Michael O'Donoghue
Born	January 5, 1940 Sauquoit, New York, USA
Died	November 8, 1994 New York, New York, USA

Michael O'Donoghue (born January 5, 1940, Sauquoit, New York, United States; died November 8, 1994) was a 20th century writer and performer noted for his dark and destructive style of comedy, and as the first head writer of the highly influential American television program Saturday Night Live. He died of a cerebral hemorrhage at age 54, after a long history of chronic migraine headaches. Image File history File linksMetadata Mrmike. ... January 5 is the 5th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... 1940 (MCMXL) was a leap year starting on Monday (the link is to a full 1940 calendar). ... Paris is a town located in Oneida County, New York, USA. As of the 2000 census, the town had a total population of 4,609. ... Official language(s) None, English de facto Capital Albany Largest city New York City Area  Ranked 27th  - Total 54,520 sq mi (141,205 km²)  - Width 285 miles (455 km)  - Length 330 miles (530 km)  - % water 13. ... November 8 is the 312th day of the year (313th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 53 days remaining. ... 1994 (MCMXCIV) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar, and was designated as the International Year of the Family and the International Year of the Sport and the Olympic Ideal. // Events January Bill Clinton January 1 : North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) goes into effect. ... Flag Seal Nickname: Big Apple Location Location in the state of New York Government Counties (Boroughs) Bronx (The Bronx) New York (Manhattan) Queens (Queens) Kings (Brooklyn) Richmond (Staten Island) Mayor Michael Bloomberg (R) Geographical characteristics Area     City 1,214. ... Official language(s) None, English de facto Capital Albany Largest city New York City Area  Ranked 27th  - Total 54,520 sq mi (141,205 km²)  - Width 285 miles (455 km)  - Length 330 miles (530 km)  - % water 13. ... January 5 is the 5th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... 1940 (MCMXL) was a leap year starting on Monday (the link is to a full 1940 calendar). ... Paris is a town located in Oneida County, New York, USA. As of the 2000 census, the town had a total population of 4,609. ... Official language(s) None, English de facto Capital Albany Largest city New York City Area  Ranked 27th  - Total 54,520 sq mi (141,205 km²)  - Width 285 miles (455 km)  - Length 330 miles (530 km)  - % water 13. ... November 8 is the 312th day of the year (313th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 53 days remaining. ... 1994 (MCMXCIV) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar, and was designated as the International Year of the Family and the International Year of the Sport and the Olympic Ideal. // Events January Bill Clinton January 1 : North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) goes into effect. ... (19th century - 20th century - 21st century - more centuries) Decades: 1900s 1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s As a means of recording the passage of time, the 20th century was that century which lasted from 1901–2000 in the sense of the Gregorian calendar (1900–1999 in the... Black comedy, also known as black humor or dark comedy, is a sub-genre of comedy and satire where topics and events normally treated seriously – death, mass murder, sickness, madness, terror, drug abuse, rape, war etc. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... Saturday Night Live (SNL) is a weekly late-night 90-minute American comedy-variety show based in New York City which has been broadcast by NBC nearly every Saturday night since its debut on October 11, 1975. ... A cerebral hemorrhage or hemorrhagic stroke is a form of stroke that occurs when a blood vessel in the brain ruptures or bleeds. ... Migraine is a neurological disease, of which the most common symptom is an intense and disabling episodic headache. ...

