David Spade

Will Ferrell says his family makes a point of taking the whole summer off, no matter what he's working on. They spend it in Sweden because his wife is Swedish and they have a place there. His boys all speak Swedish and hang out with their cousins.

Will Ferrell got the idea listening to Blue Oyster Cult on the radio and hearing that faint cowbell, wondering whether the cowbell player had any friends and if that was the only song he got to play on. He wrote it as a sketch, then rewrote it for Christopher Walken, because only Walken could get a laugh out of "I have a fever, and the only prescription is more cowbell." The stiffer Walken played it, reading off the cue cards, the funnier it got.

"Abbondanza" was the catchphrase from the Mama Celeste frozen pizza commercials. One day at lunch in the Saturday Night Live writers' room, everyone joined a bit saying "Abbondanza" about the food, except Norm Macdonald. Even with about 15 people telling him it would be rude not to say it now, Norm refused, and he never did say it.

Will Ferrell says his movies didn't switch to digital until Anchorman 2. Before that, on film, they improvised anyway: they'd keep going until they heard the film run out, then ask the line producer for more film stock, because film was expensive. Once a shoot was rolling, the studios were usually okay with it.

Asked whether the Groundlings was more supportive than Saturday Night Live, Will Ferrell says typically yes, but his new cast got lucky. It included Molly Shannon, Cheri Oteri, Jim Breuer, Tim Meadows and Nancy Walls (Steve Carell's wife), with Norm Macdonald on the show and Chris Kattan and Ana Gasteyer arriving later. Many had done sketch comedy, and with the show rumored to be near cancellation and rivals like Mad TV launching, everyone pulled for each other.

David Spade says a few people, like Eddie Murphy, are basically savants at 19. For most cast members it builds: you get a little more confident, the audience starts to recognize you, you get more confident still, and eventually the audience is excited when you walk out, which builds on itself.

Dana Carvey played George Bush Sr. opposite Will Ferrell's George W. Bush in a sketch. To tower over W, Dana wore huge Herman Munster-style shoes and was padded up, while Ferrell played W as his little baby son, flopping onto his lap ("There you are, son"). In a deer-hunting bit, Dana's Bush rattled the antlers and told W to just keep walking into the woods, which Dana calls an Of Mice and Men moment.

Asked by an audience member which impression first told them they could do this for a living, Dana Carvey says he was about nine when the Beatles appeared on Ed Sullivan. The next day he walked up to his mom and asked, in a Liverpool accent, "Hey, do you think I could get me some pancakes?" She screamed because she didn't know what he was doing, and that was the first time he knew he could alter his voice.

Adam Sandler says you give yourself to them because you know they're great: you read the script, you don't want to let them down, and you jump into their world. He's always more at ease making comedies, where everyone tries to come up with the best jokes, but he calls the dramatic work awesome and just different. Instead of coming up with a joke in the trailer, you're getting yourself into a mood.

On one of Adam Sandler's comedy albums, he plays a golf announcer calling a golfer with a nine-stroke lead on the last hole who keeps missing putts. The announcer keeps saying "the champion" is feeling it and about to set the course record, while the lead shrinks to eight strokes, then three, as the champ gets closer to choking. Blake Clark does the voice of the champ, who curses as it falls apart.

Adam Sandler says Opera Man started with a man who sang opera on the street holding up a can. He'd come at you singing loudly, and you'd end up giving him money, and that's where Sandler first started doing the voice. Dana Carvey, who asked about it, calls the later Weekend Update version, with the pictures, one of the most indestructible killer bits of all time.

Conan O'Brien says Jack Handey was a stunning genius who didn't need anybody else. He'd go into his room and type, then come out and say good night while the other writers settled in for nine more hours. The next morning his sketch would be the funniest thing at the table, and Conan says his sketches killed about 95 percent of the time.

Saturday Night Live premiered in October 1975, and Chevy Chase immediately became the biggest star in America. About a year later, as it's told on the episode, he faced a choice between staying on the show and making a movie, so he left to make the movie. It's a different world now: cast members can go make a movie and come back, doing both.

Conan O'Brien says he made a promise to himself long ago: there will be things he gets and things he doesn't, and he'll just be happy he got to do what he did when he did it. When a recent Saturday Night Live sketch gets traction online, like Chris Redd as Kanye West, he looks it up and often finds it really funny, since things usually catch on for a reason. He reminds himself the show isn't worse or better now, just different.

Adam Sandler was 23 when he joined the show, and Conan O'Brien says people at the network weren't thrilled and didn't get him, so Lorne Michaels was probably getting pressure along the lines of "what's with the Adam guy?" Conan says the same revisionist history applies to Norm Macdonald, whom everyone loves now but who got fired. Looking back, everything seems inevitable, like Franklin Roosevelt becoming president, but at the time it could have gone a million different ways.

Conan O'Brien says if he could change one thing, it would be that nobody knew where he went to college. He doesn't think his sense of humor comes from there, but people would write him off as "the Harvard guy." As he puts it, it's not Hogwarts or a magical place, just a school where he met some really smart people and some pretty dumb ones.

Conan O'Brien says the read-throughs are the memories that stay with him most because they carry a kind of PTSD, the good and the bad. A sketch that kills at the read-through is a delight, but negative moments hit harder than positive ones, like gambling. And in the room you don't notice the people who are laughing; you notice the ones who aren't.

Dana Carvey says Conan O'Brien has produced more funny material than almost anyone in American comedy history, pointing to all the Team Coco content. Because Conan stayed out of the intense politicization of comedy, Dana says, everything he does stays evergreen. Dana's wife and son are obsessed with Conan's travel shows and watch them over and over.