Jay Mohr is a pretty funny stand-up comedian and a not-unsuccessful movie actor. It may surprise some folks to learn that he did two years on Saturday Night Live as a "featured player," an unusual job classification. It means you're in the cast but you're not a cast member. You're kind of on probation, auditioning in front of America to move up to full cast member status. Neither position means you automatically appear in sketches and neither guarantees you won't get fired at the end of the season. Full status just confers a bit more prestige and the presumption that you deserve to be on the show. Mohr did his two years without graduating to the senior class.
He sometimes went for weeks without getting into a sketch and when he did, it was often a one-line part or something that required so much make-up, you didn't realize it was him. His struggles are recounted in a book that I just read, Gasping for Airtime.
It's a disarmingly candid account of his life during that period, much of it focusing on a series of horrendous panic attacks that occasionally prompted him to bolt from the office, run the 42 blocks to his home and dive into bed. Eventually, medication ended these, though he had panic attacks that he would be caught without the pills to prevent his panic attacks. He also confesses to other matters that someone else might have omitted…like the time he was so desperate for a sketch to submit that he ripped-off an entire routine from a fellow stand-up comic. The bit went on the air, the other comedian sued, Mohr lied and swore he hadn't seen the other guy's act, and NBC settled the suit by paying money and cutting the sketch from reruns. It's not amazing that this happened; only that the perpetrator would admit to it in print.
There are anecdotes about others who worked on SNL at the time — Farley, Hartman, Franken, Lorne Michaels, et al. Some are flattering. Others are anything but, and some of those stories do not speak well of Mohr, either. The most interesting part of the book to me was following the dilemma of a guy who'd been handed this great opportunity and was never quite able to capitalize on it. Mohr's career later took off, to some extent in spite of his SNL gig, not because of it. You wonder if he'd have written this book if things had gone any of several other ways. In any case, it's a good, short read and a nice reminder of how difficult comedy can be, particularly in a high-pressure, competitive environment like Saturday Night Live. It ain't as easy as it looks.