As ‘SNL’ has a resurgence in popularity, three stars from the show’s past are taking their iconic characters on the road
Live from (Western) New York, it's 'Saturday Night' stars
Suddenly, “Saturday Night Live” is hip again. Sure, the election — and former cast member Tina Fey’s uncanny Sarah Palin impersonation — started the latest tsunami of popularity. But anybody who tuned in to see Palin go face-to-face with Fey had to notice that thanks to cast members like Andy Samberg, Fred Armisen and Amy Poehler and guests like Justin Timberlake, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, the 34-year-old show has a new edge.
Riding the wave of the iconic comedy show are three people who delivered more than a few laughs themselves on “Saturday Night Live”: Don Novello as Father Guido Sarducci, Joe Piscopo and Victoria Jackson.
WHAT: "Saturday Night Live Reunion Tour"
WHEN: 8 p.m. Saturday
WHERE: Seneca Niagara Events Center, Niagara Falls
TICKETS: $45 to $75 (casino, Ticketmaster)
The three bring the “Saturday Night Live Reunion Tour” to the Seneca Niagara Events Center at the Seneca Niagara Casino & Hotel in Niagara Falls for one show at 8 p. m. Saturday.
Piscopo started on “Saturday Night Live” at a tenuous time. The last of the original “Not Ready for Prime Time Players” — Jane Curtin, Laraine Newman and Gilda Radner — had left, as had executive producer Lorne Michaels and most of the writers. Of the cast that was hired for the 1980-’81 season, only two would have jobs after the season: Eddie Murphy and Joe Piscopo.
In a phone call from his New Jersey home, Piscopo peppers the high-energy conversation with different voices — some recognizable as impersonations, some just his own animated wackiness.
During his four seasons on “Saturday Night Live,” Piscopo’s original characters included Doug Whiner, who, along with his wife, complained about their diverticulitis in high-pitched, drawn-out tones. He was also known for his work as the Sports Guy, who communicated in dramatically intoned, single, sometimes rhyming words: “The big story, Muhammad Ali! Last night … fight … drama … Bahama … LOST!” Piscopo was also known for impersonations that included a cackling David Letterman, a cranky Andy Rooney and a spot-on Frank Sinatra.
Piscopo said that he still looks back at his time on “Saturday Night Live” with a little bit of wonder.
“I’m just a working entertainer in blue-collar show business,” he said. “So to have my life end up down that route, it was like accidentally playing for the New York Yankees. And I’m a utility guy. Hey, a sketch doesn’t work, get Joe, he’ll do it.”
He and Murphy, along with rest of the ‘80-’81 cast, were hired by Dick Ebersol rather than the show’s creator, Lorne Michaels. Piscopo says Michaels is “still the Grand High Exalted Mystic Ruler, but we were not hired by him, so at those reunions, they still put us in the bleachers!” Then, in his best Rodney Dangerfield voice, he adds an aggrieved, “No respect at all! No respect at all! I’m tellin’ ya!”
What to expect
In the SNL Reunion Show, Piscopo said he says in a humorously theatrical tone, “I am your humble master of ceremonies, thank you very much.”
He opens the show with a “really hard-driving, jazz-oriented group of musicians led by Vincent Falcone, who worked with Frank Sinatra, worked with Tony Bennett, so we lay into the music,” he said. He has noticed that while the audience contains people of every age, “the twentysomethings seem to be digging this music, I think courtesy of Michael Buble. They’re hip to the music.”
Piscopo does the full range of his comedy in the show. “The Letterman thing will be fun,” he said, chuckling. “I’m bringing the teeth up to the Falls with me, let me say that.”
Victoria Jackson, who started her career on the Johnny Carson show reciting poetry as she did gymnastics, appears next. With her offbeat, ditzy blonde routine, “She is just hysterically funny and lovely,” said Piscopo. “She is very, very bright. Of course, when she’s on stage, she doesn’t play it that way. She and I do schtick that’s reminiscent of Lucy and Ricky, which is great.”
Then the stage is turned over to Father Guido Sarducci, a laid-back hipster priest in tinted eyeglasses who is the gossip columnist and rock critic for the Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano.
Sarducci’s creator, Don Novello, was a “Saturday Night Live” writer from 1978 to 1980 and again from 1985 to 1986. He was responsible for some of the most memorable work from the early years, including the the “Cheeseburger, cheeseburger” sketch, which was inspired by a Greek diner Novello used to visit in Chicago.
“To me, the funniest man on the planet is Father Guido Sarducci,” Piscopo said.
“It’s a show for everybody. My kids, who are very young — I have a big boy, of course [Joey Piscopo, 29, an actor] — but I have young children, who are 9, 6 and 4. All this stuff, they watch on YouTube, so they know it. We have kids, we have everybody, and it’s a good clean show.” (Seneca Niagara policy requires that anyone under 18 be accompanied by an adult.)
Living with cancer
Piscopo was diagnosed in 1981 with thyroid cancer, an illness he kept secret from everyone except his pal Eddie Murphy. He vividly recalls making people laugh with a Muhammed Ali- Sports Guy sketch with Murphy on a Saturday night when he was due at a hospital for treatment on Monday morning.
He has been told he’s cured, but Piscopo said, “I’m always looking over my shoulder, and I’ve become a full-fledged hypochondriac.”
He still keenly feels his mortality.
“You can’t tell anybody who has lived through that how precious life is, and how much to enjoy it. People say to me, ‘Are you on a lot of caffeine, Joe?’ And I just say, ‘No, you have to enjoy life, because it can go in a second.’ You have to laugh, right?”
In addition to a busy touring schedule, Piscopo makes plenty of appearances as spokesman for the Boys and Girls Club of New Jersey and visiting children with cancer “because there but for the grace of God go any of us.”
