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Hey everybody we've got a great one today you know for a change Jim Downey is with me

who's Jim Downey in my mind the greatest writer in the history of S&L, that's because I worked with Jim for 14 seasons and Jim went on to write for many seasons more.

And I don't know the writers who came after my time at the show. I mean

John Malaney did some other others too who are great writers but Jim and I wrote

a lot of the political stuff on the show during our time together there.

And so did others, of course.

But in this, we discuss how we approached our writing for a live sketch comedy show,

where you can comment on that week's events, using great sketch artists like Dan

Ackroyd and Phil Hartman and Dana Carvey to play the president.

Or if on a Thursday a surgeon general Joisland Elders said we should teach

masturbation in our schools you could have The can do with a live sketch show.

Jim had a motto for the political sketches

that went something like this.

reward people for knowing stuff,

but don't punish them for not knowing stuff.

Well, after I left, Jim wrote the Bush Gore debate sketch,

the one where Will Farrell as W summed up his campaign with

strategy. George W Bush had never said strategy, that was Jim, and you'll hear me make the case that

Darrell Hammond's gore and Jim basically taught

Darrell his gore and Darrell by the way one of the great

...