Divorce, David Macaulay, Edward Norton

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I'm Jane Pauley, and this is Sunday Morning. It should come as no surprise that Valentine's Day, just this past Friday, is one of the most popular days for couples to get engaged. As the saying goes, first comes love, then comes marriage, and a vow to love each other for better or for worse. Unfortunately, for some, what comes next is indeed for worse, followed by thoughts of separation, even divorce. But as Susan Spencer will explain, acting on those thoughts isn't always the best way forward. I would make a suggestion about marriage counseling, or I would ask them if they ever had a marriage counselor.

Divorce lawyer Robert Cohen has been helping couples uncouple for 30 years, so it might surprise you to learn what he really thinks about divorce. I think the world would be better. I think our kids would be better.

I think families would be better if there wasn't divorce. The pros and cons of calling it quits, ahead on Sunday Morning. For countless stars, uttering the words, live from New York, it's Saturday night, is a dream come true. For 50 years now, those words have introduced what's become an American comedy institution, Saturday Night Live. Maraca takes us inside SNL's milestone celebration. Live from New York, it's Saturday night! Without Saturday Night Live, we never would have met Roseanne Rosannadanna.

Dear Roseanne, Rosannadanna. Wayne and Garth. Pretty young, Wayne. Pretty young, Garth.

Okay, all right. Or Debbie Downer. The term Debbie Downer, this did not exist before this sketch, right?

No, it didn't, but a few people were like, that term was around before. I challenge you! Coming up, half a century of SNL.

The Academy Awards are just two weeks off, which explains Tracy Smith's visit with actor Edward Norton, up for an Oscar for the fourth time for his supporting role in the Bob Dylan biopic, A Complete Unknown. What do you want me to do? You just want me to hit you?

Come on, give me the swim figure. Why? Edward Norton has created some of the most memorable film characters ever.

What's the problem? Not bad for a guy who was once told he'd never make it in the biz. Was there a casting director who told you, find another profession? There was.

Yeah, I had one of those, like, someone sits you down and says, you should do something else. In tune with The Unstoppable Edward Norton, later on Sunday morning. Connor Knighton visits the Texas Animal Sanctuary, run by the Humane Society of the United States, where all manner of species find refuge and peace. With significant job cuts looming, Robert Costa looks at some surprising and invaluable contributions from the federal workforce. Plus, a love story from Steve Hartman, commentary from our one-time CBS News colleague Marvin Kalb, and more on this Sunday morning for the 16th of February, 2025.

We'll be back in a moment. This episode is brought to you by Shopify. Upgrade your business with Shopify, home of the number one checkout on the planet. Shop pay boosts conversions up to 50%, meaning fewer carts going abandoned and more sales going cha-ching. So if you're into growing your business, get a commerce platform that's ready to sell wherever your customers are.

Visit Shopify.com to upgrade your selling today. The phenomenon is back. The new season of Yellow Jackets is now on Paramount Plus with Showtime. Think about how screwed up we would be if we had survived a plane crash only to end up eating each other. This place will follow us for the rest of our lives. The only way to truly be safe is to be the only one left. This season, the past will come back to hunt you. You really are insane.

Yellow Jackets, new season now streaming on the Paramount Plus with Showtime plan. On this Valentine's Day weekend, Susan Spencer starts us off with a most unusual take on love and marriage. Daniel and Adam Silverstein met in high school in 1995 and agree their romance was picture perfect. Marriage has been a different story. It's complicated. It's complicated. Yeah.

Nobody would argue with that. Yeah, I say, you know, till death do us part is a really long time, you know, it is a really long time. They've now been married a really long time, more than two decades. But a year ago, they nearly called it quits. We were really, really like disconnected. I mean, only speaking to each other when we had to. We had blowouts, you know, big arguments.

Tears? Oh, sure. In a last-ditch effort to reconnect, they agreed on what they called a 30-day challenge. For a month, each promised to change one thing that the other wanted. Things got better, then better still.

And today, they say they are closer than ever. Have you reached any conclusion as to what it is that makes people divorce? I mean, you managed to avoid it.

A lot of people don't. I think for us, why we're not, and I don't know about anybody else's relationships, so I can't speak for anybody but us, we just have this bond and connection and unique, I think, love that I don't think can be broken. We've tried many times, and it hasn't worked.

They are not unique. Divorce rates in America have been dropping for a while, down 27 percent between 2012 and 2022. For so many, it's been their life.

