The three-hour celebration of the 50th anniversary of Saturday Night Live that was broadcast live on NBC on Feb. 16 opened with a duet by Paul Simon and Sabrina Carpenter and closed with a Beatles medley by Paul McCartney.
In between there were star turns by Miley Cyrus, Tom Hanks, Brittany Howard, Steve Martin, John Mulaney, Eddie Murphy, Jack Nicholson, Martin Short, and Meryl Streep, among far too many other bold-faced names to mention.
All of which is to say: it was a tough night for a performer to stand out and do something memorable. And yet, that’s just what one of Dartmouth’s own, Rachel Dratch ’88, managed to accomplish, as she reprised the character of Debbie Downer, a signature offering from the seven years she spent in the SNL cast from 1999 to 2006.
Dratch, who currently serves on the Board of Advisors of the Hopkins Center for the Arts, partnered with the veteran SNL writer Paula Pell to imagine what sad-sack Debbie would be worried about in 2025.
They had no shortage of material as Debbie, in the role of a backstage bartender, name-checked the hazards of microplastics, the latest research on the perils of alcohol consumption, the threat of bird flu, and even the looming extinction of the white rhino, each observation punctuated by the sound of a muted horn.
In a sketch that also featured Drew Barrymore, Ayo Edebiri, and Jimmy Fallon, the tension was highest between Dratch’s Debbie and an unlikely partner: Robert De Niro, who was playing himself. Perhaps only Debbie would fearlessly greet the two-time Oscar-winning actor with “You talkin’ to me?” one of his own, best-known lines, from the movie Taxi Driver. As of Feb. 20, the clip had been viewed more than 1.7 million times on YouTube.
In a brief interview earlier this week, Dratch talked about how she drew on her improvisational training at Dartmouth (she was in the troupe Said and Done) to go toe-to-toe with an actor famous for some of the most menacing roles in film history. She also discussed how it felt to sit in an audience that was the equivalent of a mash-up between the Academy Awards, Emmy Awards, and the Grammys.
Q: How did Debbie Downer end up with a coveted slot in the SNL 50th anniversary celebration show?
A: When you hear the 50th is happening, you wonder, “Am I going to be in anything? Or am I just going to be in the audience?” Then I got the call a couple of weeks ago that they wanted me to do a Debbie Downer.
Q: How did you and Paula Pell approach the writing of the sketch?
A: It came together quite easily because there’s a lot of downers right now. After we started brainstorming we had two possible scenarios. One was to do what we did: backstage with real celebs. The other was to have Debbie as a party clown at a kids party. I guess Lorne (Michaels) liked the idea of the celebs thing. And then we found out that Robert De Niro was available. So we were really excited about that.
Q: Was it you or Paula who came up with the idea of Debbie channeling Travis Bickle by asking DeNiro: “You talkin’ to me?”
A: I think Paula might have had that idea. That made me laugh. The script initially had De Niro lunging at me and Jimmy says, “It’s not worth it, Bobby.” But during rehearsal I was like, “What if you actually strangle me?” That was an improv moment. Then we put it in for the actual sketch. So I got to be throttled by Robert De Niro.
Q: How did that feel?
A: When you’re a comedian you don’t think you are going to be in a scene with Robert De Niro. I know he does comedies. But when you’re a lowly sketch player you don’t think you’re going to be in a scene with an Oscar winner. And then here we are, in our ragtag sketch gang, getting to do a scene with De Niro. It’s really cool.
Q: Were you nervous?
A: I might have been in a little inner panic. You’re looking around the room. You’re seeing all these people in the audience. And you’re thinking: I have to perform in front of THESE people? It can give you some nerves. The whole thing is actually a blur to me.
Q: You had been out in that all-star audience earlier.
A: I was in the audience most of the time. Steven Spielberg was sitting in the row directly behind me. Ryan Reynolds was to my left. And then down the row is Jack Nicholson and De Niro. Cher is two rows behind me. That was just my section. Some people were just watching the audience.
Q: Long before you were a Saturday Night Live cast member you were a fan, one who was in elementary school when the show had its premiere in 1975.
A: I grew up watching it kind of religiously. Even if I hadn’t been on the show, I would have been happy just being there in the audience Sunday night. It just covered so many moments of our lives and so many little catch phrases. I had that admiration and nostalgia. Then there’s seeing all your friends, like a reunion of your cast.
Q: How was the after-party?
A: The party was at the Plaza Hotel and it was really fun. Arcade Fire played. And Eddie Vedder got up there. I was mainly hanging with old cast members like Will Ferrell and Ana Gasteyer and Molly Shannon. I took my mom along. Her name is Elaine and she is 85. She was sitting next to me during the show. She stayed out until 4:30 in the morning. She’s so spry.
Q: What’s next for you?
A: My little podcast—WooWoo—is ongoing. It’s about stories of “the unexplained, the eerie and other-worldly.” If anyone has a ghost story they want to share, hit me up. It feels funny to say that in a Dartmouth interview. Like: “She’s gone crazy!” But we’ve had some really cool stories of time travel and astral projection. It’s not just ghosts. It’s other weird things too.
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Jacques Steinberg ’88 was a journalist for 25 years at The New York Times, where he mainly wrote about education, TV, and pop culture. He interviewed Dratch, his classmate, for the Dartmouth Alumni Magazine in 2000.
