The season after the SNL 50 celebration, which gave us numerous documentaries, there’s room for one more, arriving on Peacock just days after the actual 50th anniversary of the show.
It’s called Downey Wrote That, and it tells the full story of the life and career of Jim Downey, probably the most accomplished writer in the history of SNL. It’s a hugely entertaining examination of a man whose name or face you might know, but whose work you’ve undoubtedly laughed at.
As told in the documentary by Downey himself, as well as various Saturday Night Live luminaries of different generations, the writer long had a certain sensibility, which emphasized very specific word choices, and often used premises that involved solving problems that don’t exist. I could listen to SNL writers’ room stories all day long, and this doc is full of great ones.
Downey worked on Saturday Night Live for more than 30 years, but those years were non-consecutive and really consisted of four separate stints, all in different decades and in very different eras of comedy.
Downey joined the show in the second season, in 1976, along with Bill Murray. After leaving to work as David Letterman’s first head writer on NBC’s Late Night, Downey returned to SNL for a time in the ‘80s.
His 1990s run may have been his most legendary, during which he exclusively wrote Weekend Update jokes for Norm MacDonald and ultimately got fired over O.J. jokes that irritated the then-head of NBC and O.J. crony Don Ohlmeyer:
And in his last stint, which continued all the way until 2013, Downey was most associated with political sketches, to the point where it became a frequent comedy world parlor game to guess what Downey’s personal politics were.
The documentary is full of footage of SNL sketches, famous and not-so-famous; I particularly enjoyed the one from around 1990 with Abe Lincoln and Mary Todd (Phil Hartman and Roseanne) trying to kill each other; I assume that one got memory-holed since, well, it’s a domestic violence situation involving Phil Hartman.
Unlike so many SNL behind-the-scenes types, Downey has never been credited as the writer of a movie, or the creator of a TV series. When he appears on camera, it tends to be memorable, whether he’s doing various SNL cameos, or giving the “I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul” speech in Billy Madison, or doing the instant-classic “Jeff Epstein, the financier?” bit on Conan O’Brien’s podcast:
Just this fall, Downey has popped up both as a member of the Christmas Adventurer’s Club in Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another, and on Tim Robinson’s new HBO show The Chair Company.
If you’ve ever been even a little bit of an SNL fan, in any era, you’re likely to love this. It’s streaming now on Peacock.
