Steve Martin & Martin Short Tell Conan How Their ‘SNL’ Monologue Took Three Years To Write – Watch

Steve Martin and Martin Short hosted the highest rated episode of Saturday Night Live’s Season 48 in December.

After highlighting how often they’ve each hosted – Martin 16 times and Short three times – and a bit of nostalgia when Martin showed a photo of him with John Belushi, Dan Akroyd and Mick Jagger, the pair gave each other their own eulogy.

“You’re not going to live forever,” Martin said. “That is sad because you won’t be able to hear the wonderful things I’m going to say at your memorial. So, I thought why wait? So, what I did was I wrote up your eulogy so you can hear it now.”

“That is such a coincidence,” added Short. “I wrote your eulogy.”

Nine months later, the pair opened up about their latest SNL experience, speaking on the Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend podcast (see video below).

The Only Murders In The Building stars had previously been on tour together – An Evening You Will Forget for the Rest of Your Life shows.  

“That monologue, we worked on with the writers,” Martin told O’Brien. “We decided we were going to do a bit from our show, we’ll know we can trust it. Afterwards, it went well and the ratings were sky high, it was the highest-rated show of the year, as far as I know. I said to Marty, ‘The monologue was great, the ratings were high, so there’s a chance that we’ll be asked back to host at some other time’. Before you say yes, just remember we worked on that monologue for three years.”

The Jerk star admitted that he’d had the idea but he didn’t know how to start it. The eulogy opens with Martin saying “Wow, not much of a turnout”. “It enabled the whole piece because we could get into it with the first laugh,” he added.

O’Brien was evidently impressed. He called it “one of the funniest things”. “The moment I heard the idea, I said this is a kill-zone,” the Conan star added.

Depending on how season three of Hulu’s Only Murders In The Building, which premiered earlier this month, goes through its ten episode run, and whether SNL is able to return following the writers and actors strike, the pair may well be invited back.