Robert Smigel Reveals The Lost Chris Farley Sketch That Called Out ‘SNL’ And Lorne Michaels for All the Fat Jokes
Despite his assigned role as the resident fat guy on Saturday Night Live, Chris Farley was a lot more than just a walking, talking, cartwheeling visual gag.
In the decades since Farley died of a drug overdose on December 18, 1997, the comedy legend’s contemporaries have had plenty of time to examine Farley’s oeuvre and come to their own conclusions about what his immaculate work on SNL meant for him as an artist and as a person. During Farley’s heyday in the 1990s, the greater comedy community still had a callous sense of humor when it came to performers of Farley’s size, and SNL cast members and writers from Farley’s era have since fiercely criticized the show for placing Farley in a compulsory position as the literal butt of the joke in sketches such as the enduringly popular but currently controversial “Chippendales Audition.”
Specifically, Bob Odenkirk has expressed anger at how SNL effectively forced Farley to embrace being laughed at instead of laughed with, and Chris Rock once went so far as to claim that the aforementioned sketch featuring a shirtless Farley dancing next to Patrick Swayze’s chiseled torso was “one of the things that killed him.”
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Sadly, almost all of the discussion regarding SNL’s constant fat jokes at Farley’s expense and their effect on the comedian’s psyche has happened without Farley. However, leading up to Farley’s final appearance on SNL on October 25, 1997, legendary SNL writer Robert Smigel tried to get the show and its imposing producer Lorne Michaels to offer Farley a meta mea culpa in the form of a sketch wherein Smigel dissected Farley’s typecasting on the series and exposed the exploitation of its portly powerhouse.
The sketch in question never made it to Saturday night, but on a recent episode of the Inside Late Night podcast, Smigel hesitantly read the original script, word for word, admitting, “I may regret this.”
In the sketch, which would take place on the set of The Rosie O'Donnell Show, Farley would begin the scene by playing the titular overweight talk show host before abruptly dropping the character after a cartwheel and a half-hearted impression, declaring that he simply can’t do O'Donnell. Then, Michaels, playing himself, would walk out onto the stage and demand that Farley find another “fat” celebrity to play, specifying that Farley’s new choice for impersonation would have to be “as fat as you.”
Next, a frantic Farley would put on a hackneyed Marlon Brando impression and attempt to resume the scene with a new main character, but, after another cartwheel, the star would again drop the act and plead with Michaels to change the scene. The SNL producer would call in for backup, barking out, “Get me the fat Black guy,” referencing Tracy Morgan, before walking it back, ”Sorry, the fat African-American guy.” Michaels would make Morgan assist in thinking of a new fat celebrity for Farley to play, using increasingly dehumanizing language about his star and host.
Finally, the scene would shift into Farley’s inner thoughts as Michaels’ hurtful words echoed in his head, and the star would break out into a sad song about how he just wants to do a celebrity impression that isn’t centered around fatness, singing, “I can do a wicked Pee-wee Herman / I can play a delicious Richard Gere / Ah, but no one will see my Dan Marino / Just because my belly goes out to here.”
At the end of the sketch, Farley and Michaels would hug as the latter told Morgan, “You eat some bonbons.”
Smigel’s sketch, however, didn’t even make it to dress rehearsals, and SNL elected to just have Farley reprise his role as Matt Foley in what would be his final appearance on the show. To be clear, Smigel doesn’t think that the cut was unjust, as he explained, “When I heard Lorne say, ‘Where’s the fat Black guy?’ I remember being at read-through and feeling uncomfortable. Even though I called — I had Chris call him out on being crude, I felt uncomfortable even just making Lorne say it at read through.” Though, Smigel added, “But there it is. It made me laugh at the time. And it’s making me laugh, maybe not for the right reasons now.”
“Obviously what I was doing was making a comment on how Chris is being exploited for being fat. I mean honestly, that’s what I’m getting out of reading this is that it’s mocking the show and the comedy world for just going to ‘the fat guy fell’ over and over and over,” Smigel said of the sketch on Inside Late Night. But he did admit that the message could have been muddled if the sketch made it to airtime. “It could easily be misinterpreted as saying all Chris can do is be fat guys, but I don’t think that was the point.”
“I can’t believe I just read that for you,” Smigel said of the long-forgotten script to his interviewer.
While SNL has since moved on from the kind of body humor that complicate the legacy of its incredible run in the 1990s, it’s ultimately tragic that Farley never got his moment onstage to reflect on the show’s treatment of his “type.” In a 1996 interview, Farley said of the “fat guy fell” humor that typified his time on SNL, “Although I love this kind of comedy, sometimes I feel trapped by always having to be the most outrageous guy in the room,” adding, “In particular, I’m working on trying not to be that guy in my private life.”
But Michaels will probably never have to atone for how the type of humor he pushed on SNL may have affected one of the greatest talents in the show’s history. After all, you can’t make the boss man uncomfortable. God forbid someone makes a short joke about the bigwig.