Couples therapist Marissa Nelson gives her profession some of the credit. What is the main reason, if there is one, that couples turn up at your door? Well, I would be in Bora Bora on the beach for a dollar every time somebody said we had communication issues. Seriously. What's the real reason? Longing. Loneliness.

People are longing to be wanted. Why is this hard? It's hard because life sometimes is hard. So hard, in fact, that the Washington, D.C. therapist says saving the marriage isn't always the answer. As a couples therapist, you come out of school, and you're really doe-eyed, and you want to save the world. No divorces in your patients at all. No divorces, but as you continue to do this work, you understand that there are circumstances and reasons why people choose to uncouple. And for many people that I have had the honor of being able to work with, divorce was probably the best thing for their relationship and for their children. That's where New York divorce lawyer Robert Cohen comes in.

Over three decades, he's handled as many as a thousand cases, but his clients often share one simple want. Generally, they want to be happier. What does that mean?

What does that mean? It's very hard. It depends on the person. How do you make somebody happier?

It's not easy, but I think people just want to be happier. Including the rich and famous, Cohen has a star-studded cast of clients. Most recently, Melinda Gates. I did the Gates divorce. I did Chris Rock's divorce. I helped Tracy Morgan through his divorce. James Gandolfini from the Sopranos. I'm looking over at who I have photographs with. I did the Christie Brinkley divorce.

I tried that case in Long Island. Since divorce has built his career, it's shocking to learn how he really feels about it. I think the world would be better. I think our kids would be better. I think families would be better if there wasn't divorce.

He's even written an anti-divorce book. So your basic advice to anybody coming in here is you may not want to do this. Try to stay married, if you can.

I had a guy come in to see me. He was 95 years old. And I said, you're 95 years old. Why are you getting divorced? He said, I can't live with my wife anymore.

She smokes. And it was driving him crazy. And I said to him, can't you put in a ventilation system or some system in the apartment that'll work?

And he just didn't want to do it anymore. Just ballpark. What percentage of your clients have you referred to marriage counselors?

Somewhere between 5 and 10 percent. That's pretty healthy. I think it is. It's not going to bring me to the poor house, but it's going to be a good thing for them. I'm not worried about that part of it, actually. You're not worried about putting yourself out of business. I'm not. I'm not. And you say, because you'll come home and I'm going to be in pajamas.

That's my point. Oh, that's why you need to tell me at 12 o'clock. 12 o'clock. Or whatever. Meanwhile, the now-happy Silversteins have gone from needing marital advice to giving it in their wildly successful podcast. Hey, everybody.

Welcome to Marjor Martini's. I'm Adam. Here's Danielle.

Hi. For people who haven't heard it, how would you describe your podcast? Explicit. Recorded weekly in their New Jersey home, it's an uncensored, intimate look at their marriage, good and bad.

I need me some romance, too. Right? But I don't know what that means. I explained it last time.

Would you forget? No, you didn't. They even fight on the air. Oh, yeah. We've had to, we've actually, at some points, we've had to throw off the headphones and pause the podcast. Go our separate ways for an hour.

Well, and we've also had to have discussions off the podcast sometimes in the middle of an episode and then go back. But the police have not been involved in that. We're not at that point. Not at that point, no. No, no, please. That's not when you do it.

You would kill me. No, you text me at like- That's not a surprise. But with eight million downloads, they may have tapped into some universal truths about marriage. What insights have you been able to get from the feedback that you get from this podcast? I think the best feedback that we get is, oh, my God, me, too.

Or, oh, my God, us, too. So many people are going through the same thing, but nobody talks about it. And talking is key. Just ask Marissa Nelson. Look, we don't get manuals for relationships.

I wish we did, but we don't. And I think that when you have two people that come together with different needs, you have to be vigilant and intentional that love and communication is an ongoing process that you're committing to. Sum it up for me.

What's the biggest key toward staying together? Not expecting perfect, but trying to be perfect. Does that say it? I think it does. I was thinking about it.

I think it does say it. Government jobs have been under the microscope lately, with the Trump administration promising sharp cuts to the federal workforce. But many of us have little idea what some federal workers actually do, hence this report from our Robert Costa.

Good evening. The coal mining country of eastern Kentucky was still mourning the deaths of 15 miners in a methane gas explosion three days ago. Rescuers tonight struggle to reach miners trapped by smoke and flames near Orangeville, Utah. Coal mining has always been dangerous, one of the deadliest professions in the nation. 119 coal miners were killed in a mine explosion, the new monument dedicated to the men who died from that tragedy. In the 20th century, more than 100,000 workers died in the U.S. mining industry. Christopher Mark experienced that risk firsthand. I started the mines in 1976.

