“Lorne [Michaels] was like a dog with a bone,” Carvey recalled.
“He just wanted me to come out anyway.”
Will Heath/NBC
The offer sounded tempting.
Maya Rudolph as Kamala Harris and Dana Carvey as Joe Biden on ‘Saturday Night Live’.Will Heath/NBC
That only enhanced Michaels' enthusiasm.
“Lorne was like a dog with a bone,” Carvey said.
“He’s still like, ‘You’ll come out.
Dana Carvey as Joe Biden, Maya Rudolph as Kamala Harris, and Jim Gaffigan as Tim Walz backstage at ‘Saturday Night Live’.Rosalind O'Connor/NBC
Maybe you’ll appear as a ghost or something.’
He just wanted me to come out anyway.
So then I came out.”
“I had this take on Biden that I developed on this show,” he said.
“I wanted to just meet with the [SNL] writers, and so they said fine.
The comedian wasn’t sure if the writing staff would consider his ideas for the impression.
“We collaborated the rest of the week, and they were just cool.
They let me really do the Biden I wanted to do.”
And by the way, the fact of the matter is,'” he explained.
“So I ad-libbed it at read-through.
Carvey’s apparent improvisation surprised some of his less-seasoned collaborators.
“The current cast members, they’re all adorable people,” he said.
“They’re young and everything.
They’re like, ‘I didn’t know you could ad-lib at read-through!'”
Rosalind O’Connor/NBC
Carvey also said he considered throwing more unexpected pop culture references into his rambles as Biden.
“And then I had him go, ‘Yabba dabba dabba doo!'”
Michaels wasn’t a fan of that last detail.
He said Michaels noted, “It doesn’t sound like Biden.
I like ‘I can’t believe it’s not butter’ better.”
Carvey will return for more Biden material throughoutSNL’s 50th season.
Listen to the full episode ofFly on the Wallabove.
