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

by Jay Mohr Narrated by Jay Mohr

Overview

When twenty-year-old Jay Mohr moved to New York City, he never thought he would land his first real job on Saturday Night Live. But he did-and what followed were two crazy years of trying to keep up with his talented cast mates and get on the air as often as possible. Jay offers an intimate first-person account of the inner workings of Saturday Night Live-the audition, the pitch meetings, and how skits make the final cut of the show. Jay also dishes on the guest hosts (Travolta, Doherty, Baldwin, Barkley), the musical guests (Cobain, Tyler, Clapton), and of course his Saturday Night Live cast mates (Farley, Sandler, Myers). This book is refreshingly honest and laugh-out-loud funny.

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly

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.

Kirkus Reviews

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

DEC 04/JAN 05 - AudioFile

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

Product Details

BN ID:	2940169778632
Publisher:	Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Publication date:	05/17/2017
Edition description:	Unabridged

Videos