Joy Behar Recalls Her “Depressing” Audition for ‘Saturday Night Live’ in 1975

Carly Thomas
·2 min read
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Joy Behar said she once auditioned for Saturday Night Live, but it didn’t necessarily go as planned.

The comedian and co-host of ABC’s The View shared on the daytime talk show’s companion podcast The View: Behind the Table Wednesday that she auditioned for the sketch comedy show’s cast in 1975.

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“There was a period where I tried to get on because I had this funny character that I did. And I had to audition for [creator] Lorne Michaels,” she recounted. “He never laughed, and after I was done, he said, ‘That was funny.’ I said, ‘You didn’t laugh,’ and he said, ‘Well, I don’t want to laugh because then you’ll think you have a job.’ I said, ‘That’s OK, don’t worry about it.’ I didn’t even want the job, to tell you the truth.”

While The View producer Brian Teta proceeded to note that Michaels is famously known for purposely not laughing during SNL auditions, Behar added that it was still “a little depressing to have to audition for somebody and they don’t laugh.”

However, it seemingly worked out in the end as Behar admitted that she was “so not ready for the stress of a job like that, that I prayed that I didn’t get the job. And I didn’t!”

After starting her career as a stand-up comedian, Behar went on to star in several TV and film projects, including Baby Boom in the 1980s and 1993’s Manhattan Murder Mystery.

She later joined The View when it first premiered in 1997 and has served as a panelist every season except for seasons 17 and 18. Behar left the long-running talk show in 2013, but returned two years later, in 2015, after consultant Hilary Estey McLoughlin “basically talked me into it.”

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