Quicknation    Michael ODonoghue

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Michael O'Donoghue (January 5, 1940 – November 8, 1994) was a 20th century writer and performer noted for his dark and destructive

O'Donoghue's early career included work as a playwright and actor in regional theater. His first work of greater note was the comic adventure Phoebe Zeitgeist for the . Drawn by Frank Springer, the comic detailed the adventures of debutante Phoebe Zeitgeist as she was variously kidnapped and rescued by a series of bizarre characters, such as Eskimos, Nazis, Chinese foot fetishists, and lesbian assassins.

O'Donoghue also co-wrote the during its glory days. O'Donoghue's most famous contributions to the Lampoon include "The Vietnamese Baby Book," in which a baby's war wounds are catalogued in a keepsake, the "Ezra Taft Benson High School Yearbook," a precursor to the Lampoon's High School Yearbook Parody, the comic "Tarzan of the Cows," and a continuing feature called "Underwear for the Deaf."

, O'Donoghue appeared in the first show's opening sketch, as a speech therapist instructing John Belushi in such phrases as "I would like to feed your fingertips to the wolverines. We are out of badgers." He later appeared in the persona of a Vegas- "impressionist" who would pay great praise to showbiz mainstays such as talk-show host Mike Douglas and Tony Orlando and Dawn — and then speculate how they'd react if steel needles were plunged into their eyes. The shrieking fits that followed are believed by biographer Dennis Perrin to be inspired by O'Donoghue's real-life agonies from chronic migraine headaches.

Later on, O'Donoghue cultivated the persona of the grim "Mr. Mike", a coldly decadent figure who favored viewers with comically dark "Least-Loved Bedtime Stories" such as "The Little Engine that Died." His other spoof that was a tour-de-force for John Belushi.

During his years at SNL he shared Emmy Awards for outstanding writing in 1976 and 1977.

In 1979 he produced a television special for NBC (featuring most of the SNL cast) called . Because of its raunchy content, the network rejected the program and instead was released as a theatrical film.

O'Donoghue returned to in 1981 when the new executive producer Dick Ebersol needed an old hand to help revive the faltering show. O'Donoghue's volatile personality and mood swings made this difficult: His first day on the show he started yelling and screaming at all the cast members, telling Mary Gross that she was as talented as a pair of old shoes, and forcing everyone to write on the walls with magic markers. The only one he liked was Eddie Murphy, because Murphy wasn't afraid of him.

Arguably the most memorable sketch O'Donoghue created during this short-lived tenure was a spoof of the old Superman "Bizarro" world (where up is down, death is good, happiness makes you sad, etc.) set in the Ronald Reagan administration. He used real details and plans from the administration in a showcase of what he considered the insanity of that presidency.

According to a question in the , O'Donoghue was fired after writing the never-aired sketch "Silverman in the Bunker" (which compared the NBC network president to Adolf Hitler).

Live From New York: An Uncensored History of Saturday Night Live, as Told By Its Stars, Writers and Guests