Millions of viewers will tune in next Sunday to enjoy “SNL50: The Anniversary Special,” a three-hour broadcast celebrating one of the most enduring and impactful institutions in TV history. But only a few hundred celebrities will be invited to be part of the studio audience.
Al Franken will have one of those coveted seats. And if there’s any justice, it’ll be near the front of the house.
The former U.S. senator and fellow Minnesotan Tom Davis made up the famed comedy duo Franken & Davis. They were integral members of the “Saturday Night Live” story, creating memorable sketches in the early years, then returning in the 1980s to help guide the ship through choppy waters.
“It just doesn’t feel like 50 years,” Franken said recently in a phone interview from his Manhattan home. “It’s quite an achievement.”
No other Minnesotans have played such significant roles in the show’s success. But the history lesson would be incomplete without a tip of the hat to Brave New Workshop (BNW), the Twin Cities-based improv company founded by Dudley Riggs 14 years before “SNL” went on the air in 1975.
That’s where Franken and Davis started performing while they were still attending the Blake School. Davis, who died in 2012, actually joined the BNW cast the summer after “SNL’s” inaugural season, learning from improv legend Del Close, whom Riggs had hired as a consultant.
The duo’s legendary “French Chef” sketch, in which Dan Aykroyd’s Julia Child slowly bleeds to death, includes a moment when Child tries to call 911 for help, learning too late that the phone is just a prop.
“We were looking for a joke to end the sketch and ended up relying on a stage object,” Franken said. “That came out of training at Dudley Riggs.”