SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE SEASON FINALE
Secondly, the season finale of SNL. In describing how the May 16, 2009 season finale of “Saturday Night Live” made inside-references to me/my material, I must put forward a number of facts for which I have no evidence, unless one could call forward witnesses (which of course one cannot). As always in such circumstances, I nevertheless find value in making a record, my silly reason being that what I have to say is the truth. I would prefer confining myself to references to things for which I can provide proof without need of witnesses, but life does not offer us everything on that particular silver platter, just some things. The reader might wish to look at blogs where I do prove my points, and consider that I just might be entitled to some credit. One might even consider it idiotic (rather than healthy skepticism or cynicism) to withhold credit under certain circumstances.
Background Information
1. Tom Hanks, for a while only an occasional guest on various sitcoms during the 70s, became the star of his own sitcom, “Bosom Buddies”, in consequence of a conversation I had with someone who attended my college, CalArts. Among other effects this had on me, it caused me to associate Tom Hanks with Steven Spielberg, this despite the fact that it wasn’t until years later that Tom Hanks became associated as one of the people Steven Spielberg used repeatedly as the star of his movies, and one of the people who did joint appearances/side projects with Steven Spielberg. The person with whom I had the conversation that led to Hanks’ TV show is from Houston, and it was during last weekend, when SNL had its season finale that featured surprise appearances by Hanks, and when Hanks’ movie, “Angels And Demons”, was released and became the number 1 movie in the country, that I made a rare trip to Houston for my nephew’s bar mitzvah. There I spoke with a long-time Houston friend of my sister and her husband, who knows this same person from both CalArts and Houston. Those familiar with how secretly important I am would have to consider whether the release of the Hanks film was deliberately designed to coincide with when the bar mitzvah occurred.
2. I am responsible for the creation of the sitcom, “My Name Is Earl”. Several episodes ago that show gave a character a slightly rare last name, which also happens to be the last name of someone with whom I work at my 9-5, the chair of a committee for which I take minutes at their monthly meetings. The June meeting will be this person’s last, as she is being deployed to Afghanistan (though a Kaiser Permanente employee, she is also “on call” or whatever the official term is).
3. For a while I was throwing around the idea that one could devise special gloves that, when worn, would make it possible to operate the tiny keyboards one finds on PDA devices as easily as a normal-size keyboard, two-handed speed typing. The idea involved things extruding from the fingertips of the gloves that would be comparatively small on the keyboard in contrast with normal-size fingers. Shortly thereafter, in October 2008, SNL did a sketch featuring someone on the Lawrence Welk Show with tiny fingers. I became nervous that, if there was a possibility that my idea would ever amount to anything, I should want to get something down on paper instead of just talking about it (though others could simultaneously have the same idea independent of knowing of my idea). I sent in to one of those places that solicit inventions, and took a step or two with the idea. I also tried to build a prototype, but the best I could do was these scary looking gloves with golf tees sticking out of each finger like claws. I gave up on it as an invention, but used the idea for my sketch comedy idea, “Teddy Tinyfingers”, where someone blows off his own hands on purpose so that artificial hands with tiny fingers could be worn for operating PDAs. The following week SNL referred to the idea that a good excuse for not going to work would be to say that your arms were blown off.
4. For two years I would send in sketch comedy ideas to several people connected to SNL, and for three years the following SNL would include some fragment from the idea submitted for that week (occasionally pieces would wind up within a few days on The Colbert Report or The Daily Show). The one time this didn’t happen, it turned out that someone proceeded to write a best-seller based on the idea, which was followed by one of the several people I had originally sent it to purchasing rights to develop the best-seller into a TV show. This past SNL season, however, my sketch comedy ideas have also been used at a higher level, leading to an important aspect of CNN’s election night coverage; a much-talked about occurrence at the second presidential debate hosted by Tom Brokaw; a much quoted statement by the President after his first week in office.
The 5.16.09 SNL Season Finale In Relation To Me/My Material
- On the SNL season finale, their first sketch following the monologue (not counting the replaying of a sketch clip from when Will Ferrell, the guest host, was a cast member) brought back the Lawrence Welk sketch idea with the lady with tiny fingers (see Item 3, above), of all things.
- The second sketch following the monologue featured a surprise appearance by Tom Hanks (see Item 1) experiencing difficulty in removing his hand from inside a jar, bringing to mind the idea of a person whose hand is too big (ala Winnie The Pooh). Tom Hanks then bumped his head in such a way as to produce a distinct nubbin in the center of his forehead. There is a person on the committee at my 9-5 that meets monthly and for which I take minutes (see Item 2, above) who has an extremely distinct nubbin in the center of her forehead, who without a doubt was brought to mind by all who know her and saw SNL (she is also in line to become chair as replacement for the person on that committee who is leaving for Afghanistan).
- A nationally played commercial on the SNL season finale contained something which, in this context, is an inside-reference to something between myself and the CalArts / Houston person (see Item 1).
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