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  PRAISE FOR BABY, DON’T HURT ME

  “No one appreciates a scar more than me. I always loved Chris Kattan, but this book made me love him even more.”

  —Amy Sedaris

  “Chris Kattan is one of the greatest physical comedians I have ever seen. He would play a small animal and believe he was 20 pounds. He would play a male stripper and believe that he was an amazing dancer. He would play an old lounge act and you would think he really had been trapped in a smoky Vegas room for 50 years. I’ve always admired his commitment to his characters but also his thirst for learning about comedy. He is a real student of the craft, and he was always great to me and gave me good advice on top of ‘laugh until we are in tears’ moments on SNL. This takes me back.”

  —Jimmy Fallon

  “I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to succeed in comedy as a performer or a writer. Chris Kattan gives a rare, detailed look behind the scenes of SNL. His stories are laugh-out-loud funny (driving Mrs. Koogle!) and very touching. He bares his heart in this riveting memoir.”

  —Molly Shannon

  BABY, DON’T HURT ME

  BABY, DON’T HURT ME

  Stories and Scars from

  Saturday Night Live

  CHRIS KATTAN

  with Travis Thrasher

  BenBella Books, Inc.

  Dallas, TX

  This book is based on the notes and recollections of Chris Kattan. Some names and personal details have been changed or omitted to protect the privacy of individuals. In passages containing dialogue, quotation marks are used when the author was reasonably sure that the speaker’s words were close to verbatim and/or that the intended meaning of the speaker was accurately reflected.

  Copyright © 2019 by Chris Kattan

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  BenBella Books, Inc.

  10440 N. Central Expressway, Suite 800

  Dallas, TX 75231

  www.benbellabooks.com

  Send feedback to [email protected]

  First E-Book Edition: May 2019

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.

  9781944648497 (trade cloth)

  9781944648763 (electronic)

  Cover photography: Emma Dunlavey

  Lighting/Digital Technician: Damon Corso

  Grooming: Annie Ing

  Wardrobe Stylist: Bailee Edgington

  Animal trainer: Rick Nyberg, Performing Animal Troupe

  Retouching and compositing: Ramon Rivas

  Cover design: Sarah Avinger

  Editing by Alexa Stevenson and Laurel Leigh

  Copyediting by Scott Calamar

  Proofreading by Greg Teague and Cape Cod Compositors, Inc.

  Text design by Katie Hollister

  Text composition by Aaron Edmiston

  Printed by Lake Book Manufacturing

  Distributed to the trade by Two Rivers Distribution, an Ingram brand www.tworiversdistribution.com

  Special discounts for bulk sales (minimum of 25 copies) are available.

  Please contact [email protected].

  This book is dedicated to you. Yes, you, the reader, for

  without you, this whole thing wouldn’t be a thing.

  To the kindred spirits who dream of succeeding in

  comedy, or at least want to make a livable wage at it!

  To the trusting, the gullible, and the pure of spirit. Keep

  that, and try not to get jaded.

  To my father, my mother, Marc, Andrew, and my Billy,

  Jennifer.

  To the people who put me back together: my surgeon,

  Carl, and my physical therapist, Karen.

  “Silence is of the gods, only monkeys chatter.”

  —Buster Keaton

  “Been hiding my scars in broad daylight bars / Behind laugh tracks on TV.”

  —Arcade Fire

  CONTENTS

  Foreword by Seth Meyers

  Introduction

  Chapter 1: No, Peepers! No!

  Chapter 2: I May Have Killed the Poodle

  Chapter 3: Studio 8H

  Chapter 4: Life on Mount Baldy

  Chapter 5: Zip Zing

  Chapter 6: What Is Love?

  Chapter 7: Chris on a Hot Tar Roof

  Chapter 8: “So, What Do You Want? You Want Me to Fu . . . ”

  Chapter 9: Girls Love Funny Guys

  Chapter 10: Below the Belt

  Chapter 11: You Can’t Have-a Da Mango

  Chapter 12: From Russia and the West Side

  Chapter 13: Charlie’s Angels

  Chapter 14: Yeah, but Have You Seen Them Live?

