I love when people geek out about things. They go deep. They know everything. Then they put it in book form and you get to read 600 pages of fun about the man who created Saturday Night Live.

I will admit that at first I was a little overwhelmed when the book showed up to fill my hold. It’s pretty big and pretty heavy. But luckily, it made it just in time for me to take it with me on vacation so I had time to jump in.

When I was younger I used to watch the rebroadcasts of SNL on Comedy Central, so if it’s from before the Sandler/Rock/Farley era, I don’t have a good grasp on the timeline of which cast came when. This was a very thorough discussion of how the show was formed and how it progressed. According to the book, Lorne says that the cast you most identify with is the one from your high school years. I would say for me it was more college - which means I’m in the Will Ferrell/Tina Fey/Amy Poehler/Jimmy Fallon era. Although, I will say that I have been watching it more lately, and I’m starting to be a fan of Colin Jost.

Lots of books have been written about SNL (check out the You Might Also Like section if you don’t believe me). But this is the first book that is officially about Lorne himself. My favorite part of Morrison’s book is the layout. Just like SNL itself, she sets it up as days of the week. Then the first chapter in that section covers the creation of a more recent (2018) episode starring Jonah Hill. After that, Morrison jumps back in time and gives us a historical lesson about how Lorne became Lorne.

If you are any kind of SNL fan, don’t let the 600 page count intimidate you. Once you get into the story, you won’t want to put it down and the pages will fly by. Could I ever work at SNL? Uh…no. I can’t keep their crazy hours. But it was certainly fascinating to read about.

Sometimes you want to binge watch TV. In this case, you can totally binge read SNL books. So get your SNL reading pile built then dive it. Live from New York, it’s…

Just Kidding.

Happy SNL-ing…
:) Amanda