The Hot Hero Sandwich Project: March 2025

by G. Jack Urso

Ken Aymong’s 39-year tenure at Saturday Night Live (1982 – 2021), working his way up from production manager (circa 1981/82), then as associate producer (1986 –1989), and finally as supervising producer (1989/90 – 2021). During this time, Aymong oversaw some of the landmark episodes of the iconic series.

Nevertheless, despite his long career with SNL, one will be hard-pressed to find an interview with Ken Aymong. Any reporter would love to score a few minutes with him to talk about the great casts, legendary performers, controversial guest stars, classic comedy moments, and some of the greatest bands to ever grace a stage anywhere. Ken has the inside track on all the backstage antics and goings-on at SNL that could, no doubt, fill many pages.

Emmy Winners (L - R) : Ken Aymong, Lorne Michaels, Marci Klein and Michael Shoemaker celebrate their Emmys for the “SNL: 25th Anniversary Special” at the 52nd Emmy Awards, Sep. 10, 2000.

(Photo by Bob Riha, Jr./Getty Images)

But I’m not interested in any of that. I’m here to talk Hot Hero Sandwich!

Fortunately, much to my surprise and delight, so was Ken. Hot Hero was his second job as a production administrator at NBC and he retained a lot of fond memories from the experience. In addition to a behind-the-scenes-look at the show, we also get a master’s class in television production. For the Hot Hero Sandwich Project, getting production’s perspective on the show has been a crucial missing component and Ken Aymong’s contribution gives us that piece of the picture. We’re very fortunate to have Ken join us, so let’s get going!

From the collection of Ken Aymong (L – R), his ink stamp to approve invoices, a Hot Hero Sandwich crew sweatshirt, and a lapel pin (photo courtesy of Ken Aymong).

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Hot Hero Sandwich Project (HHSP): First of all, and I hate to ask people's ages, but when you were doing Hot Hero Sandwich how old were you?

Ken Aymong: That's a great question. I guess I was like 29 when I started in television.

HHSP: What were you doing before that?

Ken Aymong: I was, believe it or not, a financial analyst at Random House.

HHSP: Really?

Ken Aymong: Yes.

HHSP: Well, with a financial background, the segue into production makes sense.

Ken Aymong: It would take a long time to tell the story, but the short one is that I had been living in Maryland, I’m from New York, but after I got out of college, I moved down to Ocean City, Maryland, and I had been out of school at that point for like two years . . . maybe three. I was having a wonderful time, but then I decided I had to get going on something. I think was watching Johnny [The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson] or something and I said hey, why not television? You love it. Look into it.

I ended up going back to New York to try and get into television . . . It didn’t work out because it was in the early 70s when the oil embargo was on, so they were letting people go rather than hiring. So, I was very frustrated at the time my father worked for RCA, he said, “Let me help you. I'll try to find you something inside the RCA family,” which turned out to be Random House, which was owned by RCA which also owned NBC. My father suggested if you do well maybe you could transfer, and that’s exactly what happened.

HHSP: So, I guess your bachelor’s degree is in some aspect of business or finance?

Ken Aymong: Yes, it's in economics.

HHSP: I’m guessing that many of your colleagues in the same area also have backgrounds in business and finance.

Ken Aymong: It helps because we were responsible for money on these shows, budgeting, and also the obviously the expenditures and all that, but it was more bookkeeping than anything else. It’s also having a sense of where things are going to.

HHSP: Especially with a show like Hot Hero Sandwich, I suppose. It was a large ensemble cast, lots of guest stars, location shooting, instrument rentals, lots of arrangements, lots of invoices . . . and you were the guy who signed off on all that?

Ken Aymong: I had a stamp that approved these things. After I saw a bill I would put a big Hot Hero stamp on it.

The official Hot Hero Sandwich stamp —likely approved hundreds of thousands of dollars in invoices.

HHSP: You had quite a bit of support. The episode 11 credits list at least six support staff, including Claudia Rocco and Robert Newman, who was the production manager I believe.

Ken Aymong: It was Bob, who was the lead person, and then myself, and I think her name was Nancy Freedman. [Nancy Freedman was another production administrator; Claudia Rocco was their assistant].

HHSP: So, yeah, so big staff to manage all of that with. One interesting side note you shared with me in a previous conversation was that this was your second job, and your first job was with Another World, right? [Note: Another World was a long-running NBC daytime drama.]

Ken Aymong: That’s correct.

Another World title card (1967 — 1981).

HHSP: How long before Hot Hero did you start doing Another World?

