by In case you missed it, Alan Zweibel sat down with Martin Short for the better part of an hour last month at the 92Y in New York City to discuss their comedy careers. Mostly Zweibel’s, but there’s also a bit of backstory for who inspired Short to create the characters of Ed Grimley and Nathan Thurm (as seen on SCTV and SNL), as well as a few minutes break for a highlight reel of Jiminy Glick.
But the night mostly belonged to Zweibel, as he shared stories of initially selling $7 jokes when he failed to get into law school, writing for Rodney Dangerfield, meeting and befriending Billy Crystal — which not only helped him get ready for a meeting with Lorne Michaels and join the original writing staff of Saturday Night Live in 1975, but also decades later help Crystal write his award-winning Broadway show, 700 Sundays. Also, we learn how he became fast friends with Gilda Radner their first week at SNL, working with Garry Shandling, and rebounding from a movie flop (North).
Roll it when you’ve got the 52 minutes!
Oh, and here’s how to buy those books Zweibel and Short wrote and are holding in the photo op above:
