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I'm the only talk show host, I think, if there's such a category in, what's called, the book of records, to have a guest die while we were taping the show, yeah.

When I was young, I'd watch guys on 'The Tonight Show', Buddy Hackett, guys like that, where all they'd be is funny. Later, I remember, on 'Late Night with Letterman', I remember he'd have Jay Leno and Richard Lewis as first guests and the entire point was to entertain and be funny, and I think talk shows have kind of lost that.

I was on the show previously as a guest host, so I had a little practice.

'SNL' doesn't have a traditional writer's room. On Monday, there's the pitch meeting with the guest, and I played that like it was stand-up.

Because many of us have been in game shows for some time, there's always someone around who can share a story of Johnny O or Jay Stewart that I never heard.

There's fierce competition between all the networks to get the guest who can bring the most pertinent information about whatever the story of the moment happens to be.

Being as versatile as I am, I take offense to the notion that no serious musician would not be doing a late night talk show gig. One has to be open enough in other areas to be able to contribute to a show like this.

Guest roles are how you get initiated into the industry. It's fun. Over the course of a few years you realise you've done many shows. You get a chance to prove yourself, and that's how you get jobs because of people who have worked with you in the past and trust you.

I thought it would be a lot of fun and I wasn't going to do the movie without Johnny. The studio suggested a couple people, and I'd never met Johnny, but I thought we'd be a perfect team for this movie because we're both a little bit unpredictable.