i wish we had a shot of phyllis diller. d her off putting. so the producers had this idea. let's have phyllis just sit down and have a kind of fireside chat with some of the guests to warm her up to the audience. it was lauren's job to interview those guests and supply the questions. well, there's a direct line between those phyllis diller interviews and the opening monologue of snl, the monologue at snl that performs the same function. you know, you have a movie star coming onto this tv show, doesn't know what he's doing, but by just chatting amiably with the audience, everyone is kind of put at ease. >> these. also, i'm so glad that the book reminded me of the valley that lauren's career hit. oh yeah. after he left, he did the first five years of saturday night live, and then they left, which was normal in television. people didn't stay with tv shows. they were going on to greater things. they were all going to go into the movie business. lauren was going into the movie business, and then that doesn't go quite as planned.

beautiful phyllis diller show.sand was the hottest thing out there. funny girl was about to come out. lorne thought we were dead. but as turned out, the diller show beat streisand in the ratings by a mile. and lorne recognized i think he said, i realize there are two audiences. there is the people i know and then there is the wider american audience. and to this day he is always telling his young writers and performers, we have audience in all 50 states. wehave to remember this is broadcast. it takes in the whole country. >> that's the news. good night. have a pleasant tomorrow. >> reporter: keeping all this in mind, michaels set about creating a show for his own generation. >> what do you want from us? >> we want your pollen. >> reporter: as happened, nbc's then president was thinking along the same lines. it's fun to knock network execs, but the role that herb schlosser played. >> yes. he was a visionary president of nbc who was looking to fill a hole on saturday night when the network been running johnny carson'