Ken Aymong: It was probably in the same year because I was only at Another World for a couple months, three months anyway and then I was asked to come back into the building and work on and work on this variety show. Then I went actually went back to Another World.

HHSP: So, you went back after Hot Hero?

Ken Aymong: That's correct.

HHSP: How did your involvement come about? How did that work out?

Ken Aymong: Do you mean how did I get assigned to that show?

HHSP: Yes. I get the impression from other Hot Heroes who worked in the industry that no one applied to work on a show but were either selected or assigned, would that be correct?

Ken Aymong: Well, in terms of people that got assigned to the show, it was really limited to production management, like myself. Designers were not assigned. Everybody was hired for the project. The writers were all hired for the project. It was really just the production management [that got assigned] part of it. I used to work in a department, I forget what the actual name — production administration, something along those lines — and there were a lot of people, well over, 100 people and were all on an assignment basis and it could be shows that were owned by NBC or it could be somebody that was just leasing NBC facilities. I worked both ways.

The department covered news, sports, and entertainment. You would be assigned a show for roughly a year, in the case of shows like Letterman, Donahue, Another World. Texas, and The Doctors. SNL was like two years because of the complexity involved in it. I ended up doing it for three, and at some point along the way, the company [NBC] decided to not carry the production department any longer and we got assigned to whatever division we were working for at the time. Luckily, I ended up in the entertainment division.

HHSP: And when did you end up with Hot Hero? I’m trying to pin down a more solid start date for production.

Ken Aymong: It was in the Spring of 79.

HHSP: That seems to align with other information I have — by late March of that year.

Ken Aymong: Yeah. This show was being done, as I understood it at the time, it was the UN Year of the Child.

NBC Year of the Child press release referencing Hot Hero Sandwich.

HHSP: Yes, 1979 or 1980 was the UN International Year of the Child. [Previously reported in the article “In Conversation with Talent Agent and Personal Manager Larry Weiss.”]

Ken Aymong: And this show was done as part of that — and had no official relationship with it.

HHSP: Right, that came up during my interview the Hart’s personal manager Larry Weiss. NBC seemed to highlight how child-friendly its programming was during the Year of the Child.

From the NBC Year of the Child programming promotional booklet.

Ken Aymong: It was done not on behalf of the Year of the Child, but I guess as sort of celebration of it . . . but it had no relationship to the UN whatsoever. The company [NBC] decided this would be one of the things that they would do to celebrate the year, and as I understood it from the beginning, it was only a one year — one season thing. Originally scheduled was thirteen episodes and I think we ended up doing eleven.

HHSP: Yes, because it got so expensive, as Sherry Coben and Patrick McMahon told me [writer and film editor for Hot Hero Sandwich]. That definitely anticipates my next question about whether a second season was even ever a possibility.

Ken Aymong: That’s what I understood it to be and that’s what it turned out to be.

HHSP: Of course, some of the actors hoped for a second season if the ratings were there.

Ken Aymong: You never know.

HHSP: You never know . . . one thing I want to toss out there I came across in my research, in a Jan. 18, 1980, article in The New York Times, Fred Silverman, then president of NBC, praised the show and then a week later the last episode was aired on Jan. 26. Some people took from that that NBC still had thoughts about the future of the show. I think from the network’s perspective they were just hedging their bets until the very last minute. It was so long ago, but I wonder did you have any interaction with Fred Silverman on this point?

New York Times article, Jan. 18, 1980, by Les Brown quoting NBC President Fred Silverman’s defense of his network’s quality children’s programming, citing Hot Hero Sandwich as an example.

The show aired its last episode a week later.

Ken Aymong: No, I really didn't. Thinking back on it, I always understood it to be just a one season thing. There could have been other machinations happening behind the scenes, but I was not aware of it. It was never suggested to me that it might be continuing on.

HHSP: From the interviews I've done, there were a variety of opinions from the band, cast, and writers. Some thought it was to be just a one-season deal . . . some had hopes for more, of course. There does seem to have been a couple different stories floating about though. I have to wonder what they were told when they were signed up.

Ken Aymong: I don't have access to those kinds of contracts, obviously, anymore — not even sure where they would be. That would be the tell-tale [sign] because a lot of writer, performer, director, contracts have options for subsequent seasons.

Hart to Hart

HHSP: OK, shifting gears. One thing I’m trying to do is get a better idea of who Bruce and Carole Hart were professionally, and as individuals, and usually these things come out in little anecdotes about interactions you may have had with them.

