All we can say is… it was 1980. People were concerned about nukes. Bono had a mullet. Jimmy Carter was president. It was hard to see things clearly at the time. That’s likely the excuse Saturday Night Live producers use when talking about how they cast Joe Piscopo over John Goodman.
Goodman did do something on SNL more often than Piscopo did, though: Goodman got laughs. As 13-time (and counting!) host of Saturday Night Live, Goodman brought class, experience, and his many years as an actor in some of the finest TV and film projects ever made to the sketch show.
It’s hard to imagine Kathy Griffin following anyone’s rules, like the ones prescribed by the writers and producers of Saturday Night Live. But she, too, was a young, hungry Groundling and auditioned for SNL scouts the same night as Julia Sweeney, Lisa Kudrow, and Mary Scheer. But Sweeney crushed it, according to Griffin, with nerves and sheer fate getting the best of everyone else.
Griffin ain’t mad, though. She’s done just fine since then, going from the D-List to a producer, writer, and correspondent on CNN by the sheer power of her edgy snark and hard work. Her gift to the world is making Anderson Cooper squirm. Oh, and she’s won some Emmys.
Kaling really wanted to ditch LA, move to New York, and find her future husband on the writing staff at Saturday Night Live but it didn’t work out. Greg Daniels, her boss at The Office and a former SNL writer, said that she could break her contract and go if she was offered a cast slot, but not if she was offered a writing gig because he needed her. Kaling stayed and following The Office even got her own show, The Mindy Project.
Kudrow may have sabotaged herself in her 1990 audition for SNL when producers came to see her live at the Groundlings. On the recommendation of Laraine Newman, Lorne Michaels and producer Marci Klein flew out to Los Angeles to see Kudrow and fellow Groundling Julia Sweeney at the same time. Kathy Griffin was also in the company.
Besides hating being pitted against a fellow Groundling, Kudrow didn’t feel ready and was a little off the night Michaels and Klein were there. But, as fate would have it, there were bigger things waiting for Kudrow and she got a role on a little show called Friends. Since that explosive start, Kudrow has starred in indie films, produced and directed, and developed a number of other projects like The Comeback and Web Therapy.