Christine Zander

Christine Zander joined the 1986 season of Saturday Night Live along with other famous comedy writers such as Kevin Nealon and Phil Hartman. The first sketch Zander was able to get on the air starred Bill Murray as the one night stand of cast member Jan Hooks.[1] During her time there, she worked closely with Nora Dunn on various sketches.[1] When Dunn left the show, she became very close with Julia Sweeney, helping her craft sketches for the famous character “Pat,” an androgynous and cripplingly awkward boss.[4] Zander and Sweeney later collaborated on a fictional biography for the character, It’s Pat! My Life Exposed, which was published by Hyperion in September 1992. Her favorite sketches to write on the show were “Pat,” “Attitudes” starring John Malcovich, and “Their Eyes Evolved to Be on Their Breasts,” which involved women who developed eyes on their breasts so as to better meet the male gaze.[1]

When Zander joined the staff of Saturday Night Live, she and Rosie Shuster were the only two females on the writing staff.[1] In 1992 Zander told the New York Times,

“If you don't have a lot of women to bounce ideas off or back you up it can get a little crazy around here. None of the men are individually sexist; it's just hard for them to have faith in something from a woman's point of view."[5]

Dunn, Zander, and cast member Jan Hooks developed a sketch about two female party singers called “The Sweeney Sisters.” Dunn recalls the sketch being ignored by the male-dominated writing staff.[6]

Zander began working as a producer and writer of the NBC sitcom 3rd Rock from the Sun in 1996. The sitcom followed a group of extraterrestrials sent to Earth to investigate human society, and it starred famous actors John Lithgow and Joseph Gordon-Levitt.[7] The show was fairly popular; its ratings ranked 22nd in the 1995 television season and 27th in the 1996 season. Zander eventually became executive producer of the series in 1999 and remained at that position until the show’s end in 2001.