At a charity auction last fall, Thornton Grout Finnigan LLP lawyers won tickets to a taping of Saturday Night Live. Partners Bob Thornton and John Finnigan and associates Kim Ferreira and Alana Shepherd (pictured right) found themselves in 30 Rock’s famed Studio 8H to catch the April 14 show, which was hosted by Josh Brolin with Gotye as the musical guest. In an online exclusive for lawandstyle.ca, Shepherd, a self proclaimed SNL “superfan,” recounts the whole wild and wonderful experience
A call from Bob Thornton at 1:04 a.m. is either really good news or terrible horrible no good very bad news. “Last night, we had a great chat with Matthew Broderick and Sarah Jessica Parker,” he said over the phone from New York City. “I just wanted to let you know that our trip is already off to a great start!”
I breathed a sigh of relief and headed to the airport. Bob and John Finnigan had started their trip off right by rubbing elbows with Ferris Bueller and Carrie Bradshaw. I couldn’t wait to join them there and see what kind of amazing stories we would have attending Saturday Night Live.
Full disclosure: I’m kind of an SNL superfan. TGF happened to score four incredibly rare tickets to a taping of the show at a charity event. I cried when I was selected to go with Bob, John and Kim Ferreira and, full disclosure again: it was an ugly cry.
Needless to say, when we arrived at 30 Rockefeller Center, I was pumped. I almost asked for the autograph of Mark, the NBC page who escorted us up to the 9th floor in the elevator and assured us that the show would be a great one, even though he wasn’t much like 30 Rock’s Kenneth at all.
The elevator stopped on the ninth floor and emptied out into a hall lined with glossy framed photos of memorable SNL sketches, which led to a museum-like display of a few famous SNL costumes including Dana Carvey’s staid Church Lady outfit and Molly Shannon’s Mary Katherine Gallagher schoolgirl uniform.
As we were guided to our seats on the studio’s upper riser, the first thing I noticed was how small the stage area is. The monologue stage, which also houses the SNL house band, sits right beside the musical guest stage and the scant space on either side was taken up by sets and props. An army of set builders, prop wranglers and miscellaneous tech people were feverishly drilling sets together, checking equipment and generally running around below us.
The SNL house band took their places and played a fantastic 30-minute set to build the energy in the room. Jason Sudeikis took the stage to deliver the funniest “please turn your cell phones off” announcement I’ve ever heard, followed by a musical performance by Kenan Thompson with his “Sparklettes,” Nasim Pedrad, Vanessa Bayer and Abby Elliott. By the time the “cold open” sketch began, the audience was ready to laugh.
Josh Brolin, our host for the evening, got things going with a great monologue, but my favourite sketch of the evening had to be “The Californians” – a daytime soap that parodied the Golden State’s obsession with traffic. The sketch featured my two favourite SNL cast members, Bill Hader and Kristin Wiig, who could barely keep in character once they heard Fred Armisen deliver his lines in an almost unintelligible surfer’s drawl.
Gotye took the stage twice and sounded great performing “Somebody That I Used to Know” with Kimbra, and “Eyes Wide Open.” We watched the three Digital Shorts on screens suspended from the studio’s ceiling. Not Kenneth was absolutely right: it was a fantastic show.
I felt totally satisfied exiting Studio 8H, even though we didn’t have the kind of up-close celebrity encounter that I had originally hoped for.
Then, as we walked back to the elevators, a door opened into the hall, and Bill Hader and Fred Armisen peered out of the void about four feet away from me. Paralyzed, I gawked at my favourite cast member and imagined myself coolly congratulating Hader on an awesome show. A statuesque blonde emerged from the crowd and drawled “Greaaaaat show, guyyys” à la The Californians. I looked over to see who had come up with the ideal compliment that my frozen brain couldn’t possibly have put together: it was Cameron Diaz!
Other than winning the tickets, I guess you do have to know someone to be able to have the great experience we had. We topped off the evening toasting Ms. Diaz with a couple of pints while Bob, John, Kim and I recited some of our favourite lines from the show.
Alana Shepherd is an associate at Thornton Grout Finnigan LLP