Questlove’s Ladies & Gentlemen … 50 Years of SNL Music is much more than a simple greatest hits collection from all the musical acts that have performed on the stage at Studio 8H. He certainly includes many of the highlights, from the inspirational to the controversial to the blow-the-doors-off moments that are forever carved into pop culture memory. But the movie goes further than that.
Through interviews and archival footage, the director examines the very nature of music in a comedy show and demonstrates time and time again that the two fields are not all that different. In addition to musical performances, we get plenty of skits that are drawn from the world of music.
Some contained no music at all like Mick Jagger talking to his mirror reflection (played by Jimmy Fallon) in a 2001 skit. Other featured full-on musical performances such as Fred Armisen’s glorious "Punk Band Reunion at the Wedding" skit from 2010 (with Dave Grohl on drums). Then there was the seemingly endless supply of Lonely Island music videos from Andy Samberg, Akiva Schaffer, and Jorma Taccone, which became a staple from 2005 on.
Saturday Night Live's ode to 50 years of music missed some key performances
With so much material to choose from, it is understandable that a lot of moments didn’t make the final cut. Still, with the door open on the nexus of music and comedy, I found it surprising that several legendary music/comedy skits weren’t mentioned. So I’m going to correct that omission with the following five times SNL struck gold by exploring the link between music and comedy.
“King Tut” – 1978
“I’d like to talk seriously just for a moment…” That’s how Steve Martin, dressed in Halloween costume-level ancient Egyptian garb and bathed in low-key light, began one of SNL's most famous skits from its first several seasons. Picking up on the media explosion surrounding the Treasures of Tutankhamun exhibit in the late ‘70s, Martin lamented the commercialization of the event.
He was presenting a song he wrote with “the ancient modalities and melodies” to restore dignity to the historical figure.
Then he proceeded to do three minutes in front of a costumed band and two dancing girls that contained such immortal lines as “Could have won a Grammy – Buried in his jammies” and “He gave his life for tourism.” It is all performed with the comedian's iconic grinning and mugging for the camera. When the dancers open the doors of an upright coffin and a gold-tinted Blue Lou Marini steps out to play a sax solo, it is comedy gold as well.
“Derek Stevens Audition” – 1986
How’s this for an intro to a national audience? On Dana Carvey’s very first appearance as a cast member on SNL, he used one of his audition pieces in a skit with Phil Hartman and show host Sigourney Weaver. The skit was called “Derek Stevens Audition” based on the character Carvey is playing. But it would forever come to be known as “Choppin’ Broccoli.”
Carvey employs an exaggerated Mick Jagger accent as Stevens, a one-time popular musician who has been derailed by the kinds of things that always seem to derail rock stars. But now he’s clean and sober and ready to reveal his new material to record label execs, Weaver and Hartman. The only problem is that he has not prepared anything. So he sits at the piano and wings it.
His first song is “The Lady I Know,” It begins with the genius lyric, “There’s a lady I know – If I didn’t know her, she’d be the lady I didn’t know.” He then chronicles her day as she goes to the market and buys broccoli.
The remainder of the song is Carvey doing various riffs on the phrase “choppin’ broccoli” for an initially bewildered, but eventually enthusiastic Weaver and Hartman. Carvey actually does some other material, but none of it is memorable. Typical of an SNL skit, it didn’t know when to drop the curtain. But we’ll always remember choppin’ broccoli.
“More Cowbell” – 2000
Toward the end of a late April show in 2000, host Christopher Walken uttered what would become among the most famous two words ever associated with SNL. As music producer Bruce Dickinson, he demanded “more cowbell.”
Will Ferrell was banging on the cowbell as part of the Blue Oyster Cult during the recording of their huge hit single “Don’t Fear the Reaper.” The rest of the band, played by Chris Parnell, Chris Kattan, Horatio Sanz and Jimmy Fallon aren’t sold on Ferrell’s aggressive playing but Walken keeps reassuring them. “I’ve got a fever and the only prescription is more cowbell.”
Fallon breaks virtually every time he has to deliver a line but Walken is dynamite. He has never been funnier. He later told Ferrell that the skit ruined his life because he could never escape fans asking if he wanted more cowbell.
“National Anthem” – 2006
Maya Rudolph has used her outstanding singing voice to create a lot of glorious comedy. The most memorable skit came when she portrayed Pamela Bell, the St Louis resident who won a local competition sponsored by grocery chain Schnucks and got to sing the National Anthem prior to a World Series game. She is introduced by Jason Sudeikis and Bill Hader. She waves to the crowd, a goofy grin in place.
Then we get a tour-de-force of four minutes of every exaggerated wannabe diva ever seen. It takes her more than ten seconds to sing “O say can you see,” and it only gets crazier from there. Some lines are completely unintelligible. Some are belted out like Ma Rainey while others are Daffy Duck.
There’s a faux British accent one moment, and then a snippet of “Take Me Out to the Ballgame.” The occasional cutaways to Sudeikis and Hader’s bewildered reactions add to the fun.
“Make Your Own Kind of Music” – 2023
Chloe Troast was only an SNL cast member for one season, but before she left, she teamed up with guest host Emma Stone for this memorable moment. Drawing from the same well as “More Cowbell,” the skit supposes there is some surviving footage from the 1969 recording session when Mama Cass recorded her Top 40 hit “Make Your Own Kind of Music.”
Instead of Walken’s Bruce Dickinson, this time we get Stone as frizzy-haired, cigarette-smoking Mitch Lester, who “knows a hit when he hears one.” He proceeds to explain to Mama Cass that this song will disappear for a long time but will come roaring back to life as a soundtrack for countless violent movies – scenes in which the heroine decides to take a stand and fight back.
Initially, the artist is appalled, but eventually, she buys into the conceit. Stone’s extraordinarily committed performance puts the skits over the top, but Troast’s spot-on Mama Cass makes it even more special.
These are all appropriately famous, but it’s still hard to blame Questlove for omitting them. With Belushi and Ackroyd as Blues Brothers, and with Piscopo and Murphy as Frank and Stevie, and with Gilda as some creature in the ballpark of Patti Smith, there was just too much material to include it all.