The Big Picture
- Al Franken’s Stuart Smalley and his “Daily Affirmations” sketches were highlights of ’90s SNL, providing a satirical take on self-help gurus of the time.
- Stuart Saves His Family took risks that other SNL movies didn’t, focusing on the depth and struggles of Stuart and his dysfunctional family.
- While the movie initially failed with critics and at the box office, it has found an audience over the years, particularly among those who relate to its message of redemption and personal growth.
Saturday Night Live has a long history of creating characters that went on to become pop culture icons. If they became big enough, some of them were even turned into feature films. The results of expanding an SNL sketch or idea into a movie like MacGruber or The Blues Brothers have wildly varied. While The Blues Brothers and Wayne’s World are two of the most loved comedies ever made, there have been some massive duds that ended up in theaters as well. It’s Pat, Superstar, and The Ladies Man might have been funny in small bits on Saturday nights, but expanded into ninety minutes, audiences weren’t interested. Another one of these box office failures was Stuart Saves His Family. Al Franken‘s Stuart Smalley was an original and funny character, but the film version didn’t make much of a mark. That doesn’t mean it’s a bad movie though. Stuart Saves His Family deserves a lot of credit for taking risks that other SNL films didn’t dare.
Stuart Smalley Was One of the Best Parts of ’90s ‘SNL’
Saturday Night Live was at its peak in the early ’90s. It’s then that the cast had huge names like Chris Farley, David Spade, Adam Sandler, Mike Meyers, Dana Carvey, Phil Hartman, and Chris Rock. The Wayne’s World sketches turned Meyers and Carvey into household names, Farley got the biggest laughs with his self-deprecating humor, Hartman was SNL’s perfect everyman and was the master of impressions, and Sandler was the go-to for any funny musical bit. Al Franken was there too, an older cast member in his 40s like Hartman. It was behind the scenes where Franken really made his mark though, working as a writer and winning multiple Emmys.
Al Franken had one big recurring sketch character in the form of Stuart Smalley, who hosts his own self-help segment called “Daily Affirmations with Stuart Smalley.” Stuart had an effeminate voice, mannerisms, and dress, with him usually wearing a bright yellow or blue shirt under a baby blue cardigan. He’s a satire on the self-help gurus of the decade that were taking over cable and infomercials. Smalley’s segments saw him interviewing that week’s host on SNL, from Michael Jordan and Charles Barkley, to Macaulay Culkin and Roseanne Barr. The host could either be playing themselves or one of Smalley’s messed up family members. The Jordan sketch is probably the most known, with him being the most famous man on Earth in 1991. Smalley is clueless about who Jordan his, reading from a card about the basketball player. “I can imagine a night before a game,” Stuart says, “that you must lie awake thinking I’m not good enough, everybody’s better than me.” Jordan, the most confident athlete there is, replies, “Not really.”
The sketches worked not only because Al Franken is playing a character but so is Stuart. This man doesn’t have it together. If anyone needs therapy, it’s him. He tries though, saying what he thinks are the right things. He even had his own catchphrase, looking into a mirror and saying, “I’m good enough, I’m strong enough, and doggone it, people like me.” Franken had a difficult task standing out among so many big personalities on SNL, but Stuart Smalley worked. He wasn’t the biggest part of the show, but his sketches were the smartest. In the early ’90s a wave of SNL movies came, with two Wayne’s World films, It’s Pat, and Coneheads. In 1995, it was Stuart’s turn to go to the big screen.
Harold Ramis Directed ‘Stuart Saves His Family’
In 1995, Harold Ramis was riding a seemingly never-ending wave of success. To millions, he would always be Egon Spangler from Ghostbusters, but he was so much more. Ramis was a writer and director. He either wrote or co-wrote modern classics like National Lampoon’s Animal House, Caddyshack, the Ghostbusters movies, and Groundhog Day. As for directing, he helmed Caddyshack and National Lampoon’s Vacation. In 1995, he was just two years removed from directing his previous film, Groundhog Day. Ramis’ writing and directing credits showed how he could rein in big characters and personalities and find the depth underneath. The original Ghostbusters screenplay was something wild and dark, but with Ramis’ help it became more focused and realistic. Groundhog Day became more than a clever bit. It had heart and drama. That made Ramis the perfect fit for Stuart Saves His Family, a film that could go all wrong if it solely focused on how weird Stuart was. It needed more, and Ramis found that in a book Franken wrote.
