From Cedar Falls to 'SNL' and back
"Saturday Night Live" cast alum from Cedar Falls attends show's 50th anniversary soiree
“I went to a garden party
”To reminisce with my old friends
”A chance to share old memories
”And play our songs again,”
— “Garden Party,” Rick Nelson
CEDAR FALLS -- It's called, formally or informally, "the Kroeger rule," and it's named for an Iowa-born former cast member of NBC’s “Saturday Night Live.”
Gary Kroeger of Cedar Falls was a cast member of and writer for the hit late-night NBC comedy show from 1982 to 1985. Though he had some funny, memorable moments during that stint, that was, after all, 40 years ago. But the show has cast reunions every five years. He attended the 50th anniversary celebration this weekend (Feb. 14-16) in New York.
“I’ve gone to each one,” he said. They’ve done them every five years starting at the 15th anniversary. “They show some highlights. I think I found myself in the corner of a couple of highlights, standing next to Eddie Murphy or something.
“You see friends, you sit in the bleachers. I don’t get any special attention. I don’t expect any.”
But it was something he did 10 years ago, during the show's 40th anniversary reunion, when he pulled off one of those stunts for which it is better to beg forgiveness than ask permission.
No, it wasn't one of those envelope-pushing, edgy comedy stunts -- the kind that, back in the day, made execs at his hometown TV station, KWWL in Waterloo, air the show an hour later in the evening, at 11:30 p.m. local time instead of 10:30 p.m., ostensibly to make sure the kiddos were off to bed.
No, this little move wasn't even on camera.
“The 40th, 10 years ago, was a big deal, I think because they weren’t sure, or Lorne (Michaels, founding producer) wasn’t sure, if he wanted to go another 10 years. I was invited to that a year before. In April 2014, they put out a ‘save the date.’ “
His boundary-breaking move was to ask for two tickets to that anniversary celebration. Not one. Two.
“I wrote back immediately and said, ‘Yeah, I want to come. I’d like to bring my son. Is that okay?’ They said ‘Sure, here’s two tickets.’ “
“Well, the event got bigger. And bigger. And bigger. By the time it happened. I was the only one who got two tickets.”
Not Billy Crystal. Not Martin Short. Not Eddie Murphy. Just Gary.
“All these stars with just one ticket, they said, ‘Kroeger, how did you get two?’ “ I sent in early!
It’s not happening again.
“Because of that, there was an announcement — from Lorne Michaels — even if you’re a spouse, if you were not on the show — there’s only going to be one ticket for your family.”
“Now ‘the Kroeger rule’ extends to me. And I have one ticket,” he said.
The reason is simple: There's so many former cast members. The show is, after all, 50 years old. Think how many times your favorite ball club has turned over personnel in half a century. Another criteria to be invited was that you had to be on the show at least three years.
Additionally, he said, “The security is such that I have to use a QR code to download to know what time to show up at the door” for a “stand-and-click” photo session, like a red carpet at the Oscars.
It is, Kroeger says, like a big all-school class reunion.
“I put it in perspective like this: I’m not going for the show. I’ve seen the show, how it’s done; it’s not that exciting to me,” he said. “I’m going to see people before the show and after the show, at the various parties, dinner. I’m meeting Brad Hall for dinner; I’ll see (Joe) Piscopo for a drink.
“Hey, I’ve met Paul McCartney. I’m not bragging. I’ve met him,” said Kroeger, a devoted Beatles fan. “But I don’t need to meet him again, necessarily.” He’s interested in seeing the cast members he worked with.
“Will Ferrell’s not going to be hanging out with me,” for example, Kroeger said. “But Tim Kazurinsky is; writers from my era; Eddie (Murphy) will say hi, Piscopo will have a drink with me; Robin Duke will be there.”
Kroeger is a graduate of now-closed Northern University High School in Cedar Falls. It was part of the Malcolm Price Laboratory School on the University of Northern Iowa campus, where student teachers learned their trade under the mentorship of professors and senior staff.
Kroger then attended Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill. He was part of the Practical Theatre Company, a troupe of Northwestern students. His fellow company members were Brad Hall and Julia Louis-Dreyfus. In 1982 they were all hired for SNL.
”I was doing a comedy revue in Chicago with Julia, Brad Hall and (Practical Theater Company co-founder) Paul Barosse when SNL producers came to see us,” Kroeger said. “Hired us on the spot.”
It was during a time when NBC executive Dick Ebersol took over the show while its founding producer, Lorne Michaels, was on hiatus.
“Brad and Julia will be there” at the 50th celebration, Kroeger said. The couple have been married since 1987. “Now Julia gets a lot of attention of course. But I’m having breakfast with her and Brad. That’s why I’m there,” rain, snow or shine.
