-Thank you for taking time out of this busy week.
-Man, yes of course. I wanted to see you.
I wanted to see you... -Yeah.
-...ever since you said some nice stuff about my special.
-Your special -- and I want to talk about your special --
is "100% fresh." -Yes, yes.
-Is as good a comedy special as I've seen in years.
It made me so happy. -Thank you so much.
And thanks for saying the nice stuff.
All my friends sent me your tweet
and all the nice stuff you said, so thank you.
-And that's good. I mean, I gotta be honest,
I think a tweet from me is gonna be real good for you.
-I think it's healthy. It's healthy.
[ Laughter ]
-Yeah, it's gonna be really... [ Laughs ]
-Why -- It's been 20-plus years,
maybe almost 25 years, since you left "SNL."
-Right. -I mean, I have to imagine
you've been asked to host over the years.
What made now the right time?
-It was a mistake. -Yeah.
[ Laughter ]
-They caught me in a weak moment.
No, those guys are great. I... [ Stammers ]
The special came out,
and then some guys from "Saturday Night Live" called me
and said, "Come on, come host" and blah blah blah.
And they were talking about, you know,
watching the special together.
I said, "Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're right, man.
Let me come do it." And I love Lorne
and I wanted to see Lorne and do it with him
and be on the show and bring back some nice --
But I've gotta tell you, it's knocked me out.
I'm so knocked out right now.
-Yeah. Also, I think the difference --
'cause, you know, I went back this year as well.
They asked me, like, a week beforehand.
-Oh yeah? -So I didn't have --
'Cause you've had some time to think about it.
-Yes, yes, yes. -Have you had stress coming in?
'Cause it's been, like, months that you've known.
-Yes. Yes. I've been very -- I've been watching the show
and I've been laughing.
And I was, "Oh, man, that guy is good" or "She's good."
And I'm nervous about me. And now...
[ Laughter ]
But I just -- it's really been, like --
This week... -It's so hard.
-It really is a knockout. I should have --
First of all, I should have come back to the show
before there was HD.
[ Laughter ] Because now I'm like,
"Good Lord, I waited a long, long time.
"I don't really look like Adam Sandler anymore,
but that's all right."
But -- but I'm just -- yeah, no. I am -- I'm gonna --
-Have you -- I know backstage, I saw some of the guys
you used to write with -- -Yeah.
-...back in the day. You came back.
-Yes. -Has that been nice
having them around? -Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Herlihy and Smigel and Steve Koren
and all my guys that were on the show with me back then
and wrote a lot of stuff I did.
The writing staff was very nice to 'em.
It was good. They feel like me.
when I went there, and they're so good and so young.
And so you do go, "Oh, my God. I don't belong here."
[ Laughter ] -I would assume, like me,
you would stay very late on Tuesday nights, writing.
-Yes.
-Did you try that at all this time?
Or were out of there pretty -- -I did.
-Oh, you did? -I did one night.
The Tuesday night one. -Yeah.
-When you do "Saturday Night Live,"
you write the skits, like, Monday, Tuesday kind of thing.
And a lot of guys stay late Tuesday, or the women.
And I stayed till, like, 4:00.
-Oh, that's pretty impressive.
-It wasn't bad. -Yeah.
-I came back. I was delirious. I was nasty.
[ Laughter ]
Nasty to the hotel guy when my key wasn't ready.
I was like, "Come on, man!"
I was a little psychotic but I-I'm good.
I have not bounced back from that yet.
Tonight, I gotta sleep, though. -That's good.
And I would imagine that you're --
I feel like everybody at this point has, like,
a very bad Adam Sandler impression.
[ Laughter ] -Yes.
-And I always found that was a fun week to write on the show.
Christopher Walken, everybody has a bad one.
-Right, right.
-And I remember when he would host,
if you would walk down the hall, you'd hear every writer, like,
typing and doing it in Walken's voice.
You'd be like, "Oh, my God.
Everybody is talking like Christopher Walken this week."
-Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes, that happened at the show.
I did hear through the door on occasion...
"Oh, ya wa ya, boy." I was like, "Oh, come on."
[ Laughter ]
-"You know, switch it up. We gotta show my range."
-Yeah, I do other stuff. No, I actually don't.
[ Laughter ] -Did you go...
Your office, I know this from legend, is really
a Murderer's Row sort of Mount Rushmore of that era.
-Yeah.
-You, Farley, Spade, and Rock all shared an office.
-Right, yes. We were in the back.
I went and visited -- it's not --
We're not there anymore.
It's -- "Weekend Update" is in our office.
-Yeah.
-So yeah, I was really -- it was nice to see.
But I did look at Farley's old desk
and I thought of the crazy... [ Laughs ]
Just him being funny there and just the fun times we had.
And I know the "Weekend Update" guys who were sitting
are a lot smarter than we are... [ Laughter ]
...and a lot of different conversations going on.
-Was it -- I mean, the level of filth
in some of the offices is stunning.
-Yes. -Certainly in my era, too.
-Yes. -Was yours --
And by "filth," I mean a lack of cleanliness.
-Yes, yes, yes.
-Were you guys an uncleanly -- -Nobody picked up much.
Farley, you know, he didn't pick up much.
[ Laughter ] -Yeah.
-And Spade, you know, he wasn't as filthy as Farley or me.
Rock kind of took care of himself
a little bit better than us.
But we did hit McDonald's a lot. Did you guys used to do that?
-Yeah. -You'd walked out --
-Did you go out on your own? 'Cause I do feel bad
'cause my memory is
we would maybe send interns out to McDonald's.
-You did? -Yeah.
-No, we went there. We got excited to be in Mc--
I think we were excited to get recognized back then.
-Okay. -It was like, "Oh, man,
I think the lady gave me extra cheese or something."
[ Laughter ] I don't know.
-So you would go out fishing for --
you were, like, one of those people
who put your hood up and sunglasses. Yeah.
-No, that just happened this year.
But, I mean... [ Laughter ]
...I was definitely walking down the street,
like, after a Saturday show.
If I did well on the show and I was, you know,
23 years old, my God, I was walking down the street
and staring people in the eye.
Like, "That's right. It's me, man."
[ Laughter ]
-I remember every now and then, they would give you, like --
the Christmas gift would be, like,
a duffel bag that they'd give to the cast.
It would be a duffel bag with "SNL" on the side.
And you'd have to say, "Well, I can't use this."
-Right, right, right.
-'Cause I feel like if I wear it,
it's like me desperately trying to get people to, like,
"Huh? Huh?" [ Laughter ]
Seemed like you would have jumped at that duffel bag.
-I'd be all over the bag back then.