All the Ways Punkie Johnson Loved Messing With Lorne Michaels
If Punkie Johnson was ever afraid she might lose her job on Saturday Night Live, she didn’t show it by kissing up to big boss Lorne Michaels. “I used to mess with him a lot,” Johnson told Dana Carvey and David Spade on this week’s Fly on the Wall podcast after announcing she was leaving the show this month. “I was one of the people who just wasn't afraid to interact with him.”
Johnson couldn’t understand what all the fuss was about. “When he comes, everybody gets crazy,” she explained. “Like he’s the principal or something.”
Unlike other cast members, Johnson had no patience for Michaels’ lectures when a sketch didn’t work. “I did a bit, and it bombed. It was so embarrassing,” she remembered. “And he’s walking up the hallway, and he’s just looking at me with that Lorne look. And I said, ‘I know it was trash. I know it’s cut. Don’t come walking down the hallway with that shit.’ And he busted out laughing.”
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In fact, messing with the boss became one of her prime objectives on SNL. Here are some of the other ways Johnson purposely got under Michaels’ skin…
Addressing Him Too Formally
“I would call him ‘Mr. Michaels,’” Johnson said.
In his oft-imitated voice, an irritated Mr. Michaels would correct her. “Don’t call me that. My name is Lorne.’”
Spamming Him with Letters and Weird Gifts
Then Johnson started writing him gushy letters, with messages like, “Hey Godfather, just wanted to let you know I love you.” She’d also shower Michaels with presents “like for his birthdays and Christmases and Valentine’s Day and stuff like that. I would get him really unique gifts. Like, I know he owned goats, so I got him a Goat Daddy shirt.”
(Confirmed: They exist.)
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Asking Him for a Goat
“One day, I asked him for a present for his birthday,” she explained. “I said, ‘Hey, can you buy me a goat for your birthday? I’ll come visit it from time to time.’ He just shakes his head. He’s just like, ‘Punkie is on another level. I don’t know what’s wrong with this girl.’”
Disrupting the Pitch Meetings
After the news broke that Johnson was leaving the show, she texted Michaels that he was going to miss her during the Monday pitch meetings when sketch ideas are presented. “I’d be saying some wild shit in them pitches. I mean, people be like, ‘What?’ I’d be wild as fuck. I’m sorry to tell you a pitch gonna be boring as fuck without me because you never know what the fuck I’m gonna say.”
Despite the poking, Johnson has nothing but good things to say about her relationship with Michaels. While others tip-toed around the truth, she told Carvey and Spade, Michaels was straightforward. “Lorne is gonna tell you what’s up. He not playing no games. He gonna tell you how he feel. He gonna tell you why your shit was trash. He gonna tell you what you could do to fix it,” she explained. “He was always just honest about everything.”
Either way, things are going to be different around 30 Rock without Johnson to mess with Lorne every day. “I drove him crazy to the point where he just started ignoring me,” Johnson laughed. “He was like, ‘I don’t need this. Fuck, I don’t have time for this shit today.”