Thirty-Nine Years of Short-Term Memory Loss: The Early Days of SNL from Someone Who Was There

Summary

Thirty-Nine Years of Short-Term Memory Loss is a seriously funny, offbeat, and irreverent memoir that chronicles the early days of Saturday Night Live and features some of its greatest personalities—Al Franken, Lorne Michaels, Dan Aykroyd, John Belushi, Bill Murray, Michael O'Donoghue, and Chris Farley. Written by Tom Davis, an original SNL writer and comedy partner of Al Franken, Thirty-Nine Years of Short-Term Memory Loss is the story of coming of age in the 1960s and a spellbinding account of the birth and rise of one of television's most celebrated shows. Davis's memoir is filled with wry, candid anecdotes about his days at Saturday Night Live and his friendship with its stars. But it is also the story of Davis's own coming of age—escaping his conservative roots in suburban Minneapolis, traveling the world, and reveling in the hippie culture of 1960s San Francisco. The author finds the highs and lows of his own career to be a hilarious counterpoint to the meteoric rise of SNL and his friends' growing celebrity. Hysterical, lucid, and wise, Thirty-Nine Years of Short-Term Memory Loss is a free-spirited, unrepentant romp through an era of sex, drugs, and comedy.