#1 Secret to SNL's Success- iO's Charna Halpern: LINZanity Ep.36

• #1 Secret to SNL's Success- iO's Char…
On Season 1's final episode (#36) of LINZanity, Greg interviews iO's Charna Halpern! Charna is one of the most influential people in the history of improv comedy... Tina Fey (Head writer SNL, "Mean Girls", creator/star of "30 Rock"), Amy Poehler (writer/producer "Parks and Recreation"), Chris Farley, Jon Favreau (Director of "Iron Man", oversaw the Marvel universe movies), Adam McKay (Head writer SNL/Oscar winner, comedy director giant-"Step Brothers", "Talladega Nights", "Anchorman", "Don't Look Up"), Jason Sudeikis ("Ted Lasso"), Cecily Strong (SNL) are just a few people who came from the stages of the ImprovOlympic/iO in Chicago... Charna teamed up with, and opened up a long form improvisation comedy theater called IO, with Del Close, who was the former artistic director of The Second City... Charna offered him "$200 and some pot" to convince him to teach a class at her comedy club... Bill Murray wanted Del Close to direct an improvised movie for him... Charna recounts the fascinating story on how Del Close has contacted Charna after his death!... The ImprovOlympic is where the members of UCB (Upright Citizens Brigade) formed... They based their improv comedy club on the game, The Harold... Charna didn't like Chris Farley at first, but he wore her down and she wound up loving him and helping him get on SNL... Mike Myers performed for 6 months at IO before going to Second City and then SNL.. Greg remembers Jon Favreau and Adam McKay never failing on stage. They were always able to make stuff funny and smart... Charna put Tina Fey and Amy Poehler on the same team because she thought they would work well together... Greg remembers how Tina Fey was so smart on stage and could always put a button on a scene and how Amy Poehler always came up with a funny character in scenes... Del Close described the team called The Family (which would go on to form UCB) as "watching 6 men fall down the stairs at the same time and land on their feet"... Some of Adam McKay's teammates on The Family were Ian Roberts (writer/executive producer "Key and Peele," producer/series regular "Reno 911") and Neil Flynn (series regular on "Scrubs")... Jeff Richman was the extremely talented "house" keyboard player at IO who could come up with any musical style an improv scene needed and Tina Fey had a crush on him- they fell in love and got married... Saturday Night Live would come once or twice a year to hire people for their show... Charna discusses how SNL would pick about two iO performers a year for the show... Cecily Strong didn't think she was ready to audition for SNL, but Charna made her, and she got hired right away... Because Charna's students were so good, Lorne Michaels allowed a second night of SNL auditions, and that's when Vanessa Bayer got picked to be on the show from doing her Miley Cyrus impression... David Koechner was equally great on stage as he is in movies and tv... Jon Favreau brought what he learned to his character Mike on "Friends". Greg was briefly on Jon's iO team called "Corky's Callback"... "Truth in Comedy" is Charna's book on improvisation... Charna did the forward to Peter Gwynn' s book called "Group Improvisation". Greg and Peter were on the same IO team together called "Faulty Wiring"... And, of course, we learn ... Del Close was a witch!... Plus much more!

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