Personal Interview With Sarah Akers

Sarah Akers, Sophomore at Loyola University and Comedy student at Second City talked with me about her experiences with Second City and her thoughts on political Satire.

'50 Years of Funny'

Second City, In Old Town

A political job is notorious for the certain privileges it provides, but many privileges are relinquished in today’s entertainment society. Not only are politicians critiqued on their policies, but now their ability to handle satire and laugh at their own mistakes is also being monitored. There is an undeniable connection between politics and Chicago that has been growing since the formation of the city itself and has reached a peak with a true Chicagoan sitting in the Oval Office. Beginning in 1975 the original SNL “Not Ready for Prime Time Players” consisted of mainly Second City Alumni, a tradition carried on through the years, cementing Chicago as a permanent ‘player’ during the evolution of satire as a means of political communication to the rest of the country.

Bernard Sahlins, Howard Alk and Paul Sills, three University of Chicago graduates, set out in 1959 to create an atmosphere where casual interaction met politics and comedy. What conspired instead was the beginning of a revolution in political satire that changed the way America’s voting class responded to candidates from that point forth. At the beginning “cheap tickets, flowing booze and beefy burgers” attracted University of Chicago students who “chortled and laughed themselves silly at scenes that referenced Kierkegaard, Eisenhower, and Greek mythology” (Thomas 5). The ‘smart humor’ was brought out by actors who “played at the top of their intelligence (an edict ever since), skewering people, politics, people in politics, and, as one cast member put it, ‘almost all the foibles of everyday living from suburbia to fall out shelters” (Thomas 5). After an interview with Sarah Akers, a student at The Second City, she says “Second City’s brand of comedy is just sort of creating an atmosphere and a world for people to move around in, and inside of for a few minutes and a glimpse into that as an audience” (Akers). The sheer relatability of the acts gained The Second City, a named derived from an insulting New York City article, instant reputability. “Only three months after it began, in March 1960, none other than Time magazine praised the fledgling theater as a place ‘the declining skill of satire is kept alive with brilliance and flourish’” (Thomas 5); The Second City was set apart from other satire acts because of the company’s courage to address the social, sexual, and political changes of the time away from the conservative 1950’s.

In the early days of The Second City, television had yet to take hold on the realm of political satire. In 1960 the first televised presidential debate was held in Chicago, between candidates John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon. But although political television was in the city, Paul Sand, a cast member at Second City, talks about being on the cusp of the explosion of television that would come in the 1960’s: “for about two years it was just completely isolated and wonderful. TV hadn’t started tempting all of us at the time” (Thomas 21). “Only a day after JFK’s assassination, the show went on,” (Thomas 26) which set forth a precedent of handling national mourning in a way that was mirrored fifty years later following the tragedy of September 11, 2001: “just as it was right after 9/11, they were wanting to laugh, not wanting to think about what happened” (Thomas 26). Second City made the horrible circumstances manageable. When people cannot fathom emotions, a laugh can bring them together.

Connecting to the audience of the time was difficult as the original cast became older, and naturally distant from the primary college base. In the late sixties, Second City expanded and began a touring company “and so it was that seven educated, liberated actor-improvisors were summoned for duty during the most turbulent period in modern American history. Dubbed the Next Generation, they eventually lived up to their prophetic name” (Thomas 34). Bernard Sahlins was frustrated with the older casts who were not reflecting what was going on in the times and seemed already old-fashioned, but with a newer cast he saw what they “choose to do is a clue to what’s happening” (Thomas 42). For example, Judy Morgan, a new cast member says “we were well-read and kind of had fingers on the pulse of what was going on. And we were, in a way, fortunate--1968, Chicago, the convention, the women’s movement, civil rights. We had a lot to play with, and we had opinions about all of it because it concerned us offstage” (Thomas 42). The crucial aspect to this new generation was that they were concerned about the issues and using their stage presence to make a difference outside the walls of the Wells Street theater.