It was almost 50 years ago. And I worked underground altogether for about two years. And I can tell you, I was almost killed a couple times. So this is real for you, mine safety?

Absolutely. Mine safety has been Mark's life's work. In his 20s, he left the coal fields to earn a Ph.D., then returned as an engineer for the federal government. His efforts have helped save countless lives underground. It was still maybe a coal miner every week that was being killed in a rock fall.

In 2016, we had our first year with zero, a really tremendous accomplishment. At the end of the day, you work essentially for the worker, not for the corporations. That's exactly right. And we were asked to do this by the public. It was the public's demand that was reflected in the laws that were passed by Congress.

And that's all we've been doing ever since. So for you, this isn't just about a government budget. This is life and death. Absolutely. Absolutely.

We met Christopher Mark in the historic coal country of western Pennsylvania. He agreed to speak with us as a private citizen, not as a representative of his employer, the Department of Labor. His reason? He is deeply concerned about the Trump administration's sweeping criticism of federal workers. I still have the most precious American right, which is the right to free speech, so long as I'm speaking in my own personal capacity.

So that's what I'm doing today. So you're not afraid? I'd be foolish if I wasn't afraid. I campaigned on the fact that I said government is corrupt, and it is very corrupt.

It's very, very — it's also foolish. Since taking office, President Trump has enlisted billionaire industrialist Elon Musk as a special government employee, and they have launched a crusade to winnow the ranks of federal workers, encouraging more than two million of them to consider quitting and moving to shutter entire agencies. Meanwhile, there are reports that hundreds of thousands of recently hired federal employees could soon be terminated. You couldn't ask for a stronger mandate from the public. The public voted — we have a majority of the public voting for President Trump. Elon Musk has got to go!

Hey, hey! Trump and Musk's campaign has sparked anger. We are out here trying, but we need every American to care because this will impact every American. It has also forced a reckoning over what Americans want from their government. I think as we speak, our country is getting an education of what its government does because it feels it has to.

Who knew what USAID was three weeks ago? In an upcoming book, bestselling author Michael Lewis poses the question, who is government? Virtually every existential risk we face, we don't turn to the private sector to respond to it. We turn to the government.

I mean, the federal government's mission is to keep us safe, and you don't really know that that insurance policy is not there until it isn't. The book is based on a Washington Post series Lewis edited last year with little-known stories of federal workers. Just look at Christopher Mark's life work. If we just removed Christopher Mark from the history of the federal government, thousands of coal miners are dead.

It's one person. Profiling military cemetery managers and mission specialists for space exploration, Lewis and his co-authors make the case that claims of an impersonal so-called deep state are off base, and that while there may be places for trims and updated systems, they argue the federal workforce is largely individuals dedicated to the public good. It's people who have been attracted to a problem. The government is there to solve lots of problems, usually problems that the market doesn't want to solve. Some people say government should run like a business. Are they right?

No, they're wrong. I don't see how you would run the government as a business because the kind of problems the government is addressing, they're addressing it because you can't make money addressing it. The modern federal government took shape almost a century ago in response to the Great Depression. FDR's New Deal, followed by World War II, expanded government's reach into most every aspect of life. And since then, many conservatives have been pushing back.

The nine most terrifying words in the English language are, I'm from the government and I'm here to help. In the 1980s, President Ronald Reagan helped lay the foundation for what Trump and Musk are doing today. There is an ethos in Silicon Valley, move fast, break things, disrupt. You've covered leaders in that sector for decades. Does that approach, though, work when it comes to the federal government and the stakes are different? It doesn't work very well. If you take the kind of Elon Musk approach to the federal government walking in, as he did at Twitter, and say, all you people are useless, we're going to get rid of half of you, operating with kind of fear and chaos, I don't think any big institution is going to respond well to the move fast and break things approach.

When asked for comment, a White House spokesman said the president is confident in Musk and his ability to shake things up, and said criticism of his method is fear-mongering. When you walk in this restaurant, people don't necessarily say there's a federal worker. That's right.

They say that's a coal miner, that's my friend, that's someone who works on mine safety. They're not thinking about you necessarily as part of the federal government. That's right. That doesn't help the federal government. Another thing is that the federal government doesn't have money to advertise itself.

