The six degrees of Kate Flannery: From improv to 'The Office' to 'Dancing with the Stars'

Like so many household names in comedy who hoped for a shot on "Saturday Night Live" early in their careers, Kate Flannery has a Lorne Michaels story. It was 1991 and she was living in Chicago and performing with Second City's touring company and in a show at the Annoyance called "The Miss Vagina Pageant."

Michaels, "SNL's" executive producer, was in town looking for new talent. "So we actually had to do a special showing of 'The Miss Vagina Pageant' for him," Flannery said. "He came with Quincy Jones, which was crazy."

The next day Michaels took four members of the cast out to lunch. "It was a lot of questions about family and, I don't know, it was very surreal. And I remember at one point we were at Navy Pier and a Paul Simon song came on and he said, 'Oh, this is Paul.' And I was like, 'What?' because I forgot that he was friends with Paul Simon (laughs). Then I had to submit a tape and I was told I was too similar to Julia