Old School. Biblically Independent.
By Andrew Sanford | News | May 6, 2026
When I did theater in High School, my freshman year, a lot of time was spent listening to the older kids talk about what they’ve done and what they were going to do. There was one guy, and I think his name was Mike, who was really intense and wasn’t your standard “theater kid.” He was into sports and popular, but he was also funny and outgoing, so he did some theater. I have a vivid memory of him explaining to me how he would “sweep the floors every day at SNL until they let me on that stage.”
Anyway, that Mike turned out to be… no one who was on SNL. I genuinely don’t even know what happened to him, which feels weird in the age of Facebook (and me being part of a generation that embraced it immediately). But it also probably doesn’t help that I don’t really remember his name. But it was one of the first times in my life when I heard that if you do something mundane, ya know, like getting a custodial job at one of the biggest shows in television history, you’re one step closer to being a star.
In reality, that’s not how things work. You could be someone like Zach Galifianakis, land a trial as a writer on the show, and still end up gone when your two weeks are up. That’s what happened to the Hangover star some years ago, as he recently discussed on an episode of Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend. Galifianakis explained that he was writing for the show on a little tryout period, and that a sketch he wrote bombed so hard at the table read that you could mostly hear the air conditioner in the room.
He and O’Brien then go on to explain that the vibe at SNL is notoriously competitive (though Galifianakis explains that he doesn’t think that’s necessarily the case anymore). However, Galifianakis also explained that he received a moment of comfort during the awkward read. Tina Fey gently patted his shoulder, not in a condescending way, but just to let him know someone was there. It’s very sweet, even if Galifianakis’s time on the show would end shortly thereafter.
The whole interview is worth listening to, and also has my favorite trend in Conan’s podcast: him being forced to talk about something political because the guest does. It just feels like Conan has zero desire to get into it, which is funny, because he’s still able to rattle off jokes about the current President as naturally as breathing; he just seems to genuinely dislike talking about him.