That's right. People can say whatever they want about us and we really can't respond. For mine safety engineer Christopher Mark, there is little he can do to stave off the wave of changes from Washington. But he says he'll carry on, his head up, as long as he can.

If you could bring Elon Musk down to the mines, what would you say to him? Well, I would say, you know, there's a lot of people that have to work in these mines and they deserve to be able to come home at the end of the shift to their families safely. And we're a part of making that happen.

You can't take us out of the equation and be sure that they're going to return home safely to their families. Strength and honor. Strength and honor. Now streaming, Academy Award winner Michelle Yeoh takes command. Gather your people.

We're going to need every one of them. In Section 31, a new Star Trek original movie on Paramount+. Section 31 is just a place for people to bend the rules. Starfleet is here to make sure no one commits murder.

What a cute idea. This is chaos. Let's get messy. Don't miss Star Trek Section 31. Now streaming exclusively on Paramount+. This ranch is under attack. Our whole way to life is under attack. Streaming Sunday, February 23rd on Paramount+.

The return of 1923, a Yellowstone origin story. My family is in danger and I don't have time. Starring Academy Award winner Helen Mirren and Academy Award nominee Harrison Ford. I pray Spencer can get here. This fight ain't over. Anything worth having is worth fighting for.

1923 Season 2 streaming Sunday, February 23rd exclusively on Paramount+. We're all here just laboring with our little teaspoons and you come and bring a shovel. And thanks to you, we're almost there. We're on the verge of tipping it, Bob, and you're our closing act.

Our look ahead to the Academy Awards continues this morning with actor Edward Norton, who's earned his fourth career Oscar nod for his supporting role in the Bob Dylan movie, A Complete Unknown. Tracy Smith visited with him in Los Angeles. The fires that ravaged Southern California last month turned too many of Malibu's most treasured places to ash. But some, like the legendary Shangri-La Studios, still stand. Over the years, it's been used by some of the biggest names in the music business, like Eric Clapton and Adele, to name a few. But it's also known as the house that Bob Dylan built. Even the old bus out back, legend has it, was used by Dylan on tour. And Bob Dylan camped out on the lawn? I actually think it's in Clapton's biography that there was a period where Dylan had a tent in the Rose Garden here. For actor Edward Norton, this is hallowed ground, and in a way, so is his latest movie role. You're trapped all the way from Minnesota. Why is that?

I don't want to catch a spark. In A Complete Unknown, Norton is folk music legend Pete Seeger, playing opposite Timothée Chalamet as the young Bob Dylan. I'm Pete, by the way. Yes, sir.

No question about it. How about you? I'm Bobby.

Something come after that? Dylan. Norton says playing a music legend like Seeger was both sublime and terrifying. I think every actor in some part of them wants to be a rock star, you know? And I think that the fantasy of, there's a dream.

I think every actor holds the dream in some sense. You know, I almost started crying at the idea of it. Did you really? Well, I was nervous about it because I was nervous about the whole enterprise. Because I thought the idea of a biopic about Dylan, if you just said it that way, I was like, ooh, I'm not sure. This is a huge gamble. Yeah, it's like, I'm not sure.

Because to me, it has a mythical kind of place in me, and I thought this could be really, really a bad idea. I feel like singing, so I'm going to sing it for you. You know the words.

This land is your land. And here's just one of the challenges. Pete Seeger was an accomplished banjo player, so Norton had to become one as well. And the banjo's a tough one to learn. We did an interview with Steve Martin, and he played the banjo for us. And watching him play the banjo, I mean, it's so complex, and it's so fast. Yeah, I made the joke that I Googled, is there an AI that can replace my hands with Steve Martin's?

Or in the old days, that thing where you put your arms behind your back, and Steve Martin puts his hands under my armpits and does the playing for me. Which I'm not saying is not what happened. It might have. It might have.

Who knows? In the finished film, his playing looks and sounds authentic. Because it is. And that authenticity is something that Edward Norton has always worked for, starting with his very first movie role as a calculating killer in the 1996 thriller, Primal Fear. Well, I am innocent. Norton, who was raised in Maryland, cultivated an Appalachian accent so real that people thought he was actually from Kentucky. I don't know who's capable of such a thing, Mr. Vale.

He wound up with his first Oscar nomination. What do you want me to do? You just want me to hit you? Come on. Give me this one thing. Why? Why? I don't know why.

