May 8 meeting[edit]
On May 8, 1980, Michaels and Brillstein had scheduled an afternoon meeting with Silverman and other network executives. Michaels had previously made clear to the network that he was amenable to staying, even at the same salary,[1] as long as the network accommodated his request for a later start to the season, the restructuring of the show, and technical improvements to 8H. Rather than haggle with the network, he had told the executives to get back to him with the best counteroffer they could put together within 24 hours.[6]
Silverman had been up all the previous night putting together the network's fall schedule so he could present it to the network affiliates' board of governors that morning. That meeting had not gone well; many of the affiliates were disappointed with NBC's performance under Silverman, and some of them were openly talking about changing their affiliation. Silverman skipped the afternoon meeting; Brillstein and Michaels were told only that he was ill, and felt disrespected.[6]
That feeling of disrespect was further intensified by their interactions with the NBC executives who were at the meeting. Irwin Moss, the network's vice president for business affairs, began by noting the $2.5 million NBC had paid, sight unseen, for the broadcast rights to Gilda Live, which had failed commercially and critically. "So, you're here to gouge us again?" he joked. Brillstein did not think that was funny. Moss then pulled out a copy of Michaels' most recent contract, and asked him what he wanted.[6]
Another shouting match, between Brillstein and Moss, ensued. Both Brillstein and Michaels were stunned by how poorly the executives had prepared themselves. They finally left after Moss refused to commit to anymore than six episodes of a possible prime time series; Brillstein and Michaels had wanted 17. Afterwards, Michaels was convinced his relationship with NBC was, at this point in time, over. "They would have had to make me feel special [to come back], and they didn't," he recalled years later.[6]
The next day, Silverman called and apologized for his absence, and rescheduled the meeting for the following Monday.[1] He and Lorne met by themselves that afternoon. Silverman offered Michaels more money, primetime shows, anything he wanted, as long as he'd stay at least nominally involved with Saturday Night Live.[6]
Aftermath[edit]
The commentary drew as many laughs as it had in dress rehearsal. It had barely ended when, Warren Littlefield later recalled, an NBC page came up to Tartikoff and told him he had a phone call. "Who is it?" the executive asked. "A screaming Mr. Silverman" responded the page. Tartikoff asked the page if he had told Silverman whether he knew where Tartikoff was. "No," the page answered, "we were just told to find you." Tartikoff then told the page to say that he couldn't be found. "He just couldn't take Fred screaming at him at that hour," Littlefield recalled. "We always thought that was a wonderful lesson that Brandon was imparting to us about survival in the executive ranks."[1]
Silverman thought that Michaels had deliberately allowed Franken's attack on him to air as retaliation for the missed Thursday meeting. Reflecting on the episode later, Michaels said that allegation was difficult to respond to "What are you going to say—that it wasn't me? Then he'd think I was such a wuss that I'd allow Al Franken to just steamroll me against my own career instincts." But he agreed too much damage had been done to easily undo. "The upshot of it all was that Fred took it personally, and that put a further strain on the relations between him and me, and we never did meet."[1]
"I don't think Lorne put the sketch in there to be mean," Silverman said, also with years of reflection. "He never did a sketch to be mean. That was not his style. I never did blame Lorne personally."[1]
Instead of the meeting the two had originally planned, the event of Monday in Silverman's office was the arrival of approximately 5,000 letters and postcards in response to Franken's plea. This further infuriated the executive, and it was suggested that Franken apologize, which he did by internal memorandum. "I did not intend to hurt or offend you with this, admittedly, frontal attack."[10]
Instead, Franken urged Silverman to see how he had intended the piece, characterizing it as "brazen small guy attacks the boss." He asked that Silverman "step back and think of the Fred Silverman I talked about as 'the boss' instead of as Fred Silverman, your mother's son, your wife's husband and your children's father." He believed it actually made NBC and Silverman look good as "even the most pointed criticism was allowed on the air by the network and by you, the boss." Franken further implored Silverman not to blame Lorne, who often allowed material on the show that he himself did not personally see the humor of in the name of creative freedom.[10]
Silverman was unmoved. "I never liked Al Franken to begin with" he admitted later. "I thought this piece [he] did was just very mean-spirited and not very funny." He recalled writing back to Franken, saying "in no uncertain terms that I thought that what he did was way off base and that I wasn't going to forget it."[1]
June 2 meeting[edit]
Tartikoff told Michaels afterwards that Franken had lost any chance of succeeding him. But he continued to hold out the hope that Michaels himself might yet be persuaded to return in some capacity, as he had suggested he might. The season finale, two weeks later, did little to foster those hopes. While host Buck Henry, doing that duty for what turned out to be the last time, emphatically denied (to loud applause) that the show was ending and even paraded a purported "new cast" (actually longtime backstage crewmembers) across the stage during his opening monologue, the end sent a different message, as the "On Air" sign outside the studio, the show's traditional final shot, flickered and then darkened. Michaels had also left all the castmembers a gift, a cigarette lighter shaped like the 30 Rock building where the show was produced, inscribed with "Nice working with you 1975–1980". He had never done that in previous seasons.[11]
Whatever message Michaels was sending, the network very much wanted the show to continue. Tartikoff and Gallagher met with Michaels for the last time at the beginning of June. All the producer would promise was that "even if I don't come back, I'll do my very best to make sure the show doesn't fall apart." They assumed that meant he had no one in mind beyond Franken and Davis, both now off the list, to succeed him that he would recommend.[11]
However, he had also made it known that he felt any replacement producer had to be a writer, because he believed that in comedy it took a writer, particularly one with credits, to be able to tell other writers with large egos what was and wasn't funny. Silverman, for his part, had also told his executives that a new producer for SNL had to come from within the group of people already working for the show, as he did not believe an outsider would have credibility with the people Michaels had hired and nurtured. So, during the meeting, it was suggested that longtime associate producer Jean Doumanian, a good friend of Gallagher's, be promoted to the top job.[11]
Michaels immediately rejected the idea. Pressed by Gallagher, he explained that Doumanian wasn't a producer, that she had never been part of the show's "core team", and that nobody who ever had been would work for her.[11] He had also invited her to come work for him if he landed a deal with Paramount Pictures he had been considering. He reminded the two executives that she had never been present for any last-minute meetings held between dress and air.[1]
Al Franken in particular disliked Doumanian. She had ostensibly produced a primetime special with Bob and Ray, whose humor was especially adored by many of the SNL writers and performers, earlier that season. On the basis of a small contribution to one sketch, Doumanian had decided to award herself a writers' credit. Franken had seen it and crossed her name out, assuming it was a mistake. She later reinserted it, and when Franken came to her over the apparent mistake, she insisted on taking it.[12]
Departure of writing staff[edit]
Doumanian had expected to be recasting the show, but to at least keep some of the writers. However, shortly after she took over, all the writers quit. Narratives differ on whether this was on their initiative or Doumanian's. "I did want to keep several writers, but I think everybody was advised not to stay on," she recalled. "Everybody who said they would stay reneged once word got out."[13]
But according to Michaels, "Jean didn't want them." He believes she especially had it in for the writers, and Franken and Davis and Jim Downey, whom Michaels had wanted to succeed him, in particular. "Everyone got a memo from Jean to clear out their offices by July," he claims, likening her to "the new broom" which, in a common media adage about management changes, "sweeps clean". "For Franken and those guys, it was the first signal they got that they weren't even being considered to stay." So thoroughly did they clean their offices out that, according to Joe Piscopo, one of the new cast members Doumanian hired later, not even a pencil was left.[13]