Early Second City Players, Including John Belushi

The nation wanted to hear about the issues, Vietnam in particular and the war’s omnipresence in society called for a firm stance from the troupe. Second City was never one to shy from political assertiveness: “there was a lot of Anti-Vietnam rhetoric. Second City was very much anti-Vietnam War” (Thomas 38). At this time, The Second City ran a show called “A Plague on Both Your Houses” which was a very politically angry show. At the time, Second City struggled with the intense feeling of compulsion to act on issues, but as Sheldon Patinkin, the manager and director, says, “if you are doing satire and comedy, you have to figure out how to do it so that the audience will laugh at what you hate, rather than just get angry at it. If you can laugh at it, you can fix it.” With “A Plague on Both Your Houses”, the cast politics was almost alienating. With the Next Generation, during the Vietnam War

“there was a tremendous amount of youthful energy poured into the protest movement. Then when the Vietnam War ended, there was still that incredible energy, that need to express one’s self...It’s not only true of Second City, but of theater in general in Chicago. You get that feeling that in the early and mid-seventies there was just this tremendous flush of new groups and new people establishing themselves” (Thomas 45).

This energy was translated from war commentary into satire of political figures, specifically the embarrassing Watergate scandal for the Republican party, and these new groups’ influence began to stretch beyond the borders of Chicago and beyond the Midwest.

'Ello Canada

Andrew Alexander outside of Second City Toronta

Toronto was a huge step for The Second City. It was a gamble to see if Canadians had the same sense of humor, and they did: “the Canadian side always had a little bit of an edge” said Dan Aykroyd “I think that was maybe us trying to get noticed or something, because the Americans were more secure. And so we’d hit the wall harder. We’d hit the floor harder. We’d do stronger falls--anything to sort of say we were ready to die for this” (Thomas 77-78). Luckily, after struggling to get footing, Second City Toronto was revitalized by Andrew Alexander, whom Dan Aykroyd said “there would be no Second City in Toronto and, in fact, maybe in Chicago, if it weren’t for his intervention” (Thomas 72). Dan Aykroyd, John Candy and Gilda Radner were stand-out stars of the up and coming Canadian comedy theater. Gilda Radner “stood out for her caring nature and her uncanny ability to draw laughs even in scenes that fell flat,” (Thomas 67) and her co-cast member John Candy was “Mr. Toronto if John Belushi was Mr. Chicago” (Thomas 73). ‘Mr. Toronto’ did not go with his cast members to pursue careers in New York City when “a couple of years after Second City Toronto was resurrected, American TV viewers were tuning in to a new NBC late-night sketch comedy program, initially called Saturday Night” (Thomas 91) giving the cast of Second City new goals to reach for.

Lorne.

Lorne Micheals, Present Day

In the early days of Saturday Night Live it was less apparent how much of an influence Chicago comedy was going to have on the late-night show. But soon “people started coming [to The Second City] to see the next John Belushi and Bill Murray and Gilda Radner” (Thomas 115). Still today, Sarah Akers says about Second City “it’s hard not to feel inspired, you walk in and [Gilda and John] are looking down on you” (Akers). Saturday Night Live was the invention of Lorne Michaels, also from Toronto, who was asked to create a show that would run on NBC during the weekend. He was inspired by Monty Python, thus gaining the early description of SNL as “Monty Python meets 60 Minutes” (Hill and Weingrad 37). Because of Second City “the basic form wasn’t entirely new, but the content was and so were the shows attitude and approach and collective mind-set” (Shales and Miller 1). The apprentice team and comedy duo Al Franken and Tom Davis were hired for their “unsophisticated and college humour” (Hill and Weingrad 58) and eventually hosted a recurring show on SNL and were part of the original writing team. Saturday Night Live, after just one season was “a national sensation both hot and cool, and the first hit any network ever had at eleven-thirty on Saturday Night” (Shales and Miller 95). The first five years of Saturday Night Live featured a cast of whom over half had a connection to Second City. The cast of the original ‘Not Ready for Prime Time Players’ was Chevy Chase, John Belushi, Gilda Radner, Dan Aykroyd, Bill Murray, Jane Curtain, Garrett Morris, and Laraine Newman. Four of these comedians came from Second City, and soon Dan Aykroyd cemented himself in the heart of Chicago during the filming of his collaborative movie with John Belushi, The Blues Brothers. Despite the attention that former Second City players received from television and film, cast member Shelley Long remembers: “It’s not like we were really performing for producers. We were performing for Chicago. We were still very committed to doing things that our audience in Chicago would connect with” (Thomas 116). Even as SNL grew to national influence, the roots in Chicago were not forgotten.

