CRAVE ONLINE: Did you cut anything out of the script because it might have been too offensive?
Robert Smigel: Yes, yes. Yes, there was. Next question, please. You know, we worked on the script. It was a long process and we were careful about it. It wasn't so much about any specific thing that we took out. It was more just over the time we wrote it, I had some friends I would occasionally send scripts to, Arab-American and Jewish friends, just to get a sense of is this too much? Or is it appropriate? You had to be offensive.
CRAVE ONLINE: Didn't you once say that any comedy dealing with race or prejudice is going to make somebody mad?
Robert Smigel: The last thing we were doing was trying to antagonize anybody. When I said that quote, I was certainly not implying that I do sketches on Saturday Night Live with the intent of pissing people off. What I was trying to say was that any time you do comedy about sensitive subject matter, there are going to be people with passions on both sides who are ultimately going to find something offensive about it, because they have something invested in it.
CRAVE ONLINE: How has Adam changed since Saturday Night Live?
CRAVE ONLINE: How has Adam changed since Saturday Night Live?
Robert Smigel: He’s such a genuine guy and his enthusiasm is always such a blast to work with him back then. He was very unguarded for a person at Saturday Night Live. Compared to most people there, everybody is really funny and brilliant and they secretly believe that, but they would never come out and say it. The second day Adam was there he goes, “Smigel I’m going to be huge.” And you couldn’t resent him for saying it at all because he was just being sweet and honest and he was hilarious. He polarized the staff of Saturday Night Live like no one in the history of the show and one of the most satisfying moments of my time there was probably when Al Franken told him he was brilliant. It took like five years. He said “You are brilliant” and that was earned. He had some crazy but like “but certain people just aren’t going to get it.” But the fact that he said it because he represented to us, it was almost a referendum on comedy at the time. Because all the younger people at the show, he would be in a read through of the script and he would be a waiter in the part and there was no reason for the waiter to talk like this [in his funny voice]. But he would do it anyway and he would just make that choice. He was that brave. And he would write characters like Canteen Boy who talked like this [funny voice again] and the older group of writers would think it was the most idiotic thing in the world and I would have these philosophical debates with them about how it was way more sophisticated then what they were doing because there were levels to the character. Like this guy who was in denial that people were making fun of him and they would be like “Adam talks like a monkey, what are you talking about?!” I remember when – and this will be the last time I kiss his ass. No, the first time I met Chris Farley’s brothers and Chris was already huge on the show. I was going off about how Chris was the funniest guy on the show and they were like, “Uh, uh. The funniest guy on the show is Adam Sandler.” And he had only been on for like three months, but it was just such an amazing thing to see that you knew there were these people that completely got it and connected with it and then it was just a matter of convincing the people who ran the show.
CRAVE ONLINE: Which parts of the script are your contributions?
Robert Smigel: Adam wrote a lot of the movie. I do want to say that. Adam wrote a crapload of this movie and he wrote some of the smartest jokes in the movie. I do a lot of cartooney comedy, but I have to say some of the funniest stunts in the movie were written by Adam and [director Dennis] Dugan actually. They collaborated on the thing that ends all our trailers, “Smell it, smell it.” Dugan came up with that whole thing.
CRAVE ONLINE: How did you guys specifically come up with the Avalon hair style?
Robert Smigel: I think I just pulled that name out. I think I was just looking for names that took themselves sort a kinda seriously. The '80s idea of glamour, just an ancient haircut that would sound [real], the Avalon and the Lexington.
CRAVE ONLINE: So it is not a real hairstyle?
Robert Smigel: I’m wearing the Avalon right now. I can’t believe you don’t recognize it. It shows that I’m approachable.
