Gasping for Airtime: Two Years in the Trenches of Saturday Night Live

by Jay Mohr

Overview

When 21-year-old Jay Mohr moved from New Jersey to New York City to pursue his dream of stand-up stardom, he never thought the first real job he'd land would be on Saturday Night Live. But, surprisingly, that's just what he did. What followed were two unbelievable, grueling, and exciting years of feverishly keeping pace with his talented cohorts, out-maneuvering the notorious vices that claimed the lives of other cast members, and struggling at all costs for the holy grail of late-night show business: airtime.

In Gasping for Airtime, Jay offers an intimate account of the inner workings of Saturday Night Live. He also dishes on the guest hosts (John Travolta, Shannen Doherty, Charles Barkley), the musical guests (Kurt Cobain, Steven Tyler, Eric Clapton), and of course his SNL castmates (Chris Farley, Adam Sandler, Mike Myers, and David Spade). Refreshingly honest and laugh-out-loud funny, this book will appeal both to fans of Jay Mohr and to devotees of Saturday Night Live.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781401399818
Publisher:	Hachette Books
Publication date:	06/09/2004
Sold by:	Hachette Digital, Inc.
Format:	eBook
Pages:	304
File size:	3 MB
Age Range:	13 - 18 Years

About the Author

Jay Mohr was a featured performer and writer on Saturday Night Live from 1993 to 1995. His breakthrough film role was in Jerry Maguire. Other film credits include Picture Perfect, Go, Pay It Forward, and S1M0NE. Jay often guest hosts Premiere Radio's Jim Rome Show. He recently produced and hosted a weekly comedy/music/sports talk show for ESPN, and he is the creator and executive producer of NBC's hit series Last Comic Standing. He lives in Los Angeles.

Table of Contents

	Acknowledgments	ix
	Prologue: Happy Hour	1
Chapter 1	Comedy is Truth the Moment Before Anticipation	7
Chapter 2	Dude, How Did You Get On Snl?	25
Chapter 3	A Knee in the Groin	41
Chapter 4	Monday, Wednesday, Tuesday	53
Chapter 5	Swimming with Sharks	71
Chapter 6	Playing Well with Others	89
Chapter 7	Fight or Flight?	105
Chapter 8	The Motivational Speaker	125
Chapter 9	Music for the Soul	145
Chapter 10	Fake Pitches	163
Chapter 11	From the Cradle	183
Chapter 12	Dressing Down	197
Chapter 13	"Good Morning, Brooklyn"	221
Chapter 14	Lorne	237
Chapter 15	Weekend Update	257
Chapter 16	Give Me Little Bits of More Than I Can Take	273
	Epilogue: Phil Hartman, U.S.A.	289

Editorial Reviews

Twenty-three-year-old actor and stand-up comic Mohr was playing college campuses after a brief stint hosting an MTV game show when he landed every comic's dream job: featured performer and writer on Saturday Night Live. In this stilted but honest memoir, he chronicles his frustrating two seasons on the show, from 1993 to 1995. Few of his sketches aired, and aside from his impressions of Ricki Lake, Christopher Walken and Dick Vitale, he was rarely on camera. (When he was on air, he admits, he often couldn't keep a straight face.) Mohr treats readers to some affectionate, entertaining tales of the late Chris Farley, but his book is less a juicy inside story of the comedy institution than a tale of an immature young man's struggle with a high-stress, erratic workplace: "The schedule for putting together Saturday Night Live was made back in the seventies when everyone was on coke.... Problem was, no one did coke [anymore] and we were expected to keep the same hours." Floundering in the unstructured work environment, Mohr suffered crippling panic attacks, which he treated with alcohol and pot until he finally found real relief with a prescription for Klonopin. Even panic-free, Mohr still felt like the odd man out and chafes at his less than meteoric rise. He serves up mostly superficial dish (watching Nirvana rehearse, shooting hoops with various celebrities) and offers unflattering self-revelations (desperate competitiveness, jealousy and sulking)-resulting in a memoir that will appeal only to die-hard Mohr fans. (June 9) Forecast: With a confirmed appearance on the Today show, national TV and radio satellite tours, radio book giveaways, national print ads and online marketing and publicity with SNL fan sites, Mohr's book will get plenty of exposure. Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Publishers Weekly

Memo to aspiring comics: being on Saturday Night Live may help your career, but it sure won't be enjoyable. The author-"Jay Moore," as a New York tabloid spelled it when claiming to have spotted him at a Manhattan strip club one night when he was in LA-today qualifies as a successful SNL alum. A headlining stand-up comedian, he's had roles in films like Jerry Maguire and Go, hosted an ESPN talk show, and produced his own NBC comic reality show. But as an SNL cast member from 1993 to 1995 (widely considered to be one of the unfunniest periods in the show's history), he was just another one of the writers and actors clawing to get their material on the air. Mohr's account backs up what was recently documented in Tom Shales and James Andrew Miller's Live from New York: SNL is an odd, insular circus, at the same time utterly rigid and completely unstructured. Coming into it breathless with excitement but riddled with insecurity, Mohr found the setup less than ideal. The schedule, he notes, "was made back in the Seventies when everyone was on coke"; it's not long before the author is taking drugs for his panic attacks. Mohr is unafraid to come off as nervous and a little grating: the whole first season he's just the new guy nobody will look in the eye, whose ideas get shot down, who's always asking dumb questions and almost never gets on the air. Though tinged with bitterness (after two seasons, Mohr was basically known only for his Christopher Walken impersonation), this account is generous in its praise for people like Phil Hartman, Chris Farley, and Michael McKean. Profiles of other costars-like David Spade, who "was only on the show so he could sleep with models"-are just dishy enough toleave the reader wanting more. Despite stiff prose, an engagingly honest look at the crossroads of comedy and dysfunction. Agency: Barnes Morris Klein Mark & Yorn

Kirkus Reviews

As author and reader, Mohr delivers this blow-by-blow account of his time as a performer and writer on “Saturday Night Live” (1993 to 1995) with a mixture of self-pity, self-importance, and petulance. An example of his humor would be a welcome respite amid the ups and (mostly) downs of a self-absorbed wannabe who is over his head in a pressure cooker of a job and reacting badly to the heat. The closest we get are discussions of a sketch that failed and another he stole (for which SNL was sued). He doesn’t even give advice to aspiring comics. The result is unfunny and uninteresting. W.M. © AudioFile 2004, Portland, Maine

DEC 04/JAN 05 - AudioFile