Jim Downey hates applause

Photograph: Dana Edelson

When not on break to be the head writer for David Letterman or sabbatical due to a spat with a network executive, Jim Downey is Saturday Night Live’s preeminent political writer, and has been since the first season. On Friday 6, he’ll sit on a New York Comedy Festival panel at the Paley Center for Media titled “Keeping It Fresh: Television Writing in the Internet Age.”

Anyone in Washington you’re champing at the bit to mock?
Someone will emerge in the Republican Party. There isn’t anyone to represent them right now, so it’s falling to the talk-radio people. I’ve also been talking to Bobby Moynihan about doing Sean Hannity.

Al Franken’s fair game now.
I feel like I have too much information. He’s been keeping such a low profile, it would almost be confusing now. But that can’t last forever. Although it would be very strange to have a Franken impression on the show.

I’ve heard that you don’t believe in using comedy as a soapbox.
The honorable thing is to make people laugh based on the subject matter. I’d feel guilty coasting by on political opinion. It’s easy to get people on your side if you stake out positions that have 85-percent approval ratings in the audience. I get mad at the audience, too.

You mean “clapter,” when people applaud instead of laugh?
Yes! That is something a lot of my friends and I deplore.

What’s worse than clapter?
That thing when they go, “Ow!” They do these weird coyote whoops like they’re on a cattle drive in the 1870s. I’d love to do a study to find out when that started. It’s like they’re from another planet and they don’t know how to respond to humor.

They’re catcalling the comedian.
On talk shows, like Bill Maher, you’ll get these huge softballs from the audience that will then elicit mini standing ovations. They’re allegedly courageous things that might be courageous if they were said anywhere but Hollywood. When we get clapter on [SNL], I usually try to address it between rehearsal and the show by taking out whatever got the applause.

Have your political views and comedic ideas ever contradicted each other?
Usually there are people on both sides worth making fun of. It’s good to be anarchic like that, apolitical; it keeps you from being the court jester for either side. I don’t want audience approval just because “Hey, we vote the same way!”

Is that what’s insulting about clapter, it diminishes respect for your joke?
You can fake applause; you can’t fake laughter.

And there’s no way to recalibrate that barometer. So what about this panel: Do you feel pressured by the competition of the Internet age?
I don’t really use the Internet, so I’m not in danger of finding out about something unless someone tells me.

Are you a Luddite, Jim Downey?
I’m not proud of it. But all of my interests do tend to be antiquarian. I restore old houses and collect old tools. I like the tactile aspects of writing on a notepad. But I have a beautiful laptop that Lorne Michaels gave me last year that I have to get fired up at some point. I know that as soon as I do I’ll stop sleeping and be in chat rooms all night. I’d just google myself all day.

No, you wouldn’t. You’d google old tools once and then put it away forever.
One of the things I would not use the Internet for is to spend all day reading other people’s humor blogs.

See? You have a joke-stealing alibi: You’re not even on the Internet.
Well I don’t think that would stand up in court.

Jim Downey appears in “Keeping It Fresh: Television Writing in the Internet Age” Fri 6.

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