SNL Up Close: 1986-87

/

Lorne Michaels’s first year back at Saturday Night Live after a five-year hiatus wasn’t what you would call a success. While the writing staff included a mix of SNL veterans and unknowns that would soon establish themselves on the show, the new cast (which included movie stars Anthony Michael Hall and Randy Quaid) never quite clicked, and the ratings and reviews were less than favorable. The show was on the brink of cancellation that spring, but NBC president Brandon Tartikoff decided to give Michaels and SNL another chance.

Where Michaels delegated a lot of responsibilities to producers Al Franken and Tom Davis and head writer Jim Downey the previous season, this year he took a more direct role in production. There was a little bit of turnover in the writing staff: veteran writer Don Novello was gone, as were writer/performer Terry Sweeney and partner Lanier Laney; John Swartzwelder, Carol Leifer and Jack Handey also did not return, while uncredited apprentice writers Mark McKinney and Bruce McCulloch rejoined the rest of their comedy troupe (The Kids in the Hall) in Canada. Besides show veterans Franken, Downey and Herb Sargent (Davis took several months off), Michaels kept a few of the last season’s new writers: Robert Smigel, George Meyer, and occasional performer A. Whitney Brown.

Two former writers also rejoined for 1986-87: founding writer Rosie Shuster, who previously helped rebuild the show during 1981-82, as well as prolific Ebersol-era writer Andy Breckman. New faces in the writing room this season included E. Jean Carroll, Harvard Lampoon alumnus Jon Vitti, former SCTV Network and Late Night with David Letterman writer Eddie Gorodetsky, and theatre/cabaret musician Marc Shaiman. Carroll would depart mid-season, but several important SNL writers joined after she left: Chicago-based improv performer Christine Zander, and Atlanta husband-and-wife team Bonnie and Terry Turner. By season’s end, Jack Handey was contributing as a guest writer, and would return to the staff full-time the next season.

The more visible changes were onscreen: most of the previous year’s cast was gone, with Nora Dunn, Jon Lovitz, and Weekend Update anchor Dennis Miller the only regular performers retained. A talent search for new cast members would focus on performers with similar backgrounds in stand-up and improvisational comedy, and brought in five new faces: Dana Carvey, Phil Hartman, Jan Hooks, Victoria Jackson and Kevin Nealon (the latter hired as a featured player), with Hartman and Nealon also joining the writing staff that year. Helping cast cohesiveness was the fact that a number of the new and old cast members knew or worked with each other beforehand.

The show also had a few other new elements this year: Paul Miller replaced longtime director Dave Wilson, while the Saturday Night Live Band, led by G.E. Smith, had a more prominent on-screen role on the show, with Buster Poindexter, the lounge singer persona of former New York Dolls frontman David Johanson, serving as a regular in-house performer in the first half of the season. But for all that was new, this year was a return to basics for the show, with guest performances slowly being phased out over the season to focus on what was and continues to be SNL’s traditional strength: sketch comedy.

As usual, I will be posting sketch-by-sketch reviews, with new posts uploaded every weekend. Any information regarding the sketches (such as sketch authorship) and shows is certainly welcome, and will be incorporated into my reviews with acknowledgement (if requested).

The episodes (with links to episode summaries in the SNL Archives):

As well, I will be using the original live versions for these reviews when available, and keeping track of any differences between live and repeat broadcasts.