“Let’s just make each other laugh. And if we do, we’ll put it on television.”

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In an excerpt from his new book “Laugh Lines,” original SNL writer Alan Zweibel remembers what it was like at the very beginning.

Alan Zweibel

Published Apr. 12, 2020 5:24AM ET 

“Let’s just make each other laugh. And if we do, we’ll put it on television.”
Those were the first words I remember Lorne Michaels saying in the very first meeting of Saturday Night Live. The actors and writers had piled into his office on the seventeenth floor of what was then called the RCA Building to discuss this new show. And to this very day, so many years later, I can still say that reporting for my first day of work as a television comedy writer was the most exciting professional moment I’ve ever had.