Bill Murray Defends ‘SNL’s History of Drug and Alcohol Consumption
It’s no secret that the early years of Saturday Night Live weren’t always the most sober.
According to Saturday Night: A Backstage History of Saturday Night Live by Doug Hill and Jeff Weingrad, there was so much drug use behind the scenes at SNL that, by the fifth season, Lorne Michaels actually hired a security guard to “prevent any sudden surprises from visiting law-enforcement officers.” Not to mention the copious amount of booze that cast members (and musicians) indulged in.
Despite the fact that SNL’s drug- and alcohol-fueled legacy has seemingly been well-documented, former cast member and current Yahoo! Mail spokesman Bill Murray recently suggested that the public perception of these events has been largely skewed.
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During a recent appearance on Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen, Murray was asked about SNL’s legendary afterparties. He revealed that his post-show routine typically involved going back to his office and having four bottles of champagne delivered “from Bill's Liquors on 54th Street,” for him and his friends to enjoy. “You couldn’t go out in the world because you were so energized you were so, like, almost too dangerous to go out on the street,” Murray argued.
He would eventually head to Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi’s Holland Tunnel Blues Bar, which he claims “would never have passed code” because “it was just a room with alcohol.”
On the subject of the SNL staff’s infamous drug use, Murray got surprisingly defensive. “It’s a joke, where you people say like, ‘Oh yeah, they were all on drugs.’ Yeah, people were able to create a live 90-minute television show every week, just high and completely out of control — real likely, very likely,” Murray sarcastically stated.
Murray claimed that the cast wasn’t constantly high because they had an “obligation” to the crew. “It wasn’t just a handful of actors and writers,” Murray said, “there were dozens and dozens and dozens of professionals going, ‘You better get this right, I built this damn thing so you’d make it right.’”
The Groundhog Day star implied that any drug and alcohol consumption that occurred mostly went down after the show, because cast members were so electrified by the pressures of live TV that they needed a way to ground themselves. “People felt like, ‘I have such a responsibility.’ After doing that show, I’m telling you, I had to go to my office for a couple of hours before I could go out on the street. I wasn’t safe. You just had this crazy energy that you had to move.”
That being said, even other guests of Watch What Happens Live have contradicted Murray’s take. Early SNL host Candice Bergen once told Cohen that SNL pivoted from being a “marijuana-based” environment to a cocaine-fueled operation early on purely because it was easier to mount such an elaborate production on coke than it was on weed.
Still, Murray seems genuinely ticked off that drug use has become such a focus for SNL fans. “It’s cool to say, ‘Oh they were all druggies.’ Really?” Murray barked. “What the hell did you get done while we were doing that? What did you get done while we were doing that?”
It’s been 50 years, he might just want to let this go.