I don't know. Three years later, he was fighting it out with Brad Pitt in a film that's now become embedded in our culture. The first rule of Fight Club is you do not talk about Fight Club.

The second rule of Fight Club is you do not talk about Fight Club. And it's huge now. It has a huge fan following. It's acclaimed. But when Fight Club came out, it was not successful financially. No, not at all.

Not at all. And it was polarizing, I would say. There were those who absolutely, like, it hit them right in the center of their sense of their own selves. And then there were people who just absolutely thought it was, you know, garbage, panned it.

In fact, it was roundly booed at the Venice Film Festival, but that didn't bother Norton or his co-star, Pitt. As the credits rolled, Brad looked at me in the dark, crying, and he said, That's the best film we'll ever be in. And I said, Me too. And I think so too.

And we were hugging each other and crying because we were so happy with, like, boos rising around us, you know what I mean? And I think sometimes you just gotta, you know, let your own freak flag fly and people will figure it out or not, you know? Norton's let his own freak flag fly in more than 40 films.

What's the problem? Like a mild-mannered police captain in the Grand Budapest Hotel. I know exactly who you are.

It's uncanny. You're little Albert. I'm terribly embarrassed.

Release them. He was an ego-driven Broadway actor in Birdman. But long after you're gone, I'm going to be on that stage earning my living, bearing my soul, wrestling with complex human emotions. And he nailed the eccentric billionaire part in Glass Onion. Hey, try to solve the murder mystery if you can.

I don't want to toot my own horn, but it's pretty next level. Watching him on screen, it's hard to believe Edward Norton was once told he didn't have what it takes to make it as an actor. Was there a casting director who told you, find another profession? There was. Yeah, I had one of those, like, someone sits you down and says, you should do something else.

Like literally, you should do something else. Yeah, very, very, very well-known casting director in New York. One of the ones you hoped to get in front of. But look, if you don't run into moments where people lay some fundamental uncertainty around, you know, the path you've chosen and you can't push through it, then you probably don't belong. Of course, there's little doubt he belongs in all of this. Edward Norton has an Oscar nomination for every decade of his career.

So I want you to give a warm welcome to Bob Dylan. And he's in the running now for his work in A Complete Unknown. But he says that for him, it's not about the awards or the money, but the chance to channel greatness. If channeling their frequency gets people refocused on what it looked like when people were using the talents they had to further ideas and values that were bigger than themselves, then that is what makes it worth doing. Can we get people to reengage with and be moved by and inspired by the idea of artists as agents of change, you know?

And whether Edward Norton is a pure artist or just a really great actor, it's easy to believe him. Streaming February 23rd on Paramount Plus, it's the return of 1923. They won't take this place from us. Starring Harrison Ford and Helen Mirren.

I pray Spencer can get here. I don't have time. 1923, Season 2, streaming February 23rd on Paramount Plus.

Streaming on Paramount Plus. Everyone who comes into this clinic is a mystery. We don't know what we're looking for. Their bodies are the scene of the crime. Their symptoms and history are clues. You saved her life. We're doctors and we're detectives. I kind of love it if I'm being honest. Solve the puzzle, save the patient.

Morris Chestnut is Watson, now streaming on Paramount Plus and new episodes return Sunday, February 16th on CBS. A more humane world for animals. Many of us say we want that, but as Connor Knighton points out, a few of us actually do something about it. The sprawling Black Beauty Ranch in East Texas takes its name from the classic 1877 novel. Narrated by a horse, Black Beauty encouraged readers to see the world from an animal's point of view. The story of Black Beauty is about coming home and feeling free and safe. And so this is what all these animals get to do. Hey sweetie.

You're curious. Kitty Block is the CEO of the Humane Society of the United States. The nonprofit which runs Black Beauty is a sanctuary. There are zebras and macaques, bison and lions. So I think we're about 1400 acres and they've all come from various rescue situations. Each one has an incredible story. There's Loki the tiger, rescued from someone's garage in Houston. There's Eve, known as the Bear Bear, who was once so hairless and emaciated that rescuers initially didn't know what she was. These are our beautiful lemurs.

These guys were in a very dark, small place, did not have anything that resembled this kind of life. So it's amazing to see them, how they've taken to their habitat. The ranch's first residents were wild donkeys, airlifted from the Grand Canyon by Black Beauty's founder, author, critic, and animal rights activist, Cleveland Amory. Here we've got in this canyon the most highly publicized donkeys in the world. And we're going out to shoot them for God's sakes.

