Five Times Tim Meadows Showed Up for Two Minutes and Stole the Show
Tim Meadows was hands down one of the greatest performers in the history of Saturday Night Live, giving us iconic characters such as The Ladies Man, Lionel Osbourne (the host of Perspectives), and of course, Topless Bible Salesman #2.
In his post-SNL career, Meadows has routinely appeared in movies and TV shows, often in supporting roles. This week he’s guesting on the new Peacock mystery series Poker Face, possibly as some sort of murderer… or murderee… or maybe Natasha Lyonne simply orders a Bible from a bare-chested stranger. Regardless, we’re excited, because Meadows has a habit of stealing every scene he’s in, as evidenced in…
‘Mean Girls’
Despite cinema’s long tradition of casting super-square lamewads as high school principals in teen comedies, Meadows’ Mr. Duvall from Mean Girls somehow came away with many of the movie’s funniest lines (“I will keep you here until four!”). He even reprised the role for Mean Girls 2, a movie that somehow exists.
‘Brooklyn Nine-Nine’
When Jake Peralta is framed and forced to do hard time in Season Five, his cellmate is Meadows’ character Caleb, who happens to be the world’s most affable cannibal. Meadows also returned later in Season Five and got to go full Silence of the Lambs.
‘Detroiters’
When Sam and Tim are in need of an attorney, they hire Walt Worsch who… well, he tries his best. But all of Walt’s simmering confidence comes to life when rocking out about “April in the D” for a Fox Sports contest that actually existed. Easily the worst/best TV attorney since Barry Zuckerkorn.
‘Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping’
The low-key best part of Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping is Meadows’ performance as Connor4Real’s manager Harry; whether he’s threatening to eat the head of his rapper client Hunter the Hungry…
…or recounting the turbulent musical history of his old band Tony! Toni! Toné! Tonee?, which split up over creative differences/an exclamation point.
‘Walk Hard’
Speaking of beloved biographical music parodies, Meadows also gets the best line of any music biopic ever, parody or otherwise: “Dewey Cox has to think about his entire life before he plays.” He also created Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story’s most meme-worthy moment, routinely dabbling in drugs backstage and telling Dewey that he doesn’t want any “of this s**t.”
But unfortunately, Dewey would still fall under addiction’s spell, and even more unfortunately, he would never once pay for drugs. Not once.
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