The Naked Truth Behind ‘SNL’s Topless Martha Stewart Promo
At first glance, “Martha Stewart’s Home for the Holidays” appeared to be a promo for a regular Martha Stewart special — until the subtitle popped up that read, “Topless Christmas Special.” From there, Stewart did a variety of normal, Martha Stewart-type things, like setting a holiday table and making beeswax candles. The only difference was that she was nude from the waist up, with a black censor bar covering her breasts.
Starring Ana Gasteyer as Stewart, “Martha Stewart’s Home for the Holidays: Topless Christmas Special,” is one of SNL’s most beloved holiday sketches. It was co-written by Gasteyer and writer Norm Hiscock, the latter of whom recently jumped on the phone with me to talk about the making of a true holiday classic.
‘I’ll Do It If She’s Topless’
The way the sketch began was that Ana Gasteyer was looking to do a sketch with Martha Stewart. She had previously done one live in the studio, but I didn’t want to do that. I wanted to do a tape-thing. I preferred that because I liked the control of the edits, whereas, you’re flying by the seat of your pants when live. The idea became a promo for a Christmas special, and we were trying to figure out the twist on it. Then I blurted out, “I’ll do it if she’s topless!” (Head writer) Adam McKay loved it and said, “Go write that up.”
It took Ana a while to wrap her head around it, but once we sat down and wrote it, she really got onboard. Ana is a very good writer; she’s very meticulous and detailed. Each little part, we’d really think about the hook and get it down. We didn’t have to write much, though, because it wasn’t a seven-minute sketch, it was just a promo.
‘Do We Blur the Breasts?’
We talked a lot about “Do we blur the breasts? Do we put a black bar over them?” I thought the black bar was fun because it was a bit crude. Ana wore a slim, skin-colored band during the taping. Lorne Michaels was worried about how we were going to execute it, but I told him, “We’re going to be fine.” I wasn’t there when Lorne watched it, but Mike Shoemaker told me later that he was doubled over and thought it was really funny.
‘I Feel Like This Is the Perfect Moment to Have a Boy’s Choir Sitting Around Her’
It was more fun not to call attention to it, just to have her do all these normal Martha Stewart things. One of the only real jokes we had was when they were going to cut down a Christmas tree, and Jim Breuer, who was cutting down her Christmas tree, was walking next to her, just staring. That’s the only time we called attention to it, but we thought, “Maybe a guy who was cutting trees for a living might do that.”
There was also the cutoff sweater, which was an Ana joke. We did a version where we pulled out with the camera, and one where we jumped out. The slow pull-out seemed funnier. There was also the part where she was joined by the boy’s choir. Tim Herlihy pitched that in the rewrite room, saying, “I feel like this is the perfect moment to have a boy’s choir sitting around her,” and we all laughed.
Finally, at the end, we had her dancing because we figured, “We’d played it so straight, why not have a bit of fun at the end?”