Early work

O'Donoghue's early career included work as a playwright and actor in regional theater. His first work of greater note was the picaresque feature "The Adventures of Phoebe Zeit-Geist", published as a serial in Evergreen Review and later in book form by that magazine's publisher, Grove Press. Drawn by Frank Springer, the comic detailed the adventures of debutante Phoebe Zeit-Geist as she was variously kidnapped and rescued by a series of bizarre Inuit, Nazis, Chinese foot fetishists, lesbian assassins and other characters. The Adventures of Phoebe Zeit-Geist was an American comic strip, written by Michael ODonoghue and drawn by Frank Springer. ... Evergreen Review was a literary magazine published by Grove Press in the late 1950s and 1960s. ... Grove Press is an American publishing imprint that was founded in 1951. ... Frank Springer (born December 6, 1929) is an American comic book and comic strip artist best known for Marvel Comics Dazzler and Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.; and, with writer Michael ODonoghue, for one of the first adult-oriented comics features in the U... It has been suggested that Debutante ball be merged into this article or section. ... Inuit (Inuktitut syllabics: ᐃᓄᐃᑦ, singular Inuk / ᐃᓄᒃ) is a general term for a group of culturally similar indigenous peoples inhabiting the Arctic coasts of Siberia, Alaska, the Northwest Territories, Nunavut, Quebec, Labrador and Greenland (see Eskimo). ... The Nazi party used a right-facing swastika as their symbol and the red and black colors were said to represent Blut und Boden (blood and soil). ... Foot fetishism is a pronounced fetishistic sexual interest in human feet. ... A lesbian is a female who is aesthetically, sexually, or romantically attracted to other females. ... Jack Ruby murdered the assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, in a very public manner. ...

O'Donoghue also co-wrote, with George W.S. Trow, the script for the James Ivory film Savages. James Francis Ivory (born June 7, 1928) is an award-winning American film director, best known for the results of his long collaboration with Merchant Ivory Productions, which included both Indian-born producer Ismail Merchant and screenwriter Ruth Prawer Jhabvala. ... Savages is a 1972 film directed by James Ivory, and written by Michael ODonoghue and George W.S. Trow. ...

National Lampoon

O'Donoghue was a writer for the satiric magazine National Lampoon. His most famous contributions include "The Vietnamese Baby Book", in which a baby's war wounds are catalogued in a keepsake; the "Ezra Taft Benson High School Yearbook"; a precursor to the Lampoon's High School Yearbook Parody; the comic "Tarzan of the Cows"; and the continuing feature "Underwear for the Deaf". He co-wrote the album "Radio Dinner" with Tony Hendra, and because of the album's success he was assigned to direct and act on The National Lampoon Radio Hour. After 13 episodes, publisher Matty Simmons asked O'Donoghue to return to the magazine. A week later, O'Donoghue and Simmons argued over what was later revealed to be a simple misunderstanding, and O'Donoghue left. The World According To Ronald Reagan - a Finnish satirical poster from 1984 Satire is a literary technique of writing or art which exposes the follies of its subject (for example, individuals, organizations, or states) to ridicule, often as an intended means of provoking or preventing change. ... National Lampoon is a humor magazine that began in 1970 as an offshoot of the Harvard Lampoon. ... Tony Hendra (born 1941) is an English satirist and writer, who has worked mostly in the United States. ... A former newspaper reporter for the New York World-Telegram and Sun,Brooklyn, NY native Matty Simmons gained fame as the chief executive officer of National Lampoon magazine in the 1970s. ...

Saturday Night Live

On the pioneering, late-night sketch comedy program Saturday Night Live, on which creator and exeuctive producer Lorne Michaels assigned him the position of head writer, O'Donoghue appeared in the first show's opening sketch, as an English-language teacher instructing John Belushi in such phrases as "I would like to feed your fingertips to the wolverines. We are out of badgers". He later appeared in the persona of a Vegas-style "impressionist" who would pay great praise to showbiz mainstays such as talk show host Mike Douglas and singers Tony Orlando and Dawn — and then speculate how they'd react if steel needles were plunged into their eyes. The shrieking fits that followed are believed by biographer Dennis Perrin to be inspired by O'Donoghue's real-life agonies from chronic migraine headaches. To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... Saturday Night Live (SNL) is a weekly late-night 90-minute American comedy-variety show based in New York City which has been broadcast by NBC nearly every Saturday night since its debut on October 11, 1975. ... Lorne Michaels Lorne Michaels CM , LL.D (born November 17, 1944 in Toronto, Ontario) is a television producer and writer best known for creating and producing Saturday Night Live and producing the various film and TV projects that spun off from it. ... John Adam Belushi (January 24, 1949 – March 5, 1982) was an American actor and comedian most notable for his work on Saturday Night Live, National Lampoons Animal House, and The Blues Brothers. ... This article is about the city of Las Vegas in Nevada. ... A talk show (U.S.) or chat show (Brit. ... Mike Douglas (born Michael Delaney Dowd, Jr. ... Tony Orlando and Dawn was a pop music group that was very popular in the 1970s. ...

