‘Saturday Night Live’ vets arrive
By Tom Lauder
Senior Editor
The Franken and Davis Show is
coming to Lincoln.
The University Program Council
Talks and Topics Committee and
KFMQ arc presenting “Behind the
Scenes of ‘Saturday Night Live”’
with Emmy-award winning writers
A1 Franken and Tom Davis on Mon
day at 8:30 p.m. in the Nebraska
Union. Admission is $2.00 for the
general public and free to UNL stu
dents with a student ID.
Franken (the short one with
glasses) and Davis (the tall one with
glasses) have been writing and per
forming comedy for 16 years since
their start in stand-up to their stints
with “Saturday Night Live” and their
work in movies.
The show is being billed as part
comedy show, part discussion on
comedy writing.
“It’s basically a comedy show,"
Franken said in a phone interview. “I
think the agent said, would you like to
go out doing half a show, half lecture
or something like that. And our lec
tures are just usually people ask ques
tions, stuff that they want to know
about the show and show biz.”
The two attended Blake School in
Hopkins, Minn., where they worked
up a comedy act. After high school,
Franken studied social sciences at
Harvard while Davis went to rock
concerts, washed dishes and hitch
hiked. They came home to Minnesota
in the summers, performing their act
in a club in Minneapolis.
else, ’ he said. “It was healthy in a
way. It’s hard to understand. It’s like
comedy boot camp.”
The prolific duo churned out some
of the most memorable sketches.of
Saturday Night Live’s” early run
(such as Nixon’s Final Days, Dr.
Shockley’s House of Sperm, the Afro
Lustre commercial) and many
sketches that never made it past the
censors. Davis was instrumental in
the creation of the Concheads, along
with Dan Aykroyd. The pair also
performed their own act, the Franken
and Davis Show, during the early
seasons.
When Michaels left “Saturday
Night Live” in 1980, Franken and
Davis moved on. They continued to
write and perform, especially on col
lege campuses. They worked with
Michaels again on the short-lived
“New Show.’’The team also appeared
in “Trading Places” and wrote and
starred in their own film, “One More
Saturday Night,” with Aykroyd as
executive producer.
When Michaels returned to “Sat
urday Night Live” in 1985, he hired
Franken and Davis as his producers.
Franken hated the job.
“It was terrible. But it was because
we weren’t really the producers. We
had that in name only. And we had a
lot of unpleasant duties to do.
“It was a tough year for us. And we
took a lot of heat for the show. The
show wasn’t very successful that
year.”
After that season, Franken and
Davis went back to writing and work
ing on outside projects. Lately, the
two have been senior writers for
“Saturday Night Live.” Davis per
forms occasionally, and Franken has
been on camera more frequently,
doing bits like the Satellite Guy (a
human satellite news-gathering unit
covering the presidential campaign).
They have just completed writing
a TV movie for SCTV and “Little
Shop of Horrors” star Rick Moranis.
“It’s like a two-hour ‘Nightline’
type thing,” Franken said. “It in
volves Rick as a live hostage reporter
in Central America.”
Franken and Davis also were plan
ning to write a movie this summer, but
the Writers Guild strike ended nego
tiations.
Davis, 32, is single. Franken, 33, is
married and has a daughter, Tho
masin (named after his partner). Both
writers are currently on strike.
‘It was healthy in a
way... It’s like
comedy boot
camp.’
—Franken
Davis hitchhiked his way to Har
vard during Franken’s sen ior year and
the two “shared” Frankcn’s room.
They began performing at the Im
provisation in New York City on the
weekends.
Franken and Davis moved to Los
Angeles in 1973 and soon were per
forming at the Comedy Store, at rock
concerts.on college campuses, and in
Vegas and Reno.
Their break into television came in
July 1975. Their agent had given
samples of their material to producer
Lome Michaels. Michaels was put
ting together a late-night comedy
show and hired the two as writers. The
show, of course, was “Saturday Night
Live."
Franken and Davis moved back
East. They were the youngest writers
on the young show, and they found
themselves at the bottom of the peck
ing order.
“We were treated like we were the
youngest,” Franken recalled. “Not
too bad, though. There was definitely
sort of an inner circle at first, but we
broke into that fairly soon.
“But the whole atmosphere of the
place was such that everybody was
merciless with everybody else.”
Franken said he and Davis didn’t
feel any different from anyone else.
“Everybody abused everybody
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