One of the great laments of the last 15 years of movies is the streamification of the studio comedy. The joy of laughter, and if you’re lucky, making someone laugh, is a high that can’t be topped by anything. So when all laughter leaves the movie world, at least we have these documentaries for how modern joketellers got started. You Had to Be There hopefully incurs a revival of my favorite art form, and maybe, just maybe, reminds people there’s nothing more infectious than everyone giddy and ready to laugh at something together.
Saturday Night Live’s legendary first season has been adequately discussed at this point in time. Second City will eventually get their big shout. But what happened before 1976 in New York City? One key touchpoint is Toronto in 1972, where Godspell ended its Broadway run and taking its show on the road. A fun silly musical like that needs fun, silly people. So who should show up and get parts in this production, but, you know, some of the funniest people on the planet: Martin Short, Eugene Levy, Dave Thomas, Gilda Radner, Victor Garber, Andrea Martin and Jayne Eastwood. Oh, and Paul Shaffer showed up too to, you know, direct the play.
Incredible right? Nick Davis the director of You Had to Be There figures everyone will think so too, and just be here for the vibes. His job seems easy: have Martin Short, Eugene Levy, Victor Garber, Andrea Martin, and Jayne Eastwood just talk to camera and anecdote the audience to comedy euphoria, and that does happen, whether it be incredible comedy origin stories or just behind the scenes descriptions of what sound like the greatest parties of all time. It’s necessary though to hide the fatal flaw of the doc: no real footage exists of it anywhere. Davis tries to use animations to cover up this loss, but chunks of context are left to the audience’s imagination, which even the greats like Short and Levy can’t really overcome.
What becomes clear is how life defining this single event was (similar to Summer of Soul) for all of these people. It set them off onto become the people we know today. More importantly, that special bond they made on Godspell left not only lifelong friendships, but also a few romances as well. In each other the key players got the confidence to push careers in comedy, leading to Second City Toronto, SNL, and as one great animated picture shows, the roots of the comedy tree that goes until the present day. Also evident was how much of a loss Gilda Radner was to everyone: like the doc about her, she was a comet that everyone was just happy to be in the presence of, knowing they had witnessed someone special forever and ever.
I get that You Had to Be There is for the old farts like me. I hold out hope though that someday I get to show my niece or someone younger footage of these people, where they get to spend some time learning about Gilda Radner, or Chris Farley, John Belushi, John Candy. But most of all, they can see how comedy at its purest can make life just a joy, from 1972 Godspell all the way to 2020s Hacks. And hopefully, for many more years to come.