Ken Aymong: Well, they were both lovely people. I mean, I really liked them both and ended up staying more in touch with Carole after the show. I think I heard from her probably like two or three years after that at one point and then so every so often we would chat, but that was about it. They were really wonderful people to deal with, and they were very demanding in regards to the producers, as evidenced by what they came up with. Those interviews with kids and turning those things into animation — the idea behind the interviews that were done — they were really incredible people. [Note: See Animated Short Films — The Fantastic World of Jerry Lieberman.]

I think they were more “writerly” types . . . and I've never met a writer in my life that was ever satisfied with what they were doing.

HHSP: Oh, boy, is that right!

Ken Aymong: So, there were certain elements of that. It was a tough show . . . from a production standpoint. If I remember correctly, we were only in the studio [Studio 8-H] four weeks.

HHSP: There probably wasn’t very much time between the end of Saturday Night Live’s previous season and rehearsals for the next.

Ken Aymong: HHS went into production after the SNL season had ended. So, the studio was available and we go in and do a like a week of taping and then another three or four taping weeks with the writing weeks between each week of studio production.

HHSP: Between the actors, the band, the writers, the guests, the network, it must have been a lot for the Harts to manage — particularly over a relatively short period of time.

Ken Aymong: They were really great to work with. They were very supportive of everybody that was there. It always a pretty good work environment.

HHSP: Hot Hero, in terms of production, is a pretty dense show — sketches, guest performers, the band, animation, the short film segments. I look at a segment and think about all the invoices involved for accommodations, travel, meals, equipment leasing . . .

Ken Aymong: On that level, it was very much SNL.

HHSP: Yes, exactly where I’m going.

Ken Aymong: HHS really was SNL for kids with several other unique element. There were sketches, music, celebrity interviews with Tom Cottle, and animated segments with kids talking about their dreams.

Dr. Tom Cottle interview segment with LeVar Burton followed by an animated segment set to “Have You Seen the Stars Tonite” by the Jefferson Starship.

HHSP: Yes. I thought he was really modeling the perfect way of doing these types of interviews.

Ken Aymong: Tom had a great rhythm to it . . . he would start by making the interviewee comfortable and then guided them back to their teenage years.

HHSP: We discussed his interviewing techniques in his interview with the project. I learned a lot, actually. He was great about doing an interview. I think I took him and many of the others I’ve interviewed off-guard because they really didn’t think anyone would ask them about the show again.

Ken Aymong: I feel the same way.

Long Days, the Carnegie Deli, McDonalds, and I’ve Got Your Number

HHSP: There was so much to do within the short time of SNL’s summer hiatus for SNL on Studio 8-H, the pressure must have been intense.

Ken Aymong: It was rough on the cast. The production schedule, even though it was only four weeks, or whatever it was, they were a really rough four weeks.

HHSP: Yeah. Every cast member I spoke with confirmed the long days. A 12-hour day would be considered a short day.

Ken Aymong: Oh, absolutely. Our studio productions schedules regularly went beyond the scheduled finish. We had a guy on the crew came to us one night because we had been bringing in the Carnegie Deli every night and asked could we bring in McDonald's for a change.

HHSP: [laughter] That’s seems like a very stage crew thing to do! Speaking of whom . . . as a side note, I was going through some old Hot Hero call sheets or productions schedules, [courtesy of show writer Marianne Meyer] and there was a phone number for Studio 8-H right at the bottom of the sheet. After 45 years, I figure it probably goes to a pizza joint somewhere, but I got to try it. I call the number, and a staffer in a gruff voice answers, “8-H!” It was the control room phone! I panicked and hung up. After nearly five decades they still haven’t changed the phone numbers!

Ken Aymong: The control room. I know the number well. It’s still there.

HHSP: So, I have to be careful about what documents I post, but yeah, they still haven't changed the number.

Ken Aymong: That's funny. No, it hasn't changed at all.

Music from the Mountain — Felix Pappalardi

HHSP: Alright, shifting gears now, I’d like to talk about Hot Hero’s resident Rock God Felix Pappalardi.

Ken Aymong: That was a dream come true when he got when he ended up being hired.

HHSP: I know from Claudia Rocco that you shared the office suite with him, correct?

Ken Aymong: He was in the office right next to me, yeah.

HHSP: And I know from talking with the Hot Hero band, the recording sessions were late night.

Ken Aymong: Yeah, they were evening sessions at an outside facility.

HHSP: I’m trying to get the feel for his schedule and it seems like he must have been putting in some very long days.

Ken Aymong: He was a very dedicated guy when he took the project on. I mean, just look at the albums he produced previous to Hot Hero. I mean, the fact that he did those two Cream albums [Disraeli Gears (1967) and Wheels of Fire (1968)]. Like, he was my hero coming in. I couldn’t wait to meet him.