  Chapter 15: “You Guys Want Some Cookies?”

  Chapter 16: Broken

  Chapter 17: This Love

  Chapter 18: Coupling, Complications, and Will You Be My Valentine, Tom Cruise?

  Chapter 19: That’s Kip for You

  P.S.: Life Is Good

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  FOREWORD BY SETH MEYERS

  I will never forget the first time I saw Kattan as Mr. Peepers eat an apple.

  It wasn’t the speed at which he did it, it was the precision; the ability to rip it apart like a lawnmower through grass while also managing to spit it directly at his scene partners. With no exaggeration I believe it to be the most impressive live act ever performed on SNL. I also believe it to be a perfect distillation of what I love about Chris Kattan. A kinetic, yet controlled tour de force.

  Kattan (I have never called him “Chris” in my life and I’m not going to start now) was a workhorse in the SNL cast that brought the show back from the brink in the mid-90s. And I’m not kidding when I say the “work” part. No one sacrificed himself more physically for a laugh (and as you’ll find out in this book the sacrifice was real). SNL needed a reinvention, and Kattan was exactly what the doctor ordered. Enthusiastic character-driven comedy in bold colors. Red! (Peepers) Blue! (Roxbury Guys) Pink! (Mango).

  Kattan was fun. Genuinely fun in the way the best SNL cast members are. He was fun to be around during the week and he was fun to watch on Saturday. Hosts liked to be in scenes with Kattan because whatever fears they had about doing the show were erased by his contagious, joyous energy.

  And, more importantly to me, he was kind. He looked out for me when I started in 2001, giving me small parts in his sketches and saving me from weeks in which I had no lines at all. But while that was nice, my biggest debt to Kattan will never be repaid. In the summer of ’08, he invited me to his wedding and I met Alexi Ashe, who is now my wife and the mother of our two amazing boys. When people ask Alexi and I what we have in common, the one thing I know most to be true is, “We both love Kattan.”

  Lastly, my first season at SNL was 2001. My first show was two weeks after 9/11. Everyone was wondering when you could laugh again, and I’m not sure I did at all during that first show. But in the second show, during “Weekend Update,” Jimmy read a story about a German historian who asserted that Hitler was a homosexual. Kattan entered as Gay Hitler and, with a perfect delivery of his only line, “Sprechen Sie Dick?” made me laugh exactly how I needed to.

  INTRODUCTION

  First off, I’d like to formally thank you for buying my book. Clearly, you have good taste. I’m not saying you had poor taste on any level prior to picking up this book, but now . . . congratulations. It’s official.

  Some of comedy’s most memorable characters were born in studio 8H, on the eighth floor of 30 Rockefeller Plaza in New York City. That studio, home to Saturday Night Live, w
as also home to characters like Wayne and Garth. Stefon. Matt Foley. Debbie Downer. Ed Grimley. Stuart Smalley. The Samurai. Mr. Robinson. Mary Katherine Gallagher. King Tut. Master Thespian. Opera Man. They were created by legends like Bill Murray, Chevy Chase, Gilda Radner, Eddie Murphy, Mike Myers, Phil Hartman, and an overwhelming list of others—artists who have gone on to make us laugh for decades and will forever be known as some of comedy’s greatest.

  In my almost eight seasons on SNL, I was fortunate enough to create a few memorable characters myself. I’m probably remembered from my years on the show as the physical and energetic short guy who brought to life such deeply bizarre individuals as the androgynous stripper Mango, goth teen (and Cinnabon employee!) Azrael Abyss, or the apple-eating, face-humping Mr. Peepers.

  It’s a little strange to know you’re mostly remembered as other, fictional people. When I’m dead, lying in a casket located at what I can only hope will be one of the more prestigious mortuaries in Southern California, I’m sure someone will walk up to my coffin and say: “Oh, God. Such a terrible loss. And such a good-looking guy, too.” Then, grabbing a fistful of my Silver Fox hair, they will surreptitiously bop my head back and forth like one of the club-hopping Roxbury guys.

