SNL's Don King Speaks On Campus

Long-time Saturday Night Live (SNL) Director Don Roy King, who was invited by the Middlebury College Activities Board (MCAB) Speakers Committee to give an overview of his storied career and insights into the world of entertainment, performed this past Thursday in the McCullough Social Space,.

In keeping with King’s sketch-comedy claim to fame, the improvisational troupe Otter Nonsense Players opened the show, performing an abbreviated set of scenes inspired by music randomly selected from an audience member’s iPhone.

“Keeping it short was important,” Otter member Adam Milano ’15 said. “It was a privilege to be asked to open for him, and we were excited to hear him speak as well, so we just got out there and did a short set and that was it.”

King took the stage after being introduced by MCAB Speakers Committee Chair Robbie LaCroix ’16. Though LaCroix’s introduction cited King’s many achievements, including four consecutive prime-time Emmy wins and creative directorships with CBS News, “Survivor,” “The Early Show” and Broadway Worldwide, King began his speech with self-deprecating humor.

“I’ve been invited here to teach a very important show-business lesson – never book an opening act more entertaining than you are,” he said, prompting another round of applause for the Otters.

He continued in a similar vein, making frequent jokes at his own expense as he denied being responsible for the “already insightful, witty, wry, inventive scripts with at least one fart joke in them” that arrive on his desk weekly, nor SNL’s iconic history and influence in American pop culture.

“Did Tina Fey’s impression of Sarah Palin affect the outcome of the 2008 election? Maybe,” he said. “Your guess is as good as mine. Actually, your guess is better than mine – you all have actually thought about these things.”

However, King’s easy conversational manner and clear instincts for showmanship belied his denial of any personal talent. He frequently prompted laughs as he relayed anecdotes from an awkward speech given at Pennsylvania State University following the Joe Paterno scandal, an unlikely friendship arising from rapper Ludacris’ appearance as a guest host and his unsuccessful stint as a boxer.

Though his tone was often informal and lighthearted, King did comment on the more serious issue of race in the media, which has been a concern throughout his long career.

“I started in 1969 at a black-and-white station, and like most stations in the country it wasn’t really black-and-white: it was white,” he said. “It was rare at that time to see a person of color as an anchor or a host, or even as an actor in a commercial.”

He spoke to television’s powerful influence in society, citing the character of laughable bigot Archie Bunker in the 1970s sitcom “All in the Family” as an effective critique of racism that allowed prejudice to be parodied rather than respected, effectively “turning fear into funny.”

When asked about the recent controversy concerning the relative lack of diversity on SNL, King joked that he thought the matter had been addressed adequately by the black female comedian Kerry Washington’s opening on last week’s show. He then went on to address the topic more seriously.

“I personally think we would have a much wider range of material we could attack, approach [and] deal with if we had a wider range of actors,” King said. “Because it’s become a point, I hope it is addressed more seriously than we did in that opening.”

King also offered advice for those aspiring to careers in the entertainment industry, espousing excellent work ethic and flexibility when working with many different kinds of talent as the common factors among successful producers.

“His experience coming through the industry is incredible,” said Jenny Johnston ’14, also a member of the Otters. “To hear the side of a director and how he works with comedians and writers and pulls it all together definitely puts it in a light that, as an improviser, you don’t necessarily get to see.”

Many questions fielded by King also concerned the more technical aspects of pulling off a show like SNL.

“I’ll get a script covered in three hundred post-it notes at 11 p.m. and have to completely change my meticulous plan, but it always ends up being better that way,” he said.

“The talk was cool in terms of figuring out how something like SNL gets orchestrated, opposed to just performing live,” Otters member Tim Baeder ’16.5 said. “The idea of how you rehearse those kinds of things and get them to production is such a complicated and interesting layer.”

King provided thorough and thoughtful insights into the entertainment industry and did so with the humor and charm one might expect of someone who has worked with the best in the business, but he’s not ruling out room for improvement.

“The demands of sketch comedy and staging actors were new to me at first, and I struggled. Eight years later, I’m still struggling in different ways,” King closed, inexplicably lifting up a vivid blue pant leg to reveal bright teal socks embroidered with flowers. “But at least I’m wearing much better socks.”