Today, the sanctuary is home to 150 donkeys. But if you're wondering where all of the dogs and cats are hiding, well, the Humane Society of the United States isn't actually affiliated with the thousands of humane societies that operate shelters across the country. Local humane societies do take care of dogs, cats, pets, sometimes other animals. And they are amazing places and we work really closely with them. But that's not us. We are a policy organization. We are a lobbyist shop. We work around the world and we do rescue.

But you can't get your dog or cat from us. For the past 70 years, the Humane Society of the United States, based in Washington, D.C., has worked on issues ranging from investigating the international fur trade to advocating for disaster relief plans that take animals into account. This past week, the organization announced it's changing its name. To reduce confusion and better reflect its global focus, it will now be known as Humane World for Animals. Our mission still is about getting at the root causes to prevent tomorrow's cruelties but also helping animals in crisis today.

What the new name does is reflects what we do, how we do it and where we do it. After nearly a decade of intense campaigning, the group recently celebrated a win in South Korea. But it just feels endless. Rows and rows and rows of them. Last year, Backcountry's National Assembly voted to ban the dog meat industry.

Hi, pretty girl. What's happening right now that in five, ten years you think people will look back on and say, I can't believe we did that? I hope it's less than five or even ten years, but I think the situation with the factory farming is one that we will all look back on and say, really? Did we do that? Did we confine animals in these terrible, extreme situations just because it was cheaper or easier or if we just throw them all together and seal the doors?

People won't know it's happening. Humane World for Animals successfully defended California's Proposition 12 at the Supreme Court. The law established minimum space requirements for certain species of livestock. Confining animals in extremely terrible situations where animals are stacked in cages on top of cages, it creates conditions where there are illnesses. So there's swine flu.

There's bird flu. We can't keep pretending that it has nothing to do with us. Protecting the 600 or so residents of this ranch is, in a way, a symbolic act for an organization looking to improve the welfare of animals all around the world.

Symbolic like the name Black Beauty. As Kitty Block explains, the ability to consider an animal's perspective is part of what makes us human. It's important not just for the animals, but it's important for us, who we are, how we think about ourselves, how we want to have a world that we pass on to our children and our children's children.

Animals belong there, and so we are committed to making sure that they have that life, they have that ability to thrive, because it matters to all of us. Valentine's Day may have come and gone, but love and love songs are still very much on Steve Hartman's mind. In less time than it takes to make a cup of tea, I will explain the secret of a long and happy marriage.

As told to me by 94-year-old Don Barnett and his 93-year-old wife Marilyn of Sioux Falls, South Dakota. I'll get this done. They're public displays of affection made possible, they say, by their private nightly ritual. It's very simple, and it's very easy to do. We wouldn't go to sleep without that.

It happens right before bed. Sure. Don sits down beside his bride of 68 years and starts to sing. Unforgettable, that's what you are, unforgettable. I just look forward to it. And he has a beautiful voice.

Son of love that clings to me. They started doing this about 50 years ago. And I discovered a couple of things. First of all, it pleased her. And secondly, it calmed us.

And if we had a disagreement or something before it was gone by the time we went to sleep. A magical, musical elixir that their son Doug says happens without fail. Whether they're here or in a hotel room or in the hospital.

Doesn't matter. I'm not aware that they ever miss it. Last month, Marilyn fell and broke her hip. And sure enough, her nightly serenade continued without skipping a beat. When you sing to your spouse, she realizes you really care enough to go out of your way rather than just say, good night honey. 31 across. This Valentine's weekend, couples will be searching for just the right words to show their love.

Yeah, that works. But for Don and Marilyn, there's nothing to say. Unforgettable too. That can't be sung. Oh, this is really beautiful, Todd. It's a wrist corsage.

You wear it on your wrist. This is your graduation gift from me. Really? Hard to believe, but Saturday Night Live is celebrating its 50th anniversary. Mo Rocca takes a look at the colorful past, present, and future of an American comedy institution. It's a sketch, a very unusual sketch, kind of in a minor key. On Saturday night, October 11, 1975, television viewers tuned in for a comedy variety show that looked nothing like they were used to. Good evening. Good evening. The sketch is John Belushi as a kind of rumbled guy with a grocery sack.