Creem album covers (L - R): Disraeli Gears (1967) and Wheels of Fire (1968).

HHSP: And you ended up in the office next to his! It’s been a while, but do you have any recollections of any interactions with him?

Ken Aymong: You know, I used to just look at him and, you know, and wistfully say under my breath, “Rock 'n Roll star.” He brought in both Jimmy Biondolillo and Tony Fiore — a wonderful group of people.

HHSP: The band and others who worked with him I’ve spoken to all speak highly of him.

Ken Aymong: He was a very generous person. Actually, he went over to Manny's with me and helped me pick out my brother's first guitar. [Note: Manny’s Music was a musical instrument store in Midtown Manhattan.]

The original, now long-gone Manny’s Musical Instruments in Midtown Manhattan.

HHSP: Oh, really? That’s was so awesome of him to do!

Ken Aymong: Oh yeah. Then, he beat Manny over the head trying to get a better price and all that. It was so much fun to watch . . . There were several of them lined up on 48th St. all gone.

HHSP: Living outside the city, it’s one of those places I heard about, but never experienced.

Ken Aymong: Yeah, it was one of those kinds of places . . . are you familiar with Norman’s Rare Guitars? [Note: Another legendary guitar store, located in Los Angeles.]

HHSP: Oh, sure!

Ken Aymong: It was a very similar environment where people used to go, of course looking to buy things, but there were also as many people there just hanging out as well. They [Manny’s] were smaller certainly than Norman’s Rare Guitars, but it still had that same vibe.

It was a great street. I wish I could remember the names of the other places. Manny's I think had like two or three shops. One drums, guitars, the other was keyboards or something like that.

HHSP: That Felix took time out of a very busy schedule to help out someone he recently met is an aspect of his character we don’t really hear much of. Of course, whenever his name is brought up, what happened to him is always in the background.

[Note: Pappalardi was shot by his wife Gail, his co-producer and co-writer on several albums and songs, in a domestic incident in 1983.]

Gail did her time and from what I read ended up in Mexico where she passed away ten or fifteen years ago [in 2013].

Ken Aymong: She was tough.

HHSP: Yes . . . that seems to be a quality often noted about her in the press. Still, at the same time she made significant contributions to rock in her own right.

Felix Pappalardi and Gail Collins shortly before their marriage May 30, 1969.

Ken Aymong: Oh, absolutely. . . . I didn’t know much about their personal lives, though it didn’t seem like they were on the same page . . . I think musically they probably were.

HHSP: Felix is just so much of the sound of the show, I have to discuss this at some level, but the whole ending is just so tragic.

Ken Aymong: That was a tough loss. I’m not saying we were in touch every week, but every month or anything like that, but every so often we would get in touch with each other and that kind of thing . . . and I was nobody . . . just being on his radar was an honor. He treated us nobodies like you were the only person in the room.

HHSP: Right . . . those qualities about him are the kind of things I’d like to highlight. When these tragedies happen, the person sort of gets stuck in time at that moment and that’s all people remember. We don’t know what he would have become.

Ken Aymong: No, I mean, I would like to hear the stories of what he had done up to that point, because there's not much really out there.

Hot Hero Van Go

HHSP: Between the sketches, the stage props, the musical guests, and such a large ensemble of cast and crew, as producer, did any odd requests for purchases come across your desk? It was a long time ago, so a shot in the dark, but does anything come to mind?

Ken Aymong: I really don’t recall. What I do remember was how well it prepared me to work on SNL. It was very much the reactive environment, Prior to going into a production week we had an idea what we're going to be doing, obviously, because we had things built and all that, but once we got past that stage it became rather fluid in terms of what we would do. I remember, on a week that we would be in the studio, or we leading up to going into the studio, Bob and I [Robert Newman, Supervising Production Administrator] used to stay very late every single day because we just want to stay on top of what might be coming our way.

As the writing evolved we had to react to what is going to be produced and figure out how to accomplish what we were being asked to produce.

The Hot Hero van, a VW Microbus, in the opening credits.

HHSP: OK, now this is a bit of an odd piece of trivia, and it involves the Hot Hero van, the multi-colored, classic VW Bus seen in the opening credits. Michael Longfield [credited on screen as L. Michael Craig], in his interview with me, reports that there was a plan to cut the van in two and move it up a freight elevator and get it onto Studio 8-H, but for whatever reason, they decided not to go forward with idea. That seems like a lot of work. Was something like this even possible?

Ken Aymong: Yeah, we did it a number of times on SNL.

HHSP: Really?

