Stand

[Somebody]

AVC: Why did you choose R.E.M.'s "Stand" as the theme music?

CE: Well, I liked that song, to begin with, just the tune. But the more I
listened to it, the more the words sounded like what we had shot. At the
time, R.E.M. was not... They were just about to become really big. And so
they gave us the rights to use it on the series. We had to buy them, but
they weren't expensive. I met Michael Stipe at a party at Saturday Night
Live years later, and I told him that everybody associates that song with my
show, and he said that it was, without a doubt, the stupidest song that
R.E.M. had ever written. And I said I think that's ultimately why it
appealed to me, because it was the stupidest show that I had ever been on.
So it was a perfect match.

http://www.avclub.com/content/node/41488/3

[Somebody]

AVC: You were on SNL-

CE: That's what people tell me. I have a vague memory, but that's about it.

AVC: That was sort of the disgruntled season.

CE: Yeah, it was just a hideous year. It was a year when there were so many
cast members, and [Adam] Sandler and [Chris] Farley and [David] Spade were
still there, but they were on their way out. I did the show because I'd
always wanted to. They offered it to me and I was moving back, and I
thought, "Okay, that's something I can do in New York." I think I was lazy.
I had a hard time elbowing my way in amongst all the cast members. There
were just so many people there. I can remember shows where I was dressed
like a munchkin until 10 of 1 a.m., and then I'd be on and go home. It
wasn't what I thought: that sort of fast-paced, "from one set change into
something else" kind of thing, which, I guess when you only have five cast
members, you have to do. It was also not a good year in terms of the tone of
the show. There were a lot of unhappy people there, so I didn't have a
particularly good time.

AVC: You only stayed for one season?

CE: Yeah, there was no question that I was gonna stay. Everybody there was
unbelievably nice. In retrospect, I look back and I go, "Maybe if I would
have stayed, maybe things would have changed," or whatever. But I think I
was just too old to be doing the show. I mean, I was still only 32, but...
If that had been my first job, if I hadn't spent eight years atLetterman and
then done my own show, I think I would have had more of a hard-on for it. I
think I was just kind of like, "Well, I've kind of done this already."

Post by Somebody
http://www.avclub.com/content/node/41488/3