I would like to feed your fingertips to the Wolverines. He's supposed to be an immigrant trying to learn English. Next. It's about death, and that was something that variety shows did not traffic in in 1975. Susan Morrison is the author of Lorne. That would be Lorne Michaels, the man behind Saturday Night Live. Live from New York, it's Saturday night. For 50 years now, Saturday Night Live has been putting on a show. A 90-minute mix of live comedy sketches, beloved commercial parodies.

I'm just happy that we're all together for Thanksgiving. Whoa, easy there, Greg. And musical acts, each episode headlined by a celebrity host. What did variety shows look like before Saturday Night Live? They took place on a big, wide stage.

It was very shiny, very blank. And the content of these variety shows also was kind of a throwback. Very hammy, almost vaudevillian, kind of Catskill Comics doing seltzer-in-the-pants bits. Michaels worked on several of those shows, including Laugh-In. Starring Ben Rowan and Dick Martin. Laugh-In was really the first variety show that seemed to care about youth culture and being hip. But politically, that show was relatively toothless. The test for political humor on Laugh-In was Goldie Hawn doing a kind of a dumb blonde bit.

I don't like Vietnam, because in the movies he nearly wrecked the Empire State Building. Michaels learned a different lesson working on a cornball comedy show hosted by Phyllis Diller. The beautiful Phyllis Diller show, not just another pretty face. Its premiere episode in 1968 went up against a Barbra Streisand special. Streisand was the hottest thing out there. Funny Girl was about to come out, and Lauren thought, oh my God, we're dead. Everybody's going to watch Streisand.

But as it turned out, the Diller show beat Streisand in the ratings by a mile. And Lauren recognized, I think he said, I realize there are two audiences. There's the people I know, and then there's the wider American audience. And to this day, he's always telling his young writers and performers, we have audience in all 50 states. We have to remember this is broadcast.

It takes in the whole country. That's the news. Good night, and have a pleasant tomorrow. Keeping all this in mind, Michaels set about creating a show for his own generation. What do you want from us?

We want your pollen. As it happened, NBC's then president was thinking along the same lines. You know, it's fun to knock network execs, but one of the revelations in the book is the role that Herb Schlosser played. Yes, he was a visionary president of NBC who was looking to fill a hole on Saturday night when the network had been running Johnny Carson's reruns. And he dictated a memo that pretty much hit all the points of what SNL was to be. He wanted to do a show out of Studio 8H in 30 Rock, which had basically been dormant since the 50s. He wanted it to be live. He wanted it to be on at 1130 Saturday night. He wanted it to have rotating hosts.

Before Michaels even hired his cast, he hired the writers. If you look at those early days of SNL, the logo for the show was Saturday Night Live spray painted on the outside wall of what was then called the RCA building. It was like graffiti. And I thought it spoke volumes.

Here these kids came along besmirching whatever the standard was, whatever the establishment was. Alan Zweibel had been working in a deli when he got the gig. And what was the joke that got you the job? I gave him a book with my jokes in it. The first joke that I put saying that the post office is about to issue a stamp commemorating prostitution in the United States.

It's a ten cent stamp, but if you want to lick it, it's a quarter. And they laughed and it was great. I was now a professional comedy writer. The writers were young and the cast were unknowns. He really wanted the show to feel like it was speaking in the voice of everybody's funny, sarcastic friend, you know, grousing, wisecracking, just the way people are when they're trying to make their friends laugh.

And over the past five decades, America has become friends with more than a hundred different cast members and the characters they've created. I'm a little verklempt. Not to mention all those catchphrases that have seeped into our conversation. Well, isn't that special?

I gotta have more cowbell, baby. The show's writers and actors know that the best way to make the audience laugh is to make each other laugh. I think it was Paula said, like, let's set it somewhere really happy.

So let's put it at Disney World. And then it just started to flow. And then as we were writing, we were making each other laugh a lot. But then we started going like, wah, wah, like just to each other. I think it was Paula who said, like, what if we just put the trombone in the scene?

Roy of Siegfried and Roy, he was attacked by his own tiger and suffered devastating injuries. You're enjoying your day, everything's going your way, when alone comes Debbie Downer. Rachel Dratch was on the show from 1999 to 2006.

She and longtime writer Paula Pell created Debbie Downer, that friend we all have who always manages to bring the party down. No, wait, where are you going? If that cost him on, he's probably in the early stages of heat stroke. And then we did it for that first time, and it was where everyone lost their minds laughing, you know, and they were wiping their eyes with waffles. And I remember being in a dressing room watching it and just tears coming down my decolletage and laughing so ungodly hard. And it was such a lightning in a bottle moment at that show where you're like, I will never forget this five minutes ever in my life. You want to kick it?