  In 1995, twenty years after its historic debut, Saturday Night Live was in serious jeopardy of being cancelled. The so-called frat pack of Adam Sandler, Chris Farley, Chris Rock, and Rob Schneider had all left or been fired due to pressure from network executives, and mainstay Mike Meyers had departed for Hollywood. Producer Lorne Michaels was faced with the unenviable task of finding a whole new cast of proven sketch performers who would click with viewers, please the network, and prevent him from losing the show he’d created.

  He found the majority of that cast—including me—at the Groundlings Theatre & School in Los Angeles. Since its founding in 1974, the Groundlings Theatre has become the foremost comedy training ground in Hollywood, counting among its alums such notables as Paul Reubens, Phil Hartman, Kristen Wiig, and Melissa McCarthy—not to mention the great Kip King, who was one of the original Groundlings cast members and, more importantly, my dad.

  When I made my SNL debut late in the 1995–96 season, I knew I had only had the season’s six remaining shows to create an impression that would get me invited back. Thankfully, my six years as a Groundling had prepared me well, and I arrived in New York with a trunk full of characters developed on the same LA stage where, as a kid, I’d watched my father perform.

  What followed were some of the most intense and enjoyable years of my life. I always felt that the SNL of the second half of the 1990s was more of a performer-driven show than a writer’s show. Obviously, you need both kinds of talent to make the show work, but the strength of the cast in those years leaned heavily toward the ability to bring a full-bodied character to life on stage rather than a knack for writing clever sketches. From 1996 to 2003, my cast included Will Ferrell, Amy Poehler, Tina Fey, Jimmy Fallon, Tracy Morgan, Seth Meyers, Fred Armisen, Molly Shannon, Will Forte, and Maya Rudolph, among others. Looking back, I feel we were one of the sharpest and most gifted SNL casts in its forty-plus years of history—in part, because we were allowed to stay together and grow. I’ve always thought Lorne knew our particular group was exceptional, and he wanted to preserve it. We worked together for years as part of an ensemble, creating and collaborating and churning out characters and ideas.

  Saturday Night Live and pop culture media in general were a lot different then. We had no YouTube, no Funny or Die, no podcasts, Twitter, Instagram, or Snapchat. There was no means for a sketch to go “viral” moments after it aired. Today a cast member can appear on just a few episodes and wind up in a Judd Apatow film. Back then, it was rare to see a cast member working on a film while doing the show. As long as you were on the show, you were still a “not ready for prime time” player. You weren’t focused on the “next big thing” because the chances of moving on and becoming a Bill Murray or an Eddie Murphy were slim. We all felt lucky to be “Live from New York” every Saturday, and there was a certain etiquette about extending yourself too much in film and other media: It wasn’t cool to do commercials or bunches of TV guest spots. Today, it’s not only acceptable, it’s almost expected, as if SNL is just a step toward something else rather than the ultimate destination.

  For years, people have been telling me to write a book about my time at SNL. Whether because of my improv training, or the way I grew up, I was always very observant of the details of my surroundings and experiences, almost as if I were outside of myself watching events unfold. Sometimes, during my years on the show, I felt like I was a journalist disguised as a cast member. There have been some really great books written by former SNL cast members. For my part, I want to tell what every cast member knows or has experienced but, for whatever reason, fails to mention when given the opportunity to write about it. Rather than just stories and anecdotes told for the purpose of being funny, I feel the need to tell a deeper truth, choosing “raw” over “fluff.” This is not a comedy book; it’s a book about a comedian. My story is one about a guy with dreams who makes it, but it’s not exactly typical.

  I grew up shuttling between a world of monks and a world of movies, and my career trajectory hasn’t been what you’d call linear. I’m hoping that reading about my exhilarating years on SNL, how I got there in the first place, and what life’s been like since, will be entertaining, sure, but also that it will encourage some of you with similar aspirations. Allow me to save you years of anxiety, and many hours of expensive therapy, by sharing what I have learned about patience, achieving success, and surviving it.

