John Goodman’s 1980 SNL audition did not go well, thankfully for us
The 13-time Saturday Night Live host seems to have rebounded nicely
TV News John Goodman
Appearing virtually on Friday’s Tonight Show, John Goodman told former Saturday Night Live star Jimmy Fallon just how close he came to actually joining the SNL cast. “It was the worst thing I’ve ever done in front of people in my life,” recalled Goodman of his disastrous 1980 audition, cringing at the memory. So, “not very close” is the answer to that one.
Still, the now 69-year-old Goodman has gone on to host Saturday Night Live an impressive 13 times over the years, so presumably things worked out for the best. (Goodman last hosted all the way back in 2013, though, so it’s about time for number 14, Lorne.) Not to pile on that ill-fated cast, tasked with replacing the original Not Ready For Prime Time Players, but Goodman’s subsequent 13 hosting appearances represent more SNL stage time than that claimed by eventual hires like Ann Risley, Gilbert Gottfried, Gail Matthius, or Tony Rosato. So take that, SNL casting people.
Still, Goodman remains firmly on the SNL brass’ side when it comes to him not getting the gig. (The SNL wiki claims that the slot Goodman was vying for was instead filled by Joe Piscopo, so take that how you will.) Telling Fallon that he went into the potential career-making (or, as it happened for several eventual hires, career-scuttling) opportunity completely unprepared, Goodman noted that the then brash young John Goodman went onstage brimming with the confidence of a guy who’d whipped up his audition piece 15 minutes before going onstage.
“I just knew they’d hire me,” recalled Goodman, still clearly embarrassed, “Just for my pers— ’cause I’m a nice guy.” And while the struggling, 28-year-old Goodman bombed hard on that long-ago day in New York, Goodman doesn’t appear to harbor any ill will. Even though it was another six years or so before True Stories introduced the wider world to the unique glories of a true John Goodman performance. (Apologies to those who recognized the eventual movie and TV legend’s greatness in his 1984 C.H.U.D. role of “cop in diner.”)
As to his current busy schedule, Goodman could only marvel that his Roseanne TV daughter Alicia Goranson has written an upcoming script for an episode of belated spinoff, The Conners, and that he’s not 23 years old anymore, as evidenced by how hard he beefed it in a recent The Righteous Gemstones fight scene. “It’s the loudest thing I’ve ever heard in my life,” said Goodman of the impact of his head smashing into the back of a truck in the parking lot stunt gone wrong. Taken to the hospital after the incident, Goodman told Fallon gamely, “They couldn’t tell if I had a concussion, so I guess I’m okay.”
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John Goodman is a god damn national treasure!
Great, now you’ve killed him
Oh god. Is John Goodman going to wind up being the male version of Betty White, who everyone absolutely loves and desperately hopes lives forever?
No, I think that will be Tom Hanks.
huh?
It could be both of them.Hanks might be too big a major star for that to happen, though — most likely he’ll go into Old Age like the actor he’s most compared to, Jimmy Stewart, a beloved old uncle reading his silly poems on THE TONIGHT SHOW and occasionally reminding the President he got something wrong….
No, I think that will be Tom Hanks.
Insufferably of course. Cue the ironic John Goodman merch.
Oddly enough that’s going to be Armie Hammer, but keep in mind the world will be a much more savage and cannibalistic place in 50 years.
Goodman will be there still shouting “Am I the only one who gives a shit about the rules?!”
“Look upon me! I’ll show you the life of the mind! I’ll show you the life of the mind!!”
Isn’t that already Dick Van Dyke?
Damn it, Lorne. Release this video!Edit: Just realized that this was the Lorne-less year.
Yeah, if he’d have been hired he’d have been gone with the rest in a year anyway. That divergent timeline is for all intents and purposes identical to our own.
Not entirely, Mary Pickford — like Eddie Murphy and Joe Piscopo, Dick Ebersole might’ve seen Goodman as worth salvaging and sent him off to do stand-up to polish his comedy skills.
The first of the Lorne-less years. After Doumanian’s disastrous tenure, Dick Ebersol ran it for a few years.