Let's do it. For material, the staff is encouraged to draw from their own lives. I was always, always wanting to be a cheerleader. And every year, every summer, I worked on my back handsprings. I was a little chubby girl. I was very strong. I was nice and loud. I was really good at cheerleading.

And every year, I didn't get it. So Pell collaborated with Cheri Oteri and Will Ferrell on their Spartan Cheerleaders sketch. So the Spartan Cheerleaders, that comes from a real place.

Yeah, it comes from the place of, like, joyful loser existence is you go, oh, I didn't make it. Let's go cheer anyway. Like, we're going to get costumes. Let's go cheer for things nobody is going to kick us out on and they still get to be dramatic cheerleaders. I'm glad in a way this happened.

You know, accidents do happen. Over the run of the show, the tone of SNL has shifted away from gritty and dark towards colorful and more, well, cheerful. Morrison writes that Lorne Michaels began directing his staff to Do It In Sunshine. Do It In Sunshine means, first of all, everyone should look pretty good, you know.

You want the costumes to be flattering, the colors to be bright. You don't want anger. He very often counsels writers to avoid writing anger. People don't put on the television to see people yelling at each other. Fred Harbison told me that Lorne said once, there's enough misery in the world.

People huddle around the television as if they're huddling around a fire. Try to keep it, you know, even with, like, the dictators I've played, I've even approached them with, like, I can't believe I'm saying this, but, like, love and kindness. Thank you.

Thank you very much. What's up? Fred Harbison played Libyan dictator Moammar Qaddafi. Doesn't America have enough financial problems without expensive war?

If it was me, I would spend the money on teachers. That's just me. So for Qaddafi, I'm like, I'm going to love this character. Whoever this guy is, I'm going to love him and just imagine him as an eccentric at his very worst.

Harbison spent 12 seasons on Saturday Night Live. To hear him tell it, it wasn't nearly enough. Get back there! Get back there! I'm telling you, we're going to have a nice time. I loved it. It was just the best existence. And if you're sitting out three sketches in a row, you're like, oh, I'm not in these.

You two really don't know that you look like Beavis and Butthead. It is awesome to watch your castmates put something together and see that magic happen. It's fantastic. I believe that diplomacy should be the cornerstone of any foreign policy. And I can see Russia from my house. He's been our colleague here at CBS News, anchored NBC's Meet the Press, and is a best-selling author. Marvin Kalb's latest book is called A Different Russia. Given the week's news about Ukraine, his thoughts couldn't be more timely. I've been a journalist now for more than 70 years, focusing on American foreign policy.

This is Marvin Kalb in Moscow. I was CBS's Moscow correspondent, its diplomatic correspondent, and covered the one and only summit meeting in 1961 between President John Kennedy and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev. I learned that a summit without detailed preparation can lead to a disaster. A summit soon between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin strikes me as a highly problematic gamble. Trump has described the war in Ukraine as a bloody mess and promised to end it quickly. Putin would also like to end it quickly, but on his terms.

Interestingly, his terms seem to overlap with Trump's. First, a ceasefire in place, meaning Russia keeps roughly 20 percent of Ukraine. Second, Ukraine gets barred from NATO and likely the European Union. It becomes a neutral nation, aligned not with the West, which is what it wants, but with Russia. This deal could end the war, as Trump has promised, but Ukraine, left out in the cold, would justifiably scream betrayal, pointing a bloody finger at the United States and launching on its own a desperate guerrilla war against Russia. In another form, then, the war would continue.

The bloodshed must stop and this war must end. NATO, the once reliable bulwark against Russian aggression, would effectively be shattered, unable any longer to depend on America's word or its military support. On the other side of the world, China might be encouraged to attack Taiwan, which it has often threatened to do. Would the U.S. protect Taiwan more reliably than it did Ukraine? If this kind of Ukraine deal were to happen, it would send a chilling message that America has indeed changed. The fact of the matter is, I asked people a picture of what would happen if we were not supporting Ukraine. Remember, the United States promised the world that it would help Ukraine for as long as it takes.

But a deal leaving Ukraine in a ditch would mean America's role as a trusted global leader would now be a thing of the past. Thank you for listening. Please join us when our trumpet sounds again next Sunday morning. Explore the Black Voices Collection on Paramount+. Stream now.