In 1992, Al Franken had written a part mock self-help book, part novel as Stuart Smalley called I’m Good Enough, I’m Smart Enough, and Doggone It, People Like Me!: Daily Affirmations with Stuart Smalley. As Ramis explained to reporter Bobbie Wygant in an interview for the film, “It started out to be a book just of daily affirmations and turned into a real novel with characters, and just emotionally very satisfying, and I began to see that Stuart Smalley was not just a sketch making fun of something. It was just a well-thought-out and deeply felt piece about the struggles everyone goes through in life.”
Where many SNL movies failed is that they had nothing much beyond the bit. Pat was hilarious in a segment on SNL, but It’s Pat the movie didn’t give us a reason to care about them. Wayne’s World worked because it dug at something beyond the bit, taking the guys out of the basement and sending them on an adventure. Stuart Smalley had built-in drama with his family, shown here and there in the segments, and now in a book. Stuart Smalley needed to save his family, who were even more messed up than him.
‘Stuart Saves His Family’ Tells a Story That Expands Its Creation
Al Franken is a brilliant writer, but he might not be the best actor in the world. You couldn’t make him the star of a feature film without surrounding him with great actors. Stuart Saves His Family has that. We meet Stuart at his lowest. His public access show, which gives his life its meaning, is gone. His dad’s an alcoholic. His brother, Donnie, smokes so much pot that it consumes his life. His mom is obese. Everyone is struggling, but they’re fun to watch them, with Harris Yulin playing Stuart’s dad, Academy Award-nominated Shirley Knight as his mother, and a young Vincent D’Onoforio as Donnie. Stuart thrives on finding positivity, but the more his life sinks, so do his spirits. Stuart Saves His Family isn’t mean, it doesn’t mock Stuart or turn him into a joke. Yes, it’s funny, but it’s also a story of redemption, a man trying not only to rescue his family from their demons, but save himself as well.
One scene has a heartbreaking moment with the family at an intervention, crying and consoling each other as they talk about trying to get their alcoholic dad help. It’s quiet, with barely a single joke. Before that though you can have a scene where Stuart’s sister, Jodie (Lesley Boone), who also struggles with overeating as a way of controlling her feelings, calls up Stuart screaming about how that alcoholic dad just accidentally shot Donnie. She’s inconsolable, so Stuart tells her, “I normally don’t say this, but is there any way you can get to a poundcake?” Stuart puts it all on himself, but it’s not hokey or sappy. This is the basis of the whole character, a man who is a self-help guru not as a con or because he thinks he’s better than everyone, but because he believes in it. In 2015, for the 20th anniversary of the film, co-producer Trevor Albert told Vanity Fair, “The audiences who would have liked it, they thought it was a Saturday Night Live movie, so they weren’t interested. It looked superficial, like it wasn’t going to have any resonance for them… It isn’t a cynical movie, and I think part of the sincerity is because Al is a believer in the things that Stuart says. He’s over the top, but it’s sensible stuff.”
SNL movies were for the younger generation, and Stuart Smalley and Al Franken weren’t aimed at that. This is why the movie failed at the box office, and initially with critics who didn’t understand it, but it has found its audience over the years, especially with those who can relate to its message. Al Franken said in the same Vanity Fair article, “I still have people coming up to me and saying they love the movie, and counselors who say they use the movie for family stuff, and alcohol stuff. . . . People in recovery really got it.” Stuart Smalley wasn’t cool like Wayne and Garth. He didn’t make us laugh until we cried like Chris Farley did. We couldn’t get lost his the genius of his voice like we did with Phil Hartman. Stuart Smalley was all about feelings, in finding the truth behind a goofy little character. That works in Stuart Smalley Saves His Family, and doggone it, that’s good enough.