Original 'Not Ready for Prime Time Players'

The Election of '76-Starring Chevy Chase and Dan Aykroyd

Saturday Night Live relied heavily on political satire, just as Second City had before them. Sarah Akers comments “in the beginning, SNL was a lot more creation than commentary...They made an everyday character [like Gerald For or Jimmy Carter] into a joke” (Akers). The first election that SNL covered was between Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter in 1976. Second City Alum, Dan Aykroyd played Jimmy Carter and Chevy Chase portrayed the ‘bumbling’ Gerald Ford. “Considering the amount of political humor Saturday Night put on the air, the staff of the show was surprisingly apolitical” (Hill and Weingrad 183) which was a complete difference from their Second City counterparts in the 1960’s. Nonetheless, during that election “Lorne is proudest of the time Saturday Night replayed, three days before the...election the speech in which Ford announced his pardon of Richard Nixon” (Hill and Weingrad 183), by playing the real clip and not a satire, Saturday Night took a chance on their true ability to reach a political audience.

Louis B. Raffel writes in the Chicago Tribune that

“Despite the expressed opinion that Gerald Ford was defeated in the 1976 election because of the pardon of Richard Nixon, I believe the loss can be attributed primarily to ‘Saturday Night Live’ for months prior to the election, the late night comedy show -- hugely popular in its early days-- started each week with a Chevy Chase satire of Ford doing a stupid, clumsy pratfall making Ford appear not very bright and far less than presidential. “SNL” ushered in the era of TV comedians being a major force in shaping political opinion about presidents and public policy” (Raffel 1).

Many people believe that the Chevy Chase portrayal of Gerald Ford on Saturday Night cost him the election, especially skits such as “Operation Stumblebum” (“An Oval Office”) which did not portray the president in a good light. The fact that Gerald Ford, unlike presidents of the 21st century, did not appreciate SNL demonstrates how satire has changed since the beginning of SNL. When Gerald Ford’s press secretary was a host in 1976, Gerald Ford spoofed Chevy Chase’s catch phrase “I’m Chevy Chase, and You’re Not,” but was still ridiculed by the cast, even though he tried to play their game (“Weekend Update”). But the election was not the end of the satire. When Jimmy Carter was elected, Dan Aykroyd began to portray him in skits with an intelligent, yet not suitable for the White House, persona. This is exemplified in a skit where the President shares knowledge of topics from mail distributors to narcotic drugs (“Ask President Carter”).

Chevy Chase was not originally hired as a player on Saturday Night Live, which comes as a shock due to his almost instantaneous fame. Chase was quoted as saying “Fame is a very unnatural human condition. When you stop to realize that Abraham Lincoln was probably never seen by more than 400 people in a single evening, and that I can enter 400 million homes in a single evening due to the power of television, you have to admit the situation is not normal” (Hill and Weingrad 213). “SNL isn’t a credible source of anything,” Sarah Akers believes, “But it is the way the public feels and the way a candidate is perceived, but not hard facts” (Akers). SNL cast members were only beginning to realize the political impact that the show had the potential to utilize.

Between Barack and a Hard Place

Of course there were influential Second City alumni and political sketches from the 1980’s to the 2000’s, but they are fewer and less memorable. After Lorne Michaels stepped down for five years during the 1980-1985 period of Saturday Night Live, when he returned the cast was much different than before he left. No one from Chicago was featured and none of the original cast remained: “It’s Square One time at SNL...the Chicago talent hunt with Fraken and Davis, often in the company of Michaels, wound its way through the hallowed halls of Second City on Wells St., through a host of suburban comedy clubs, and out among the orange crates and belly laughs of ‘Temple of Doom’... no one among the current group at Second City made the SNL cut” (Daley 1). The fact that the new cast was not full of Chicago personalities was odd for Saturday Night Live, but Second City alum stars such as Chris Farley, Mike Myers, Amy Poehler and Tina Fey made their way back into the graces of Saturday Night Live.

Saturday Night Live stars and political figures of today are part of the generation that grew up watching the original cast and all the political spoofs that ensued in the beginning seasons. Even before Barack Obama was nominated by the Democratic party, Second City had its eye on the young senator. In January 2007, Second City premiered a show called “Between Barack and a Hard Place” which “was centered on the biggest political super star since JFK--and a resident Chicago citizen to boot” (Thomas 242). The director of the show, Matt Hovde, said the message of the show was “There’s actually somebody out there that people like, that people are rooting for. And he’s from Chicago” (Thomas 243). As previously mentioned, the generation of politicians, including Barack Obama, grew up watching Saturday Night Live and most likely played a defining part in how satire is viewed: “Sometimes it seemed like Obama would turn around, like, ‘Can I laugh at that? Alright, everyone’s laughing at that, so I guess I can’” (Thomas 243). Previously, satire was viewed as disrespectful, but now is viewed by politicians themselves as funny. Laughing at themselves is a way to stay human, and the nation fell in love with the Chicago candidate who loved to laugh during a time of turmoil.