Ken Aymong: Usually you could get away with a small car cutting in half, but sometimes had to be cut in thirds and then you'd also have to build a rack that you could move that those elements of the car around . . . you couldn’t just pick it up and carry it anywhere. So, that was a big deal, and then we get these cars . . . well, they were junk yards, really. For the most part, people that had been in terrible accidents, stuff like that. If the car was in reasonable shape, we could get it taken apart, remove the motor and build a rack for it so it would also to fit in the freight elevator.

HHSP: So, there’s some truth to that after all.

Ken Aymong: Absolutely, absolutely, but I don't ever remember the Hot Hero van being in that studio.

HHSP: There may have been talks about it, but I looked through all available footage and I didn’t see it. Paul O’Keefe, in his interview with me, said it was “fun to drive,” but honestly, it looked like it had seen much better days.

Ken Aymong: A little long in the tooth, yeah.

The Big Picture [Tube]

HHSP: In retrospect, and knowing how much else you’ve done, where does Hot Hero Sandwich fit in?

Ken Aymong: I'll tell you this in in many, many, many ways it was the best thing that ever happened to me. Because like I said, it was the second show that I was ever on. The demands of production was something of a throwback to early television in many respects. The pace of production was very fast with a lot of moving parts. Even the leeway of a fair amount of pre-production prior to each studio week, we became adept at reacting to every curve thrown our way. I came out of that show with a lot of confidence.

I remember when I first got assigned . . . I did Another World then Hot Hero and then back to Another World and then started up a second soap, and worked on both, that was called Texas [1980-1982].

I was involved in the startup of that show. That was a really interesting experience. It only lasted, I think, two years. That’s where I met my wife, Harriet, as well — and then I went to Saturday Night.

HHSP: Would you say because of the similarities between the two concepts of the shows it helped prepare you for SNL?

Ken Aymong: I understood what “reactive mode” was! [laughter] You know, over the years for me, the script is always a great starting point and dissecting that, I mean, you really learned how to do it. Between that and soap operas like that — it's such a shame that there aren’t more soap operas around nowadays because we used to, even on SNL, we've looked for people that had done scripted television for cameras, and all that kind of thing, because that's just a different sensibility. All of these shows were multi-camera shows, some pre—recorded, and others produced live.

Hot Hero lapel pin.

If you were doing a soap opera and kind of light on experience, everything was at your disposal within the environment you’re in. When I did these shows, the writers were available to you at any time. Obviously, I could go sit with the technical director, which I used to do. I used to sit with the lighting director for a couple of days. I would with audio for a couple of days. I would get the director’s script at the end of a taping day and then the next day I would get the VHS of the show put together and then I would go shot by shot, going through those shows to try to get an idea of what the methodology was there. Not that I wanted to do it, but I wanted to know what the thought process was in terms of how you would shoot — whatever it is — but the point being production design is there, costume design is there, the sound effects, music. It's all there, every single element . . . and if you can't come out of the soap opera really knowing how to do television it's your fault.

HHSP: [laughter]

Ken Aymong: It really is because that means you just didn't go after it.

HHSP: Because of all the different elements . . .

Ken Aymong: And obviously it wasn't hard to do — it’s all there.

HHSP: That is a master class in television production and, I think, a perfect place to wrap up. Thank you so much for your time and filling in more of Hot Hero picture for us.

Ken Aymong: Thanks so much Jack.

Saturday Night Live’s Colin Jost says goodbye to Ken Aymong on the Oct. 2, 2021, episode.

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Concluding Thoughts

Ken Aymong gives The Hot Hero Sandwich Project more insight into the production process and the challenges in bringing the show to air. With such a diversity of elements, from sketch comedy to guest music performers, animation, short films, location shooting, and production on one of the world’s most famous stages in Studio 8-H during a short-term hiatus from one of the most iconic television series, Saturday Night Live, combined with his work in soap operas, Aymong got a crash course at the graduate level in television production — experiences that led him back to Studio 8-H and Saturday Night Live.

Aymong’s experience reinforces how Hot Hero Sandwich served, for a brief time, as a nexus point for new and emerging talent from the cast, film editing, music, production, sound engineering, to the writing. Backed up by a technical and stage crew honed by five years of production on Studio 8-H for Saturday Night Live, Hot Hero Sandwich benefited by this coincidental collaboration for a production that was in many ways both of its time and ahead of its time at the same time.

Special thanks to Ken Aymong for his kind and enthusiastic participation with The Hot Hero Sandwich Project, as well as to his former production administration assistant Claudia Rocco for transferring one more call to her old boss and helping make this interview happen!

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Friday, March 14, 2025

Welcome to the Show!

In Conversation with Production Administrator Ken Aymong