Why Martin Short Wanted to Quit Mid-Season During His Only Year on ‘SNL’
Martin Short only got one season as a Saturday Night Live cast member, but he almost didn’t make it that long. He was hired during the show’s “George Steinbrenner Year,” Steinbrenner being the legendary New York Yankees owner who spent big bucks filling out his roster with All-Star players. That was SNL’s strategy to save the floundering show during its 10th year, hiring established comics like Short, Billy Crystal, Christopher Guest and Harry Shearer on one-year deals.
“I was terrified every show because I think I treated it like a special,” Short told Jimmy Fallon this week on The Tonight Show. “In fact, during the fourth show, on the Tuesday, I went in to try to quit.”
Being “Canadian and savvy,” Short visited producer Dick Ebersol to turn in his comedy wigs. (Lorne Michaels wouldn’t return until the following season.) “You know, I haven’t cashed any checks yet,” Short said, believing he was off the hook since he hadn’t officially taken NBC’s money.
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“Well, you know, you do have a contract, and if you leave now, we’ll look bad and you’ll look bad,” Ebersol replied. “But if you stay until Christmas, I’ll let you out of your contract.”
Ebersol later revealed his strategy to Short, figuring that if the comedian stuck it out until the holidays, he would figure out how to do the show. That’s more or less what happened.
While Short told Fallon that SNL “was always nerve-racking to me,” he described his despair in detail in his memoir, I Must Say: My Life As A Humble Comedy Legend. After only three shows, “I simply wasn’t having any fun, and I couldn’t imagine continuing, given the pressure of the show and my (self-imposed) overwhelming sense of gloom and doom.”
While Short was never able to fully relax, he did start having fun and rode out the rest of the season. Ironically, another cast member followed through on Short’s threat to leave the show: Shearer.
“In his view, he was writing quality material that wasn’t making the show, while other writers’ inferior work did. So he left, citing creative differences,” Short explained. “Or, as Harry put it in his parting salvo, ‘I wanted to be creative, and they wanted something different.’”
In between Short and Shearer that season, another famous comic quit — and didn’t. That was the year Larry David wrote for SNL. “I actually witnessed Larry’s famous row with Dick Ebersol, in which he quit on the spot, a few minutes before airtime one Saturday night,” Short explained.
David famously regretted his impulsive resignation and decided to act as if it never happened. “Larry just showed up the next Monday morning, pretending he hadn’t quit and greeting people with perky geniality: ‘Hey, guys, how’s it going?’” Short remembered. “His job remained secure, as if nothing had happened.”
If it all sounds familiar, it’s because David repurposed the debacle for “The Revenge,” a Seinfeld episode in which George Costanza replicates David’s “I quit/I never quit” strategy. It worked both times.
In the end, though, Short appreciated his SNL experience. “It changed my life and opened the door to friendships and opportunities I’d never have experienced otherwise.” But he was still relieved to get through Season 10’s final episode, hosted by Howard Cosell. “When it was all over — that episode, that season — I finally exhaled.”
