It's probably tough to recall today, but Saturday Night Live actually used to be funny. No really. It's true. My friends and I would quote the usual suspects -- Hanz and Franz, the Church Lady, Wayne and Garth -- but my favorite quotes came from the lesser-known skits.
To this day, I still find myself throwing out these quotes, even though I know that the likelihood of someone understanding them is slimmer than Lindsay Lohan's waistline. Whenever anyone does recognize these quotes, it puts a smile on my face, like finding another member of a long lost secret club. So in hopes getting a couple more people in this world onto my SNL wavelength, here's some of my favorite obscure quotes from the show:
"Bad idea jeans..."
This is one of the more well-known obscure quotes (is that an oxymoron? probably). Just so you can visualize a "bad idea jeans moment", the last time I used this was when my friend's 3-year-old daughter started running around the edge of a fountain and tried to jump across it. Bad idea jeans indeed.
This quote came from a parody of the jeans commercials that would run in that era. It was a bunch of people saying ridiculous quotes like "Now that I have kids, I feel a lot better having a gun in the house" followed by a graphic that read "BAD IDEA". The final scene involved a group of geeky white guys in jeans challenging a group of very gigantic, very angry looking black dudes to a game of hoops yelling, "Let's bet these guys! A hundred bucks.. make that two hundred! Two hundred bucks!" A classic.
Read a transcript of the BAD IDEA JEANS sketch.
"It was much better than cats, I would see it again and again"
This is far and away my favorite obscure quote. I often use it when asked for my opinion on a movie or TV show, and to date only 3 people have recognized it. For the other 2,343 people who didn't, well... too bad for you.
The premise was that viewers of a brand-new Broadway show were being interviewed as they left the theater, and every single one of them gave the quote above in a very robotic and monotone voice. After about 4 of these "ringing" endorsements, it was revealed that the new Broadway show was a hypnotist. I know, not really that funny, but I like saying the quote anyway.
"They didn't change the recipe like they said they were going to! It's still people!! "
This comes from a parody of the cult movie classic Soylent Green. It had Phil Hartman playing Charlton Heston by mocking Heston's melodramatic over-the-top acting style. I've never actually seen the movie, but here's what I gathered by watching the sketch -- in the future, the world is completely over-populated and people are starving due to lack of food. The government creates a special food called Soylent Green and feeds the masses. The twist? "Soylent Green is made from people... PEOPLE!!!" This sketch was supposed to be a sequel of Soylent Green and it ended with Hartman yelling "Soylent Green is still made out of people! They didn't change the recipe like they said they were going to! It's still people!! " as the *new* movie twist. The only thing that made this sketch memorable was the way Hartman yelled his lines. Ask me to do it one day, you'll see what I mean.
Read a transcript of the SOYLENT GREEN sketch.
"Soapy water? Soapy water was the first thing I tried. Then it was the 7th thing I tried. then it was the 24th thing I tried. Soapy water? Soapy water..."
This comes from a Rob Lowe sketch called "Helmet Head", which involved a guy who came back from the war and somehow got his helmet permanently stuck to his head. The whole plot line is just people trying to pry the helmet loose. When someone suggests he tries soapy water, Lowe looks incredulous and says the quote just before collapsing into a full sob. When would I use this quote in real life? Usually as I'm washing my hands, naturally.
"My name is Schmee. I'm a magic bee!"
This comes from one of the few sketches Chris Rock was allowed to take part in. As a side note, it still shocks me to see what a big star Chris Rock has become today given how minimal his role was in SNL. They totally wasted his talent while he was on that show. Oh well. In any case, Rock played a little boy who had an imaginary friend -- Chris Farley in a bee costume. I remember nothing else about the sketch except Farley prancing around repeating the quote above. It's just fun to say, don't you think?
Got any favorites that I missed? Let me know!
5 comments:
I still use the "cats" quote all the time! but there are so many....
"in a van.... DOWN BY THE RIVER", "Making Copies...", "you cheeky monkey", "insn't that special", "like buttah.... talk amongst yourselves", "you are a gurly man".
Of course, you can go back even further: "Oh tay", and "C-I-L-L my landlord".
wow, you caught the "cats" quote? awesome! i tried to focus on quotes people didn't use much from SNL. i even left out "i'm just a caveman... you're world frightens and confuses me" and "i am lothar of the hill people" just because they actually had recurring sketches and thus by definition are not really that obscure.
Wow, I thought I was a fan of the Phil Hartman/Dana Carvey era as well, but I guess I can't even claim that, because I don't remember these skits you describe. But they do sound funny! (I do remember dnak's quotes though.)
Also I think this blog entry is the rude awakening that BK and Todd needed. Thanks.
The thing about SNL is that everyone loves to remember how it USED to be funny. Believe me, the nature of sketch comedy is that it's hit or miss.
I love watching it all, but when people say today SNL is unfunny and cite the "good ol' days", I bite my tongue.
Do yourself a favor and get a hold of some old, FULL episodes and enjoy the splendor that is live sketch comedy. When it works, it's great and when it doesn't, I still like it, but I bet it's not as funny as you remember.
Finally, I can remember when people thought the skits you're naming were lame and wished for those days of yore when Belushi's and Akroyd's roamed the earth. Believe me, there's just as many misses from that incarnation, but no one remembers the bad stuff, except for maybe what I like to call (with apologies to Tim Kazurinsky) the Kazurinsky years.
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