Franken’s comedy pursuits at Harvard propelled his career in professional comedy—although he did have a bumpy start.

When he and Davis moved to Los Angeles from Cambridge after graduation, they subsisted on a diet of rice and beans, while working at odd jobs.

The comedy duo even resorted to dressing up as a Santa Claus and Winnie the Pooh for the North Hollywood Sears.

“It was hard to be Santa all day,” Franken says. “Winnie the Pooh was pretty awful too because it was this big costume and you looked through the honey pot and these kids would just slam themselves into you.”

But in July 1975 he and Davis were hired to write for a new comedy show, Saturday Night live—and the rice and beans diet ended.

Franken, who says his “youthful arrogance” made him realize the show would be a hit, quickly developed political sketches as a staple of SNL.

“Al was probably one of the first people to be interested in it per se—not political figures and their sex lives but trying to write sketches about things that were going on,” says James M. W. Downey `74, one of Franken’s co-writers.

But despite the show’s successful start, Franken was not completely satisfied with his new job, according to Davis.

“When we didn’t get in the cast that year he wanted to go back to L.A.,” Davis says.

Davis convinced him to stay, though, and the comedy duo would write ‘Franken and Davis’ skits, waiting for weeks until there was a spare moment on the show for them to perform them.

It was not until 1980 that Franken left SNL with most of the other original writers to pursue a career in the movie industry.

“We thought that was the end of the show,” Davis says. “NBC was like ‘Oh no, the show is going on without you.’”

It turned out Franken and Davis needed SNL as much as SNL needed them—within five years, after writing a screenplay that was never produced, Franken was back in New York City writing and performing for SNL.

Stuart Steps Up

Franken’s work after his return to SNL in 1985 focused on his life-long strength of political humor.