Much has been written about the early days of that first season of Saturday Night Live and most has been from the point of view of the actors, writers and other backstage personnel. But seldom does one hear the experiences of the guest hosts from those early days, the performers who were thrust into the week long chaos of the production schedule of a television show struggling to define itself.
While appearing at MarxFest – a two weekend celebration of Marx Brothers scholarship and silliness held last May – to talk about how his own comedy career was influenced by that iconic comedy team, Robert Klein briefly touched upon his time as one of the show’s earliest hosts as well as his return to Saturday Night Live’s Rockefeller Center Studio 8H home two years later for a second round as host. Klein’s first appearance as a host on the show was Saturday Night‘s fifth episode (November 15, 1975), a time when it was obvious that the show was still trying to find its identity away from other comedy-variety shows of the time. Klein’s installment featured two musical guests – ABBA and Loudon Wainright III – who each perform two numbers, as well as Klein performing a short standup set in addition to his opening monologue at the start of the show.
“Everyone was nervous,” Klein recalled. “I gave Lorne Michaels the worst advice anyone could ever give, I said ‘Don’t do it live.’ They were terrified and you know who was terrified the most? The technicians. They hadn’t done a live show in that building since Howdy Doody! I also remember Belushi, who was a lovely kid, didn’t think the bumblebee thing (A sketch called “Bee-Centennial Minute” which ultimately went out performed by Garret Morris.) was funny. But they were incredibly talented.”
(Note: While it may seem that Klein is exaggerating for a bit of comedic effect, he is not wrong about Howdy Doody. When it ended its run in September 1960, the iconic children’s puppet show which originated in 30 Rock’s Studio 3A was one of the last shows to air live from the building. A number of game shows continued to be produced at 30 Rock including the original run of Match Game which was produced in SNL‘s future home of Studio 8H from 1962 through 1969, and What’s My Line? and Jeopardy which shared space in Studio 6A until early 1975, though they were prerecorded for syndication.)
One thing that Klein knew was that NBC was invested in the show, even if they were a bit unsure of what the show actually was. Case in point, the “Exterminators” sketch that comes late in the episode.
“I wrote a sketch for the first show for Belushi and I about exterminators and one of them is a conscientious objector,” Klein stated. “I give him a whole lecture about roaches. And damned if they didn’t spend something like $1,100 for the art department to build [a model of] the history of cockroaches and there’s live huge cockroaches, we had them from the Museum of Natural History, crossing the model and I’m here in military gear with Belushi.”
When Klein returned to the show during its third season in January 1978, he found a show and cast that had not only solidified what the show should be, but a cast that had become a major part of the cultural zeitgeist. As he recalls, “Lorne said ‘You understand that the kids are the stars now’ and I said ‘Absolutely.'”
It was in that third season episode that Klein would share some of the cultural spotlight with the Not Ready For Prime Time Players thanks to appearing in one of the most iconic sketches of the original cast’s run – The Olympia Diner, a.k.a., The Cheeseburger, Cheeseburger Sketch.
“We could barely get through rehearsal,” Klein recalls when asked about the landmark sketch about a diner with a very limited menu. “Billy Murray kept a complete straight face. I would never have guessed he would have the best , biggest career of all of them. Some very serious acting there. [Dan] Aykroyd was committed to it as was Gilda [Radner]. It was a joy.”
But as joyful as the experience was, Klein wouldn’t get a chance to return to the show for a third hosting gig.
“I would have done more,” he stated. “I had a request but I think I was committed to shooting Hooper with Burt Reynolds so I couldn’t do it. And then for some reason Lorne had some feud with [my manager] Jack Rollins or something. I only did it twice but I would have liked to do it a few more times. It was nerve wracking but it was also the big time.”