  For a long time after I left Saturday Night Live, I was in a bad place. Beaten down by pain, major surgeries, and personal tragedy, I had trouble even seeing the point of living. I felt as if I wasn’t needed anymore, and almost as if I were already dead. Perhaps that was it for me, I thought: I was just someone who did something really well years ago and now was forgotten. Maybe all people would ever think of me was: Whatever happened to Chris Kattan? Who knows? What a waste. This refrain played in my head for a long time, and things like being left out of SNL anniversary shows or not being asked to be in certain movies only further convinced me that not only was my career dead, its gravestone read: Chris Kattan—was briefly amazing.

  Eventually, something shifted inside of me. I was sick of misery and self-pity. I grew tired of being embarrassed about the injury I sustained on the show and lying about the impact of the pain and surgeries that followed. I began to surround myself with supportive people who believed in me. And with their belief in me, I started to believe in myself again. That’s when I got back out into the world and reconnected with my fans and my love of comedy through stand-up. I’ve spent the last few years touring the country and making people laugh face-to-face again, remembering what it feels like—it feels like there is nothing you can’t do. This outlook opens you up to the fruition of new ideas from your imagination.

  Bill Murray once said that after four years on Saturday Night Live, you can do anything. And he’s right. The pressure you endure and the technical skills and lessons you learn can’t be found anywhere else. You walk out of there shell-shocked, relieved, grateful, and hopefully fulfilled. You learn to be a survivor.

  I’ve had this beautiful life, and I’ve felt and experienced so many amazing things. Every day now I’m able to wake up and see that. I’m a much stronger person than I used to be. I don’t bullshit anymore; I don’t spend all my time looking back over my shoulder. I don’t have expectations, so I’m rarely disappointed. I feel grateful. I feel blessed.

  Thank you for reading my story.

  —Chris Kattan

  Chapter 1

  NO, PEEPERS! NO!

  So there I was, hanging upside down by my bare feet, which were wrapped around the neck of a seven-foot-tall gentleman by the name of Roy Jenkins.

  Holy shit, I thought to myself, I’m hanging upside down with my feet around someone’s neck. When did I lea
rn to do this?

  It was a Monday night in 1993. Monday night’s class was the one you never wanted to miss because not only was it the one time you got to do improv exercises, it was the only night to pitch sketches that might get you in the lineup for the upcoming Groundlings Sunday show.

  The Sunday show director was Melanie Graham, who’d started as a member of the Groundlings main company and would years later become a writer for SNL for a few seasons while I was on the show. Melanie bore a strong resemblance to Edna Mode from Disney’s The Incredibles (as well as to legendary Hollywood costume designer Edith Head, who I believe the Incredibles character was based on). Melanie was intimidatingly smart, but encouragement was not her forte. She was critical, with high expectations, and it was easy to feel like she was being too hard on you. But ultimately, Melanie’s expectations made us all better performers and better writers. At the time, I didn’t realize that writing was such an important backbone of comedy. Looking back now, I can honestly say Melanie was one of the greatest teachers I’ve ever had.

  Anyway: Monday night, 1993. We were just finishing warm-ups, and Melanie instructed Roy and me to go onstage and do a scene as poorly as we possibly could, breaking every improv rule. This was one of my all-time favorite exercises. I mean, to do a scene where you got to make the worst possible choices without any justification? Oh my God, I loved it!

  For the top of the scene, Roy was alone onstage while I waited offstage for my cue. Roy began by doing terrible “space work.” He held an invisible glass and pretended to make himself a drink, then walked over a couple feet and—forgetting he was supposed to be holding a glass—grabbed a sword out of nowhere with two hands before returning to make his imaginary drink. His imagined props just kept disappearing and reappearing without any visual justification. It was really funny. Then I heard Melanie’s scratchy, dehydrated voice belt out, “And Kattan enters!”