...a good read.

Mind you, it was largely topical humor, which doesn't have much of a shelf life. But the reruns of SNL didn't last long in syndication, or on Comedy Central for that matter.

Like much of the comedy that emerged from the Harvard Lampoon, it had a little too much smugness, cruelty, left-handed racism and sexism, and futility. The women had to leave the show to get their own voices heard above the yelling of the drunken fratboy males. (Katherine O'Hara of Second City was going to join the cast; after experiencing the bitter psychotic Michael O'Donahue, she quit before appearing on the air.)

The comic legacy of the show was also quite bitter. Look at the fizzled-out careers of Chevy Chase, Dennis Miller, and - if you restrict it to his entertainment career alone - Al Franken. Either they burnt out too quickly, or they didn't have enough fuel to last their careers. (I won't even talk about the dead guys.)

My gut feeling: it was the drugs. Too many drugs, too much insistence that they were necessary for the people's lifestyle, too much denial of where their lives were going.

That sketch about the guy and the two large knitting needles was his most memorable.

As an old fan of the original SNL and of the Franken & Davis sketches, I was afraid that I was the only one who remembered Tom Davis. I always hoped that he would resurface. Thanks for bringing this book to my attention!

I remember them doing a bit on Letterman called "The Comedy Team That Weighs The Same", which basically consisted of them stripping down to their skivvies, attempting for a few minutes to build suspense about something nobody could possibly care about, and then stepping on two scales side-by-side. It was perfect for early Dave -- goofy, non sequitur stuff.

(And yes, they weighed the same.)

The book Stephanie Zacharek reviews is the sort of thing I would usually pass over without thinking twice about it, but she makes a compelling case for second thoughts. Comedy is hard to do, at least as hard to write, and much harder to write about.

One of their favorite sketches of mine was also one of their longest. They played political opponents in alternating TV commercials. Tom played a (presumably Republican) Senator named Winfield Adcock, in a gray three-piece suit. Al played "Pete Tagliani", his "working-man" Democratic challenger, usually with rolled-up shirtsleeves as I recall. His tagline was "So vote for me, Pete Tagliani. You'll be glad you did."

The ads escalated hilariously, with photos of the candidates with prostitutes, going on drinking binges, making homosexual advances in men's rooms, etc. God, it was funny. I wish it was available on YouTube. It made almost everything produced in the last ten years of SNL look like unfunny crap - which, of course, it is.

SNL has never been as funny as it is compelling. We are compelled to watch because it must channel some deep anxiety we have about not quite getting all of the laughs from our fart jokes as we had hoped when we were 15 years old. "No Coke, Pepsi" can only be seen as funny in that context.

I think my favorite memory of the two together was in the movie 'Trading Places'. It was well past the SNL heydays, but it was a funny sketch on the train.

This reminded me of a recent discussion about Apple's Steve Jobs and his long forgotten partner, Steve Wozniak.

The writing on early SNL is amazing stuff, I appreciate it all the more as time goes by. These days, anybody with a webcam fancies themselves a comedy writer/performer. And I will admit there are some gems out there on the internets. But most of it just makes me long for the days when when we had daring young talents, like Franken, Davis, and Lorne Michaels, given the forum and the resources to show off their skills.

SNL is occasionally funny these days, Kristen Wiig is a bright spot on the show. But mostly, there best days were the first 5 years. I also have an affinity for the SNL of the late 80s and early 90s, I think that also coincides with when Al Franken returned to writing for the show.

It was pretty obvious that they were nuts right from the get-go.

Is there anything in there that could be harmful to Franken's political aspirations?

You beat me to it. That sketch may be one of the funniest things I've seen on SNL for the simple fact that it resembles what modern campaigns have become- a series of attack ads of questionable veracity.

Mine too, and it still cracks me up. "He only took tips"

Arguing over who gets to drive the truck. If they weren't stoned doing it, they should have been.

Franken was the funny one.

If you wanted him to come off as the stoned one and Franken as the coked out one you picked the right photo for the article.

Yeah. I remember it. I started paying attention to writing credits after seeing Tom and Al doing their stuff on the first seasons of SNL.

The first years of the show - when these guys were contributing to the writing - were pretty heady. The ensemble was "top of the form" and the sketch writing was as hit-or-miss as any night at Chicago's Second City, where many of them hailed from.

The consistent brilliance of the writing / performing in Weekend Update and the hosts / musical guests have been the things you could rely on, from week to week.

The rest was gravy. (Sometimes, it was the best sauce you could imagine, like Uncle Mike and Aunt Elaine used to make; sometimes, it was just "good gravy." I admit that back in the early 80's, I did send back a plate or two.)

I remember the early SNL as mostly lame. They were at their best in the early 90's (or maybe that's my own brand of super-hip-coolness coming through...). Franken's take on the Oprahfication of our society was ahead of it's time. Perhaps he will get a chance to make a difference in our lives rather than merely making us laugh.