Thirty-Nine Years of Short-Term Memory Loss

Davis was once half of the comedy duo Franken and Davis. Of course, Al Franken has gone on to large enough fame that few remember he was ever part of a duo (or, at least, one that didn’t include Norm Coleman). Davis was also one of the original writers for Saturday Night Live, the man responsible, for better or for worse, for standout sketches like “The Coneheads.”

Davis was, by his own admission, a hippie, a drunk and a junkie, all three identities now apparently par for the course for the first 25 years of SNL. Despite being one of the shapers of America’s largest comedy institution, Davis smartly and charmingly remains humble, making no attempt to set his handprints in cement. The shaggy-dog SNL stories are amusing though not particularly revelatory. Most just capture behind-the-scenes moments, television process stories that are only slightly more interesting because they involve famous comedians. Though, for some reason, it made us laugh out loud when Davis lobbied to get the Grateful Dead on SNL and ridiculous bandleader G.E. Smith—displaying no self-awareness whatsoever—declared “They’re not happening.”

Saturday Night Live inspires more history books than any television show we can think of. Though Davis has written a chippy, fun memoir, we can’t imagine anyone but an SNL completist would need it.

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