LATE BREAKING "SNL" NEWS

Mr. Mike's Twisted 'SNL' Tales

By Rich Brown

Those early "Saturday Night Live" episodes with John Belushi and the rest of the original gang would have been even edgier had Michael O'Donoghue gotten his way. Several twisted comedy bits created by the late "SNL" writer never made it past executive producer Lorne Michaels and the NBC censors, according to a new book, "Mr. Mike: The Life and Work of Michael O'Donoghue, The Man Who Made Comedy Dangerous" (Avon Books).

One of the most controversial was a fake ad for "Tarbrush" - a toothpaste "made for Negroes and their special needs." Supposedly a parody of racist products and negative imagery, the ad called for Garrett Morris to demonstrate a black toothpaste that turns teeth "a rich, dark ebony." Morris had "severe misgivings" about the sketch, which was actually rehearsed but never shown to an audience.

Another doomed bit that O'Donoghue wrote for Chevy Chase to read on "Weekend Update" made light of a busload of schoolchildren in Chowchilla, CA, who had been held hostage in the summer of 1976: "What will the smart, fashionable woman be wearing this fall? From California comes the answer - a lovely, floor-length Chowchilla coat. Chowchilla coats - made from the skins of 26 schoolchildren."

Other ideas that O'Donoghue couldn't get past Michaels: bringing a marksman into the studio to shoot plates, staging a live book-burning and training a camera on one of his favorite images - a tarantula dancing on a butter dish.

"I got tired of being lectured by Lorne 'The Rabbi' Michaels," said O'Donoghue, who eventually left the show and died in 1994 of a massive brain hemorrhage at age 54. "Lorne would not relinquish control and it was tiresome. You were always fighting a war on two fronts. One just to get the material itself on the air and make it right, and one with Lorne Michaels."

Source: TV Guide Online

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