‘Saturday Night Live’…ME Behind The Guest Host Entrance Door
‘Saturday Night Live’…Me Behind The Guest Host Entrance Door
In the photo, and in one of the video clips, you see the other side of the door that SNL guest hosts use to enter the stage. Yes, that’s me and I’ll tell you more about what’s there, but first here’s a clip of Ashton Kutcher in this space waiting for his Q to enter in February of 2010.
The reason his “heart was in his throat” is because he ends his monologue by stripping to his underwear.
This platform is about five feet off the studio floor with steps on three sides. Directly behind these doors is a kind of tunnel about six feet deep that leads back to the studios west wall. The tunnel is I think mostly for crew access. The hosts usually come up the side steps behind me. As you see in the photo below, there are three doors…the center door is marked with a red tape X as a reminder to use “this door”.
Bobby, the door leads to the entrance into the West Building, an 18-story office building standing to the west of the NBC Studio Building. There are actually two doors in this corridor; one in Studio 8H and the other is at the other end of the corridor in the West Building. On other floors up to the 8th, there is a corridor similar to this one that connects the West Building to the Studio Building. Here is a pic of the doorway and ‘tunnel’ in Studio 8H that leads to the West Building. The ‘tunnel’ is more like about 12 feet long. The studio wall is at the near door shown in the photo. Note the steps leading down from the SNL backstage set:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/dennisdegan/14152425479/
Here is a view of the other door, as seen from the West Building:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/dennisdegan/14152475280/
Above the 8th floor, there is no passage since the Studio building stops at the 11 floor, and Studio 8H occupies the space from the 8th up to the 11th floor.
Bobby, maybe some day you will be the guest host.
Wow!!
Man, are living the dream.