Susan Morrison (on Lorne Michaels)

Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard

Armchair Umbrella

Tv & Film, Music, Comedy

4.6 • 68.3K Ratings

🗓️ 30 April 2025

⏱️ 117 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Susan Morrison (Lorne: The Man Who Invented Saturday Night Live, SPY Magazine, The New Yorker) is a journalist and author. Susan joins the Armchair Expert to discuss never wanting to subject her children to a life of moving around, marrying comedy and journalism into irreverant reporting at SPY Magazine, and loving the idea of walking through New York City as time travel. Susan and Dax talk about why humor is just the language we all speak to get by in the world, how Saturday Night Live is a monopoly for comedy, and that she could draw a line from all of Lorne’s life experiences straight to the producing skills he would later develop. Susan explains that Lorne is a master of teaching people how to be in a room, why listening for the laugh during dress rehearsal is his secret sauce, and how Lorne’s strategic instincts directly contributed to SNL being the longest running entertainment show in history.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Wondry Plus subscribers can listen to Armchair Expert early and ad free right now.
0:06.5	Join Wondry Plus in the Wondry app or on Apple Podcasts.
0:10.0	Or you can listen for free wherever you get your podcasts.
0:13.9	Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Expert, Experts on Expert.
0:17.1	I'm Dan Shepard.
0:18.3	I'm joined by Lily Padman and Michael Weekly.
0:20.4	Hello.
0:20.9	Hello. This guest, Susan Lily Padman and Michael Weekly. Hello. Hello.
0:21.5	This guest, Susan Morrison.
0:24.1	This was so fun.
0:25.0	This was such a fun listen back.
0:27.7	Was it?
0:28.3	Yes.
0:29.3	So she is the articles editor at The New Yorker.
0:32.3	She has a new book out right now, Lorne, the man who invented Saturday Night Live.
0:37.2	This is like a crazy, fun, juicy history of Saturday Night Live. This is like a crazy fun, juicy
0:39.0	history of Saturday Night Live. It is of S&L and of Lauren Michaels, and we get all these, like,
0:43.8	fun stories, and it's just cool. And he's an institution. The Wizard of Oz. Exactly. He has a lot
0:51.2	of monikers. Very mysterious. Very mysterious. And we get a little deep dive. I thought this was incredibly enjoyable.
0:56.9	It's really cool because she's known him for decades.
0:59.9	Yes, exactly. This is a really, really fun one. Her other books are Spy High and 30 Ways of Looking at Hillary.
1:07.4	So feel free to check those out too. But Lorne is fantastic. I encourage everyone to read it.
	...

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