Later, O'Donoghue cultivated the persona of the grim "Mr. Mike", a coldly decadent figure who favored viewers with comically dark "Least-Loved Bedtime Stories" such as "The Little Engine that Died". That sketch's catchphrase — "I think I can, I think I can - HEART ATTACK! HEART ATTACK! Ohmygodthepain! Ohmygodthepain..." — turned out to be strangely prescient of O'Donoghue's own last words. His other SNL sketches range from a black-and-white Citizen Kane parody to a Star Trek spoof that was a tour-de-force for Belushi. Citizen Kane is a 1941 mystery/drama film released by RKO Pictures. ... The starship Enterprise as it appeared on Star Trek Star Trek is a culturally significant science fiction television series created by Gene Roddenberry in the 1960s. ...

O'Donoghue shared SNL Emmy Awards for outstanding writing in 1976 and 1977. He left the series in 1978, after three years. An Emmy Award. ...

In 1979, he produced a television special for NBC, featuring most of the SNL cast, called Mr. Mike's Mondo Video. Because of its raunchy content, the network rejected the program, which was then released as a theatrical film. Mr. ...

O'Donoghue returned to SNL in 1981 when new executive producer Dick Ebersol needed an old hand to help revive the faltering series. O'Donoghue's volatile personality and mood swings made this difficult: His first day on the show he started yelling and screaming at all the cast members, telling Mary Gross she was as talented as a pair of old shoes, and forcing everyone to write on the walls with magic markers. This horrified Catherine O'Hara so much that she quit before ever appearing on air. The only one he liked was Eddie Murphy, reportedly because Murphy wasn't afraid of him. Duncan Dick Ebersol (born July 28, 1947) is an American radio and TV manager. ... Mary Gross (born March 25, 1953 in Chicago, Illinois) is an American comedian and actress best known for her four-year stint on Saturday Night Live from 1981 to 1985. ... Catherine O Hara (2005) Catherine OHara (born March 4, 1954 in Toronto, Ontario) is a Canadian actress and comedian. ... Eddie Murphy (born Edward Regan Murphy on April 3, 1961 in Brooklyn, New York) is an American comedian, singer and actor. ...

Arguably the most memorable sketch O'Donoghue created during this short-lived tenure was a spoof of the old Superman "Bizarro" world (where up is down, etc.) set in the Ronald Reagan administration. Superman is a fictional character regarded as the most famous and popular superhero of all time. ... Bizarro is a fictional character from the Superman franchise. ... Ronald Wilson Reagan, Hon GCB, (February 6, 1911 – June 5, 2004) was the 40th President of the United States (1981–1989) and the 33rd Governor of California (1967–1975). ...

According to a question in the SNL edition of Trivial Pursuit, O'Donoghue was fired after writing the never-aired sketch "The Last Days in Silverman's Bunker" (which compared NBC network president Fred Silverman's problems at the network to Adolf Hitler's last days in charge of the Third Reich). It was planned that John Belushi would return to play Silverman, and a great deal of work had been done on creating sets for the sketch (which would have run for about twenty minutes), including the construction of a large Nazi eagle clutching an NBC corporate logo instead of a swastika. Another unaired O'Donoghue sketch from around the same period, "The Good Excuse," also involved Nazi jokes. In the sketch, a captured German officer being berated by his captors for the war crimes of the Nazis explained he had a good excuse, which he whispered into their ears, inaudible to the viewers. His captors are quickly persuaded that the unheard "good excuse" was, in fact, a good excuse for the crimes of the Third Reich. Trivial Pursuit is a board game where progress is determined by a players ability to answer general knowledge or popular culture questions. ... Silverman, Time, 1977 Fred Silverman (born September 13, 1937 in New York City) is an American television executive and producer. ... Hitler redirects here. ... Nazi Germany, or the Third Reich, commonly refers to Germany in the years 1933–1945, when it was under the firm control of the totalitarian and fascist ideology of the Nazi Party, with the Führer Adolf Hitler as dictator. ... National Socialism redirects here. ... A right-facing Swastika in decorative Hindu form For the town in Ontario, see Swastika, Ontario. ...

