Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, August 28, 1995 TAG: 9508280119
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: TOM SHALES
DATELINE: NEW YORK LENGTH: Medium
NBC is doing very well now, however - a solid No. 2 among the networks and widely expected to overtake ABC in the top spot in the season just ahead. Thus, industry sources say, NBC executives have plenty of time to make life utterly miserable for Michaels now that ``SNL'' has fallen on hard times.
``Quite to the contrary, I think I've been very supportive,'' claims Don Ohlmeyer, bombastic president of NBC West Coast and the executive most concerned with turning ``Saturday Night Live'' around. ``Lorne and I get together and discuss issues that need addressing. He tried to address them last year with the existing people. That didn't work. So he's addressing it by reinventing the show again.''
Most of the previous cast is out. Even Dave Wilson, director of the show for most of its 20-year history, has decided to retire. But Ohlmeyer says the show's woes center on the performers.
``The problem was, you had a cast that for three or four years had no breakout characters in it,'' Ohlmeyer says. ``No one emerged as a character people were dying to see'' - a la the Church Lady, the Blues Brothers, the Coneheads, John Belushi's Samurai guy, Eddie Murphy's Buckwheat and Mister Robinson and Gumby, Gilda Radner's Roseanne Roseannadanna and Emily Litella, Wayne and Garth of ``Wayne's World,'' and on and on and on. And then, not on anymore.
Another thing that irked Ohlmeyer was the cast members' mad race to make movies. ``You ended up with some people for whom working on `Saturday Night Live' was a part-time job,'' he grumps. Michaels, who has an office and a juicy production deal at Paramount, has also been distracted by movie projects. But he has assured Ohlmeyer he will devote himself exhaustively to ``SNL.'' Says Ohlmeyer: ``He's assured me there's no more going off to St. Bart's.'' Says Michaels: ``Don is a very uncomplicated person.''
Mostly, Ohlmeyer and Michaels speak highly of each other.
``There was some reference in New York Magazine to how I `loathed' Lorne,'' says Ohlmeyer. ``That really ticked me off. Not that it's a mutual admiration society, but he's a guy I've admired and respected for years. We to a great degree see eye-to-eye on most of the things on the show.''
``Do Don and I sometimes go toe-to-toe? Yeah, occasionally,'' says Michaels. ``But Don was a producer so you're talking to somebody who's actually done the job, and that makes it much easier. I really think Don wants to see me win - or else I'm being incredibly naive.''
Eye-to-eye or toe-to-toe, they both sound determined to bring the show back from the brink.
```Saturday Night Live' has been successful, I think, not because it's a sketch comedy show but because it's an event show - the music and the comedy and all the other elements,'' Michaels says. ``We try to put together something where you go, `Well, that might be worth staying home for, or at least being there on time for.' I think that every week when it starts, people are hopeful that it's going to be as good as it once was.
``I feel that the show has to stand for something, and I hope it will come back strong in the fall,'' Michaels says. ``There are moments of terror: Is this really what I should be doing? How many times do I have to do this to prove I can do it? I've done 300 shows at this point.''
For all the pressure and stress, Michaels appears remarkably at peace. ``Lorne would be calm during an earthquake,'' says Ohlmeyer. ``That's one of his strengths as a producer.''
``I'm at a time in my life when I'm the happiest I've ever been,'' Michaels says, ``which is why I think the bad press didn't get to me. I've got something I never thought I'd have, a family. I've got these kids, and I've got a wife who doesn't think all this stuff is that important.
``Would I be all right if I didn't do the show? Probably. There's more money other places. There always has been. Which isn't to say I don't have an incredibly privileged life and that I'm not incredibly lucky. I got to do what I wanted to do and I got comparatively well-rewarded for it. I'm all right.''
Can this seemingly calm man, this seemingly brilliant man, this seemingly rational man who invented ``Saturday Night Live'' now rise to the occasion and save it? In some strange way that seems oddly important, he's got to. He's just got to.
- Washington Post Writers Group
by CNB