"I Can See Russia from My House"

Just like the many Second City alumni before him, Barack Obama, along with many other candidates in the 2008 election, left the Chicago scene and appeared on Saturday Night Live. SNL had arguably gone downhill in the 2000’s after the departure of Tina Fey, who was the first female head writer at Saturday Night Live. Luckily, Tina Fey returned to SNL to fulfill what seemed like an impression made just for her, Sarah Palin. In an acceptance speech for the Mark Twain Award, Fey said “I would be crazy if I didn’t thank Sarah Palin. My partial resemblance and her crazy voice are the two luckiest things that have ever happened to me” (“Tina Fey Acceptance Speech”). In the 2008 election, the voter turn out for the young population was extremely high, and I believe this correlates to the exact demographic that Saturday Night Live targets its show. Sarah Akers, a comedy student at Second City, doesn’t see herself in comedy but “in [her] wildest dreams [she’d] love to be standing up next to Tina Fey saying ‘Live from New York, it’s Saturday Night” (Akers). Not everyone watched the debates or followed the issues, but people did talk about the Sarah Palin, Barack Obama, John McCain and Hillary Clinton political sketches.

While stance of Saturday Night Live is proclaimed liberal, the show continued to spoof many candidates, but none more than Sarah Palin. The iconic sketch of Amy Poehler and Tina Fey portraying Sarah Palin and Hillary Clinton was the first of many sketches that shaped how America viewed this relatively unknown political figure.
SNL touched on issues that are still relevant today in this first sketch, such as Palin’s mis-speaking and distance from the rest of the United States. Another notable and influential sketch was aired three days before the election, an episode that Presidential candidate, John McCain cameo-ed in. Just as in 1976, the episode 3 days before the election was crucial. During the sketch, ‘Sarah Palin’ declared defeat in the election and appealed to viewers: “Okay, listen up everybody I’m going rogue right now so keep your voices down. Available now we got a bunch of these Palin ’12 T-shirts. Just try to wait until after Tuesday to wear them, okay?” (“QVC”).
The influence of this skit went beyond the election and Sarah Palin even titled her book, “Going Rogue.” Tina Fey’s impression of Sarah Palin won her an Emmy in the category “Best Guest Actress in a Comedy Series.” Overall the political sketches and newly created Weekend Update Thursday with Seth and Amy (two comedians who also have Chicago roots), dramatically shaped the way the public was informed about candidates.

Political satire shaped the way that America responds to politics. Beginning as an underdog comedy troupe in 1959: “with international name recognition, annual revenues in the tens of millions, and a homegrown president it helped champion into the White House, [Second City] is no longer that” (Thomas 245). Second City created a name for itself in comedy, as well as a spring board for comedians to reach greater audiences and politically influence an entire nation on Saturday Night Live.

Works Cited

Akers, Sarah. Personal Interview by Erin White. 14 Dec 2010.

"A Non-Partisian Message from Sarah Palin and Hillary Clinton." Saturday Night Live. NBC: 13 Sept 2008. Television.

"An Oval Office." Saturday Night Live. NBC: 12 Jan 1976. Television. 

"Ask President Carter." Saturday Night Live. NBC: 12 March 1977. Television. 

Daley, Steve. "Back to Square One for 'Saturday Night'." Chicago Tribune 08 Nov 1985: N1. 

Hill, Doug, and Weingrad Jeff. Saturday Night. New York: Vintage Books, 1986. 

Metz, Nina. "Live from N.Y., It's Chicago on 'SNL'." Chicago Tribune 27 Sept 2010.

"QVC." Saturday Night Live. NBC: 01 Nov 2008. Television.

Raffel, Louis B. "'SNL' Influence." Chicago Tribune 28 Dec 2006: 28.

Shales, Tom, and James Andrew Miller. Live from New York. 1st ed. New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2002.

Thomas, Mike. The Second City Unscripted. 1st ed. New York: Villard Books, 2009.

"Tina Fey Acceptance Speech." 2010 Mark Twain Prize. PBS: 14 Nov 2010. Television.

"Weekend Update." Saturday Night Live. NBC: 17 April 1976. Television.