“By the time the 'SNL' season’s over, it’s pretty hard to put on a shirt,” said Feresten, adding that he gets a cortisone shot and does six to eight weeks of physical therapy in the summer to get stronger.
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(“It hurts,” said Feresten.) A segment for Late Night’s “A Closer Look” could zip through 100 cards, keeping pace with Seth Meyers’ rapid-fire delivery.Īnd you have to do all this without making a sound, staying out of the frame but remaining perfectly visible to the on-air talent, and sometimes balancing atop a 2-foot-tall apple box.ĭecades of this work have taxed Feresten’s body, dealing him bouts of tendonitis in his shoulders and elbows. Too slow and you drag out the joke.Ĭards have to be written, re-written, and flipped in the right order, from a script that is constantly changing, sometimes minutes before taping.Īnd then there are the physical demands: a cold open for “SNL” could require holding as many as 300 cards, arms extended, for several minutes. Flip the cards too fast, and the performer misses the punchline. The card handler is also dealing with celebrities – some very nice, some less so – and has to be attuned to the performers’ comedic timing. (Knocking on wood, Feresten said that he’s never dropped a card.) Much of the work is done in front of a studio audience, and often on live TV, meaning that mistakes could be seen by millions.
The job of a cue card handler requires a package of talents: good penmanship, athleticism, emotional intelligence, confidence on stage and an ability to manage adrenaline. Three years later, he was picked to run the department when Mendez left to work for David Letterman. Mendez said he’d never seen anything like it.
Later, his boss Tony Mendez told him that although Feresten’s body had been visibly shaking, he’d held the cards perfectly still. His first night of work at “Saturday Night Live” was in 1990 - he held six cards for a “Sprockets” sketch with Mike Myers.
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