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The SNL Theme Music Strikes Fear Into Paula Pell’s Heart

Saturday Night Live alums Rachel Dratch, Ana Gasteyer, Paula Pell, and Emily Spivey stopped by Watch What Happens Live last night to promote their new Netflix movie Wine Country, and when the topic turned to SNL, Pell shed some light on what happens to a longtime writer like her after she leaves the show. “When you work there and then you watch it later and you leave, the music gives you diarrhea. Because during that music, right before the show, is when you are running as fast as you can with a million scripts, and actors are running, and we’re trying to make contact with changes, and it’s a very terrifying moment,” she says. “And so when you hear that music at home, I know I shit my square dancing skirt.”

Later in the clip, all four women looked back on the moment they found out they were hired at SNL. Dratch calls it the “dream phone call.” Gasteyer reveals that the news complicated her wedding plans. Spivey says, “I got hired and then 9/11 happened.” But Pell offers the most detailed story about getting the big news while working at Universal Studios in Orlando. “They called me in Universal Studios, in the greenroom, at a Murder, She Wrote postproduction show — which doesn’t exist anymore, surprise!” she says. “They said, ‘It’s not an audition,’ and I was like, ‘What the fuck is it?’” Soon after, Pell went to 30 Rock to meet for a potential writing gig, and the rest is SNL history.

The SNL Theme Music Strikes Fear Into Paula Pell’s Heart