Jon Lovitz at the Capitol – yeah, that’s the ticket

His biggest claim to fame – the thing that most people likely recognize Jon Lovitz from – is Saturday Night Live, for which he created numerous memorable characters during his five season (1985-90) run as a cast member. He was the pathological liar (“Yeah … that’s the ticket”); Annoying Man; Master Thespian; the hapless demon Mephistopheles; and Mr. Potter in the classic sketch It’s a Wonderful Life – The Lost Ending. Among many others.

He appeared in the big 50^th anniversary gala last month (he remains close friends with producer Lorne Michaels).

Lovitz guested on Seinfeld and Friends, and guested alongside his SNL running buddy Phil Hartman on the series NewsRadio. (Lovitz replaced Hartman as a fulltime cast member in 1998, following the latter’s tragic death).

Then there are the films – The Wedding Singer, Rat Race, The Benchwarmers, Little Nicky and a dozen others. Or the 20 Simpsons episodes, from the good (early) years, on which he voiced a handful of characters including film reviewer Jay Sherman (later spun off into his own animated series, The Critic.

Lovitz is at the Capitol Theatre Thursday (find tickets here). He’s been doing standup comedy for the better part of 20 years, and he’ll usually devote part of his performance to music (he plays piano and sings humorous songs).

The Catalyst spoke to Lovitz from his home in Hawaii.

On the difference between acting, sketch work and standup comedy.

When you’re doing a sketch, to me that’s just acting – you’re playing a character and you’re doing a scene. Like you would in a play or a movie, with other actors. So you’re playing off of them. You don’t break the fourth wall, which is where the audience is.

In standup, the audience is your scene partner, and you’re totally breaking the fourth wall. You’re talking directly to the audience, as opposed to pretending they’re not there.

The columnist Jimmy Breslin hosted Saturday Night Live (in 1986). I told him I was thinking about doing standup, but was afraid of offending people my grandmother’s age. He told me “If I come to your show, I want to hear what you have to say to say. I don’t want you to change your act because who’s in your audience.”

I never forgot that. So that’s how I approach it: “What do I have to say? It’s what I think about different things.’”

On the recent SNL 50^th anniversary shows.

It was the best weekend of my life. It was like a reunion, really. And seeing people from work, all the comedians, and the girls that used to type up the scripts – we’d have to hand-write ‘em – it was just great. The first night, they had this concert at Radio City Music Hall. One act after another that was amazing. When Nirvana and Post Malone played “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” you could feel the energy in the room. No wonder they were huge.

On the recent Peacock special concerning the controversial 1985 SNL season, his first.

I didn’t like that they called it the Weird Year, I thought that was a cheap shot. They had some guy narrating it, I guess he wrote a book or something. He wasn’t there! I was there. And what happened was, it was a whole new cast, and also Lorne was back. So they were really gunning for Lorne.

There was no internet or nothin.’ TV Guide was the bible of the television industry. We’d done 11 shows when their review came out. And the guy only talked about the first three. So he didn’t mention the fact that my liar character, by then, was huge, and everybody was imitating it. Dennis (Miller) was great on Weekend Update, and it was coming together.

You go “How can that many talented people be that bad?” Well, they can’t. And they weren’t. But everybody just glommed on. Anthony Michael Hall, Joan Cusack, Robert Downey Jr., Randy Quaid, Danitra Vance, they were doing great work, but someone wrote Saturday Night Dead and they all imitated it.

By the way, that season they said was so weird, I got nominated for an Emmy. So how bad was it?

On leaving SNL in 1990.

I was supposed to do a movie of my liar character, with Lorne, and for whatever reasons it didn’t happen. Five years later, there was a great part, there was a script, so I was going to do it that summer and then come back. And they said they couldn’t work around the schedule. I would’ve had to miss two shows, and Lorne said “You can’t miss shows.”

I even said “I’ll sign for five more years.” I didn’t want to leave. But he just kept saying no. What I should have said was “I’m not leaving the show, so if you really want me, you work around me, I’m not working around you.” That’s what I shoulda done.

The next year, he let Mike Myers do Wayne’s World, and then Mike missed 10 shows to write Wayne’s World 2. And later that year, he said “You could have missed shows.”

On his February Fox News interview, in which he said the current president “has done more for Israel than any president in the history of the United States.”

I’m not Republican or Democrat, you know what I mean? But they asked me, “Do you want to speak out about antisemitism and what’s going on?” Because this is how it started in Germany, and the problem is, it keeps going unless people speak up.

The ironic thing, to me, was I always thought of CNN as being very liberal and pro-democracy, which is what Israel is. And Fox being very conservative. And they’ve completely switched. Fox is completely pro-Israel, and CNN is not at all.

So if you said “You’re just a comedian, why would you speak out about this?” Well, I’m also a person, and I’m Jewish and I live in America. To me, it’s about survival. And I lost count of people who come up to me and say “Thanks for speaking out.” You know what’s frightening when they say it? They’re whispering. They’re afraid.

On his cameo in Happy Gilmore 2, debuting on Netflix in July.

So I said to Adam Sandler, “What can I say or not say?” He said “You can say you’re in it.” They don’t want to ruin it and give away what it is, you know? Which is a good idea. You want to go to a movie not knowing, and then you’ll laugh even more. I look forward to seeing it – it looks very, very funny.