Decades after his time on Saturday Night Live, Ottawa-born comedian Mark McKinney admits the stress of writing comedy sketches still haunts him. Occasionally, he wakes in a panic, reliving the deadline-driven pressure of crafting the perfect punchline.
“Four o’clock in the morning on a Wednesday when you don’t have an ending for your sketch—that’s when the PTSD sets in,” McKinney says with a chuckle from Toronto.
This weekend, McKinney will join the festivities in New York to celebrate the show’s 50th anniversary.
Best known as a member of the Canadian absurdist comedy troupe The Kids in the Hall and now the star of CTV’s Mark McKinney Needs a Hobby, he also served as a writer for SNL in 1985 and returned as a cast member from 1995 to 1997.
Reflecting on his time at SNL, McKinney calls it a “grind” and admits his offbeat humor didn’t always mesh with the show’s mainstream style. He describes being scouted by SNL creator Lorne Michaels as “surreal.” Michaels recruited McKinney and fellow Kids in the Hall member Bruce McCulloch for the show’s eleventh season, assembling a fresh cast that included Randy Quaid, Robert Downey Jr., and Joan Cusack.
“I was working at a Second Cup, barely making rent in Toronto, and three weeks later, I’m giving notes to Madonna on one of my sketches,” McKinney recalls, laughing. “Al Franken kicked me under the table, saying, ‘Don’t give Madonna notes.’”
Madonna, the season’s first musical guest, was at the peak of her fame, and McKinney vividly remembers the heightened security surrounding her appearances. His sketches often landed at the end of the show, reserved for experimental comedy. One such sketch featuring Madonna seducing a paperboy, played by SNL cast member Anthony Michael Hall, was axed after Hall refused to participate.
“He said, ‘I don’t want to play teens anymore,’” McKinney says, noting it was his first taste of creative disappointment at SNL.
Despite the setbacks, McKinney and McCulloch found solace in performing live with Kids in the Hall in Toronto, which fueled their creativity and kept their troupe together. Their return performances caught the attention of Michaels, who offered them a development deal for their iconic CBC series, which debuted in 1989.
“We got to do our own show autonomously because when you have Lorne Michaels as your producer, you get some creative protection that you might not otherwise have,” McKinney explains.
When Kids in the Hall eventually ended, McKinney was the only member interested in continuing. Michaels invited him back to SNL as a cast member, but McKinney acknowledges it was a “mismatch.”
“I kept trying to do Kids in the Hall-type sketches on SNL, which is a fundamentally different show,” he admits. “But I had a blast. How can you not? Every Saturday at 11:30 when that theme kicks in, it’s like, wow, goosebumps every time.”
Source: Swifteradio.com