Later work

O'Donoghue had small parts in the 1979 movie Manhattan, the 1987 movie Wall Street, and the 1988 movie he co-wrote, Scrooged. O'Donoghue said he loathed the theatrical release of Scrooged, insisting until his death that he and co-writer Mitch Glazer had written a much better film. He also wrote or co-wrote a number of unproduced screenplays of which Saturday Matinee (aka Planet of the Cheap Special Effects) remains legendary in Hollywood screenwriter circles. O'Donoghue also found some success as a country music songwriter, his most notable credit being Dolly Parton's "Single Women". Manhattan is a 1979 romantic comedy film. ... See also: 1986 in film, other events of 1987, 1988 in film, list of years in film. // Events May 9 - Actor Tom Cruise marries actress Mimi Rogers. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... // Events Michael Jacksons first film was Moonwalker Top grossing films Rain Man, starring Dustin Hoffman and Tom Cruise Who Framed Roger Rabbit, starring Bob Hoskins Coming to America, starring Eddie Murphy Big, starring Tom Hanks Twins Crocodile Dundee II Die Hard, starring Bruce Willis Cocktail, also starring Tom Cruise... Scrooged is a hit 1988 comedy film based on Charles Dickens classic story, A Christmas Carol, and follows the Dickens story closely, but sets it in modern times. ... Scrooged is a hit 1988 comedy film based on Charles Dickens classic story, A Christmas Carol, and follows the Dickens story closely, but sets it in modern times. ... country music, see Country music (disambiguation) In popular music, country music, also called country and western music or country-western, is an amalgam of popular musical forms developed in the Southern United States, with roots in traditional folk music, Celtic music, blues, gospel music, and old-time music that began... Dolly Rebecca Parton (born January 19, 1946) is an American country singer, songwriter, composer, author and actress. ...

Death

On the morning of November 8, 1994, O'Donoghue awoke early in the morning to what he thought was just another migraine. He took some medication for the pain and went back to bed. He later woke up a second time in immense pain and exclaimed "Oh, my God!". His wife immediately called an ambulance. On the way to the hospital, he went into convulsive seizure. Three hours later, his wife was informed that he was brain dead. He was taken off life support and his organs were donated to children. November 8 is the 312th day of the year (313th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 53 days remaining. ... 1994 (MCMXCIV) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar, and was designated as the International Year of the Family and the International Year of the Sport and the Olympic Ideal. // Events January Bill Clinton January 1 : North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) goes into effect. ...

References

• Saturday Night by Doug Hill and Jeff Weingrad, 1986.
• Going Too Far by Tony Hendra, 1987. ISBN 0385232233.
• Mr. Mike: The Life and Work of Michael O'Donoghue by Dennis Perrin, 1999. ISBN 038072832X.
• Live From New York: An Uncensored History of Saturday Night Live, as Told By Its Stars, Writers and Guests by James A. Miller and Tom Shales, 2001. ISBN 0316735655.
• Mark's Very Large National Lampoon Site: Michael O'Donoghue
• Michael O'Donoghue at the Internet Movie Database
• The Tomb of Horrors: Michael O'Donoghue
• The Adventures of Phoebe Zeit-Geist

Going Too Far is a book by British born humorist Tony Hendra on what Hendra calls Boomer humour. In the book, Hendra talks about the history of anti-establishment humour, ranging from pioneers such as Mort Sahl and Lenny Bruce to later comics like John Belushi and Eddie Murphy. ... The Internet Movie Database (IMDb) is an online database of information about actors, films, television shows, television stars, video games and production crew personnel. ...

External links

• Orion Online: "Michael O'Donoghue: The Sultan of Satire" (video interview)
• The Big Dave Page: "Things I Like: Current Feature — Michael O'Donoghue" (four "Not My Fault!" columns by O'Donoghue, from Spin magazine)