Tom Davis papers

Tom Davis (1952-2012) was an American writer and comedian, best known for his comedy writing partnership with Al Franken and their work on the television program, Saturday Night Live (SNL). He was born Thomas James Davis on August 13, 1952 in St. Paul, Minnesota, where he grew up and befriended Franken while both were students at the Blake School in Minneapolis. After graduation, Franken went to college at Harvard University, while Davis attended the University of the Pacific in Stockton, California. Davis withdrew from college after a year and returned to the Twin Cities area to pursue a career in comedy. After Franken graduated from Harvard, the two moved to Los Angeles, California to perform stand-up comedy, and were discovered by SNL creator Lorne Michaels, who hired them as two of the show’s first writers. Notably, Franken and Davis were offered a single apprentice job as a duo by the writer’s union and were paid a single salary. Their writing credits for SNL were subsequently attributed to “Franken & Davis.”

Davis worked for SNL from 1975 to 1980, and again from 1986 to 1994. During his tenure on the show, Davis created or co-created many notable sketches, including “Theodoric of Yorik, Medieval Barber,” “Nick the Lounge Singer,” “The Continental,” and “Coneheads.” In addition to his writing work for SNL, Davis wrote many screenplays for films, including the 1993 film, Coneheads. He also wrote several screenplays for films that were never produced, including an adaptation of the Kurt Vonnegut novel, The Sirens of Titan (co-written with Grateful Dead member, Jerry Garcia), and a third installment of the original Ghostbusters film series (co-written with Dan Aykroyd). In 2009, Davis published his memoir, Thirty-Nine Years of Short-Term Memory Loss, and in 2012 he co-authored the book Owsley and Me: My LSD Family with Rhoney Gissen. The latter book chronicled the life of Grateful Dead sound engineer, Owsley “Bear” Stanley and his role in the 1960s counterculture in San Francisco, California.

In 2009, Davis was diagnosed with throat and neck cancer and died on July 19, 2012 at age 59. He was survived by his wife, Mimi Raleigh, whom he married in 1991.