materializes next. “As I have nothing prepared, I decided I might do some imitations,” he says. “The first imitation I will do is of James Mason: ‘This is James Mason speaking.’” Morris makes only the most minimal effort to sound anything like James Mason. “That’s James Mason. Okay, I’ll do another imitation. There’s a guy named Cross-eyed Jim that used to live on Federal Avenue in Marble City when I was a kid. Here is Cross-eyed Jim.” And he, of course, crosses his eyes. As a “general West Indian,” Morris talks about going to the second floor of Barney’s and buying clothes from the Johnny Carson Collection.
    Aykroyd comes in to feed Morris straight lines, asking him about having spent ten minutes with an unnamed congressman. “He asked me for a joint,” Morris says, “and I didn’t have any on me. He usually gets a little high…. The indictments against him haven’t been proven yet, and I think we should give him the benefit of the doubt.”
    Aykroyd, changing subjects: “You’re the man who saw the first mastodon come across the plains. Am I correct?”
    Morris: “Yes, I did, I saw a mastodon. It wasn’t across the plains, though. It was in my backyard. And it was sort of noisy….It was three o’clock in the morning, man. I just got in at 2:45 and I needed some rest.” Told the mastodon left footprints fifteen feet wide, Morris says, “Jeez, that was a big mother.”
    John Belushi’s turn before the camera that day was brief