Lorne: The Man Who Invented Saturday Night Live by Susan Morrison is a biography about Lorne Michaels. I have been a fan of Saturday Night Live for over 35 years. I was a kid who begged to stay up late to watch it every Saturday at 11:30. I had the dream that many people have had about being a cast member or writer for the show. This biography covers Lorne’s teen years in Canada. It explains how he got into comedy. It details his successes and failures before creating Saturday Night. (This show eventually became Saturday Night Live and is most commonly known as SNL.) It discusses the five years of Saturday Night in the 1970s. It also covers the five years he walked away from Saturday Night Live in early 1980. Finally, it highlights his eventual return. The book covers all the years that SNL has existed. Some years will have barely a mention while the first 5 years will have multiple chapters dedicated to it. I was happy that we got chapters of Lorne producing The Kids in the Hall. The author is more interested in the first five years of the show. It takes 40% of the book to those first five years. I learned a lot of interesting tidbits. I liked how the biography shows a week of life on SNL in 2018. It is inter-cut with the story of Lorne in the past. This storytelling technique demonstrates how much the show had to evolve. It highlights the effort to get it as fine-tuned as it is. The show is still very stressful but manageable. The Week in the Life at SNL was the original article that expanded to the biography. The novel has some winners and losers. I think this book makes Chevy Chase look great. I did not know he and Lorne kept their friendship throughout his leaving, but they did. Chevy does a lot of favors for people and through quotes you can tell he thinks the world of Lorne. While this book made Chevy look great it makes Leslie Jones seem like a nightmare that people walked eggshells around. I thought this was a good look at Lorne’s life I wanted more about SNL through the 1990s and 2000s. Thanks to Netgalley and Random House for letting me read Lorne. I read an advanced reader’s copy of Lorne. Some things I reviewed could not make it to the final copy. Lorne: The Man Who Invented Saturday Night Live by Susan Morrison was published on February 18, 2025.

What I Learned:

Howard Shore who was famous for writing the Lord of The Rings score, was a childhood friend of Lorne. Shore wrote the SNL opening and was the first music director.

Lorne was complimented for how much work he could get done on mushrooms.

Produced 4 shows with Lily Tomlin before getting SNL.

Wrote for Laugh-in for one season, the structure of that show was similar to SNL.

Lorne did not want to leave California for New York in the 1970s.

Wanted to do SNL live. He intended to avoid making a pilot. Loren thought he would be too conservative with jokes.

The network suggested Bob Hope be the first host of SNL at a pitch meeting.

It took until the fourth show to resemble what SNL looks like today.

The fourth show Lorne quit just after the monologue due to a parody commercial not airing.

Rob Reiner hosts the 3rd show and refused to go on until Lorne convinced him.

The second show had 11 musical acts and very little comedy from the cast.

Lily Tomlin, as host, pitched the sketch of women learning catcalling. They practiced the catcalling by doing it at Dan Ackroyd. This was a feature in the movie Saturday Night.

The female cast hated how much male writers wanted the guys to play the girls.

John Belushi seemed to me the only male cast that would do the female writers’ sketches.

Saturday Night was changed over to the show Saturday Night Live during the third season.

Belushi took it hard the Chevy was becoming the star. Chevy would make jokes about how funny and the star he was constantly.

The Bees were a constant gag at SNL but Belushi’s The Samurai was the first recurring character.

Chevy regrets the way he left. He wanted Lorne to fight for him to stay more and stroke his ego.

Lorne was not going to beg. He kept calm for the other performers. But, he did worry if the show would survive without Chevy.

Chevy did six episodes on the second season. After that, he left. His departure was not acknowledged. However, the cast did a group hug at the end.

Belushi was very coked out for the second season he was late for readings and rehearsals.

Lorne had an opportunity to get Steve Martin on the cast. He did not think Steve’s comedy would help. Lorne did not totally get it. So he had him host instead. He debuted the wild and crazy guys that became recurring.

Dan Ackroyd broke his word to return to SNL for the fifth season. This happened when the Blues Brothers movie changed schedules.

Bill Murray was a pain his last year, saying he was carrying the show on his back.

Glida was Lorne’s favorite and most loyal cast.

The last time Lorne saw Belushi was at the Playboy club, he was twitchy but reminisced about SNL fondly.

Michaels helped get the original head writer hired back after he left and wanted to immediately destroy everything Lorne did.

Lorne was originally offered the role in Tootsie that Bill Murray played.

Lorne and Steve Martin wrote The Three Amigos together. The first director attached was Spielberg with Bill Murray, Robin Williams, and Steve Martin.

Then it was Steve Martin, Rick Moranis, and John Candy. John thought he was too fat to do the horse riding and recommended Martin Short.

Lorne was told in 1985 that either he was in charge of SNL again or it would be canceled.

Lorne’s first hire was Anthony Michael Hall.

Al Franken auditioned Jim Carrey for SNL but did not think he would work for the show. Later he called himself an idiot for not realizing what Jim could do.

The 1985 season focused on young talent. Jon Lovitz, Nora Dunn, and Dennis Miller were the only cast members to make it to the next season.

Writers of the sketch, produce and direct the sketch they wrote.

The Beavis and Butthead sketch was at the table read. Jonah Hill hosted in November 2018. However, it didn’t make it through. It is crazy that it took 6 years to get on air when Ryan Gosling hosted.

What I Liked: The structure of the book was written very well. I enjoyed looking behind the scenes of a newish show. It was interesting to compare it to the old ones. I liked that you see Lorne change from a laid back guy to a mellow adult. I think the book did a good job of showing the beginning of Lorne’s comedy career. His superpower is breaking down what is funny. He creates a system of laughs based on it. I liked how many celebrities Lorne knows. He came up with many celebrities and they were fans before he was famous. I loved the chapters on the Kids in the Hall. The crazy connection Lorne had to the director of Wayne’s World 20 years before she directed the movie was special.

What I Disliked: I was shocked that there was nothing about the Pope picture rip in the 1980s. I wanted more on the casting process, there is a little bit, but I wanted more. The digital shorts have only a paragraph in the book which is so critical for the future of SNL. I wanted half of the writer’s love and dedication given to the first five years. I also wanted this dedication applied to the later years.

Recommendation: Lorne: The Man Who Invented Saturday Night Live gives a good overview of Lorne’s life. It tends to focus on some aspects more than others. If you’re looking for a detailed history of SNL beyond the first five years, you might not find it here. The book does its job and gets more than I knew about Lorne. I wanted a little bit more. The book reveals that Lorne wrote an email to Will Forte. In the email, he mentioned missing him when the first show of the season returned. The return of the show happened after he left. But we don’t get any more from the relationship than that. I like books about SNL I’ve read The Chris Farley Show by Tom Farley Jr. I’ve also read Comedy Comedy Comedy Drama by Bob Odenkirk. Additionally, I’ve read Live from New York: An Uncensored History of Saturday Night Live by Tom Shales and James Andrew Miller. I think the insight that Lorne: The Man Who Invented Saturday Night Live provides is valuable. Reading the book is worth it, but I still wanted more. I recommend Lorne: The Man Who Invented Saturday Night Live to my followers to check out.

Rating: Lorne: The Man Who Invented Saturday Night Live by Susan Morrison 4.2 out of 5.