Jean Doumanian’s half-year showrunning SNL truly was disastrous, too! I can count on one hand the genuinely-funny sketches in that three-four month timespan — and on one finger the one Eddie Murphy wasn’t in. (That would have been the “Cloven Hind Jeans” ads, lampooning Brooke Shields’s Calvin Klein ads.)I used to watch SNL with my best friend at the time, because he had a 27″ color television with cable in his apartment and I had a 12″ b&w one and an antenna. Both of us watched Murphy’s bit about why he shouldn’t be drafted on Weekend Update and our jaws hit the floor, because here was a bit that was actually good. We utterly lost it when he ended showing a picture of Garrett Morris, saying “You wanna draft a brother? Draft HIM – he’s got a lot of time on his hands now!”
Bah! They should have been so lucky.
It was probably a really good thing for Goodman that he didn’t get the job.The 1980 Jean Doumanian produced season is infamous for how it went off the rails in record time. Lorne Michaels wanted to take the show on hiatus for a year or let Al Franken and Tom Davis replace him as showrunner with Michaels overseeing them. However, NBC executive Fred Silverman got pissed by a Franken skit on Weekend Update which made fun of Silverman’s and NBC’s lack of ratings performance. Doumanian tried to get Harry Shearer to be the head writer for the 1980 season, but Shearer wanted creative control to pick cast members and run the writers’ room. Doumanian said no, and then hired musician Mason Williams who had written for the Smothers Brothers.
Doumanian could have had a cast that included Jim Carrey, John Goodman, Robert Townsend, and Paul Reubens. In fact, originally Doumanian didn’t want to hire Eddie Murphy because she planned for Robert Townsend to be “the black cast member.” If you watch those 1980 shows, there’s long portions of really awkward silence. And then Charles Rocket dropped an f-bomb live on-air and that’s all the NBC suits needed to use the incident to clean house.
Tony Rosato wasn’t part of Doumanians’s cast. He was one of the players brought on by Ebersol for the last episode of the ill-fated 1980-81 season when he took over. He hung around for the following season giving him 21 total episodes. I don’t know if had more actual stage time then Goodman but it is possible.
The year that Goodman didn’t get nominated for an Oscar for The Big Lebowski was the year I stopped giving a shit about the Oscars.
I know people are really down on Jimmy, but you can’t deny he is so full of joy in what he does. It can be infectious.By the way, I weigh 192 pounds and I’ll bet that’s more than Goodman weighs these days. Have you guys seen how thin he looks on Gemstones?
I’m glad he’s healthier – but John Goodman is just one of those people who looks better fat. See also – Kevin Smith.
I think the same thing about Drew Carey.
The Connors? did that seriously not get cancelled after they kicked out Rosanne? wow! can’t believe anyone watches that.
It’s run for three more seasons after Roseanne was given the boot.
I guess she wasn’t the main reason people watched the show after all….
They also turned down Jim Carey although the excuse is they never kicked it upstairs to Lorne.
His role as the coach in Revenge of the Nerds probably a bit higher profile than C.H.U.D., but your point stands.
I try to accept Fallon’s limited interview skills but this one bordered on excruciating – patronizing and false in the worst ways.
Ah yes, the Leno Method.
John Goodman is going to go down as one of the greatest non-leading actors in history. His performance in Barton Fink is simultaneously funny, endearing, disarming, and absolutely terrifying (somehow with none those first three qualities getting eclipsed by the fourth one). His performance in The Big Lebowski brought genuine humanity as well as perfect comedic timing to a character that could easily have just been a crazy-Vietnam-vet caricature.
i loved him in o brother, where art thou
Funny – although I like him a lot in virtually everything he does, the big exception for me are his roles in Coen brothers films. I find him intolerable in those, and he ruins every single scene he is in. (This is a minority view).
This is honestly the most bizarre opinion I have ever read on the A.V. Club, and that’s saying something.
Also auditioning at that time was Paul Reubens, who, after losing the spot to Gilbert Godfried, decided to create a show about a guy named Pee-Wee Herman.
Everything in C.H.U.D. needs to be recognized for its greatness, it is C.H.U.D.
He originally had a much larger role in C.H.U.D., but when Roger Corman’s New World Pictures bought the rights they cut out about twelve minutes and rearranged some scenes. Goodman’s cop and his partner largely featured in the excised footage.
“John Goodman’s 1980 SNL audition did not go well, thankfully for us”
Yes, I know that I am certainly thankful that he didn’t get a huge gig earlier in his career that would’ve possibly made him a bigger star faster.
Because fuck him, I want him to have the exact career he had.