NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK: Former ‘SNL’ cast member and head writer Tina Fey once revealed that some of her male coworkers at the show allegedly practiced a disgusting habit of urinating in cups. Fey first became aware of the gross practice during her time as a young cast member at ‘Saturday Night Live’ and opened up about the situation in a piece for The New Yorker.
The comedian shared that she once reached for a book at her former boss Steve Higgins’ office and started adjusting a paper cup sitting in front of the book. Higgins immediately jumped from his seat and told Fey, “Don’t touch that!” Shortly after, he allegedly collected all the paper cups in his office and threw them out. When Fey asked ‘SNL’ writer Paula Pell, the latter confirmed, “Oh, yeah, that’s pee in those cups.”
‘Never heard of anyone peeing in a cup’
The incident left Fey shocked. “I had come from Second City, which was by no means clean — it would not be unheard of to see a rat giving birth in an overstuffed ashtray, for example. But I had never heard of anyone peeing in a cup except at a doctor’s office,” she wrote in her article. “Maybe you’d do it on a road trip if it was too far between rest stops. I had definitely never heard of anyone peeing in a cup and leaving it on a bookshelf in his office to evaporate back into his body through the pores on his face,” Fey shared.
When The ‘Weekend Update’ host shared the situation with a fellow ‘SNL’ staff, instead of getting a shocked and horrified response, the co-worker shared he also resorted to the practice sometimes. “He said it was just something guys did when they were too lazy to go to the bathroom… I started to feel as if I were from space,” she wrote. Fey even asked her then-boyfriend and now-husband about the habit and if he had ever done it but he said, “What! No. That’s disgusting.”
‘I started noticing cups in other places’
Fey also shared how she began to notice not just cups but also jars in different places more frequently and how the practice grew grosser over time. “Once I became aware of this practice, I started noticing cups in other places,” she wrote. “In the ‘Weekend Update’ offices—which were like the smarter but meaner older brother of the regular writers’ offices — there weren’t any cups,” Fey explained.
“There was a jar. It was a jar of piss with a lid on it, and, judging by its consistency, I suspect that the writers sometimes spat into it,” she revealed. However, Fey confirmed that not every male ‘SNL’ writer “whizzed in cups.” “But four or five out of twenty did, so the men have to own that one,” the comedian said.
Fey also answered a consistent question about whether both men and women are both funny in reference to the practice and said, “Here’s the truth: There is an actual difference between male and female comedy writers, and I’m going to reveal it now. The men urinate in cups. And sometimes jars.” The writer went on to use the experience as a plotline in an episode of ‘30 Rock,’ which showed Liz finding jars in her writer Frank’s office.