Sometimes there’s a bit of serendipity too. At the 40th anniversary, NFL Super Bowl winning quarterback brothers Peyton and Eli Manning, who had been guest hosts, Peyton frequently, “were standing in a corner, just the two of them. They weren’t working the room; they’re modest guys. So I walked over and said, ‘Hey guys!’ “ and his son got to meet them.
But this one is special. “America, maybe the world. loves 50th anniversaries,” Kroeger said.
As a writer for the show, Kroeger said he tried to work a little bit of Iowa into some of his skits.
For example, at the time he was on the show, municipalities around the country were considering gun ordinances. The village of Morton Grove, Ill. near Chicago passed an ordinance banning guns, while Kennesaw, Ga. responded with an ordinance making gun ownership mandatory for the head of every household.
Playing off that discussion, Kroeger came up with a gag skit in which everyone in the town of Dunkerton, Iowa was required to carry a nuclear warhead. The "Nukes in Dunkerton" skit aired Oct. 9, 1982. Cast members playing townsfolk engaged in casual discussion at the town grocery, each carrying a nuclear warhead on their shoulder.
“I always thought it was interesting I was from Iowa, because growing up in Iowa, show biz is not one of the alternatives the guidance counselor puts on the table,” he joked. “I was very proud of the fact I was from Iowa. So yeah, ‘Nukes in Dunkerton’ was a personal favorite. And it was my sketch.”
The show has tried to stay relevant. “That really is why there’s a 50th anniversary,” he said. “What show, comedy show, has remained relevant for 50 years? That’s phenomenal, that I can even touch that orb of greatness at all.
“It was always supposed to be about unknown talent. It still is a farm club for the best comedic talent out there. It’s a Who’s Who of unknowns who become, in some cases, superstars. But still, the cast itself is always supposed to feel like these without-any-rules, buck-the-societal-norms renegades got together to put on a show.”
Beyond the “mega” guest stars who appear each week, Kroeger said, “To me, the most interesting thing are those six, seven, eight, cast members who. among them, can do anything.”
Kroeger spent 25 years in show business. In addition to his three years on SNL, he was an actor and director in some short-lived television series, guest starred in several shows, daytime talk shows and was a game show host. Then he came home, to Waterloo-Cedar Falls.
“I definitely got off the merry go round,” Kroeger said, noting he may have stayed in the business longer had he had the kind of success as, say, his colleague Julia Louis-Dreyfus did, with a long run on “Seinfeld” and a string of Emmys and other awards.
“After 20 years of the battle of up-and-down success, I had values that were different,” he said. “I wanted to raise a family more than I wanted a TV show. I just needed to control my destiny more.
“When I turned away from it 21 years ago, it was by choice. And it was a good choice,” he said. “Had I stayed in the business, maybe the next year would have been lightning in a bottle? I don’t know. I think about that once in a while. I knew I had the goods. I didn’t have the constitution I needed to keep hitting my head against the wall.
“If I say to you there’s no regrets, that’s kind of a lie. But who doesn’t?” he said.
”I look around and I go, okay, I’m certainly one of the fortunate ones. I chose, over my career in show business, to make the effort to be a valuable community member, to be a good citizen, a contributing citizen, and I find that more rewarding than anything I did in show business.
Kroeger now lives in Waterloo. He worked 17 years at a Cedar Falls advertising agency, has lent himself to a number of community causes, unsuccessfully sought elected office a couple of times and has written a regular newspaper opinion column in the Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier. He has a blog, “Gary Has Issues,” and a podcast called The Gary and Kenny Show co-starring his best friend Ken Ceizler.
And he’s still active in Cedar Falls Community Theatre. He said he gets as much of a kick out of the appreciation of an audience over a performance of “Mamma Mia!” at the Oster Regent Theatre in downtown Cedar Falls as he did doing SNL in New York.
He’ll also emcee this year’s annual Sturgis Falls Celebration parade in Cedar Falls in June, which will include several class reunions — including a 50th reunion for his own NU High Class of 1975.
“I turned the page. But it’s been such a good page,” he said. The pages that followed have been so interesting and rewarding.”
A couple of days before heading to New York, he was on his way to shovel the walk at a homeless shelter/warming center in Waterloo.
I lost a certain sense of rhythm, but I gained a certain sense of time./'Cause I see, it's a beautiful life.”
—”It’s a Beautiful Life,” Don McLean
Pat Kinney is a freelance writer and former longtime news staffer with the Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier and, prior to that, several years at the Ames Tribune. He is currently an oral historian with the Grout Museum District in Waterloo. His “View from the Cedar Valley” column is part of “Iowa Writers Collaborative,” a collection of news and opinion writers from around the state who previously and currently work with a host of Iowa newspapers, news organizations and other publications. They are listed below. Clink on the links to check them out, subscribe for free - and, if you believe in the value of quality journalism, support this column and/or any of theirs with a paid subscription.
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