Nerf Crotch Bat: The Making of an ‘SNL’ Commercial Parody Classic
“Nonexistent problem, ineffective solution.”
This was the sage advice legendary writer Jim Downey would give to young writers like David Mandel when they were working on commercial parodies for Saturday Night Live. “That was often the key to a great commercial parody,” says Mandel, who wrote on the show from 1992 to 1995 (and would later go on to write for Seinfeld, Veep and Curb Your Enthusiasm). “I loved making the commercial parodies. The chance to go off and make a little film was the opposite of SNL. You could edit it and be precise with it. It was exciting.”
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Mandel got to write a number of commercial parodies during his three-year run on SNL, but his four favorites are below.
That’s Not Yogurt
The premise was simple: It was a guy eating yogurt, and the announcer keeps telling him, “That’s not yogurt,” but he won’t tell him what it is so the person gets very paranoid. It was my pitch, but Downey pushed the idea farther and farther with the main guy, played by Kevin Nealon, going, “No, man, I gotta know, I’m allergic to a lot of things.” The announcer, played by Phil Hartman, goes, “Okay, it’s yogurt… just kidding.” Downey pushed it into an area where the announcer got more and more malicious.
What works about it is that it just seems like a real commercial, which Kevin Nealon and Julia Sweeney are great at. Then, there’s some great acting with them getting more and more nervous. You’re not laughing at them being “funny.” What’s funny is how worried they are.
Philadelphia Action Figures
I loved when we did action figures for the movie Philadelphia. It had little kids playing, saying things like, “You’ve got AIDS, you’re fired!” “No, you’re fired!” and then they’re shooting lasers at each other. The announcer’s like, “There’s gay attorney Andrew Beckett with a flamethrower and launching net action and his longtime companion Miguel with battle armor and dino-buddy!”
One of the little kids asked the director, Jim Signorelli, “So they fired him because of AIDS?” We said, “Yes.” The kid said, “That doesn’t seem right,” and we said, “Yeah, it doesn’t.” Then the kid said, “What’s AIDS?”
Crystal Gravy
In the 1990s, there was this moment where there were all these clear products. Crystal Gravy was, to me, the grossest thing in the world. Why would you want that clear?
We had a fake Van Halen rip-off song called “It’s Now,” and the whole commercial was a very visual thing — just seeing the gravy pour over food. Julia Sweeney takes some with her finger, and it’s thick, clear and gross. I believe Sarah Silverman threw the line in “I can see my meat,” which was such a good line. It’s very of-its-time because the clear thing was a phenomenon back then.
At one point, we tried to do the flip version of that. It was Black 7 Up, aimed at the African-American community. It was just 7 Up that wasn’t clear. It was so stupid. That didn’t fly.
Nerf Crotch Bat
The idea for Nerf Crotch bat came about because, whatever Nerf said their products were — like a Nerf football or a Nerf basketball — all kids were ever doing was hitting each other in the crotch with them. So we thought, “What if Nerf made a product that flat-out said, ‘This is a bat to hit people in the crotch with.’” The joke was the baldness of it.
The incredible thing about Chris Farley was that we’d do these things at a 5 a.m. call on Friday morning, and he could always turn it on. He was pure energy. His enthusiasm is what makes it work. Nobody could do that like him.
To this day, I still have a Nerf Crotch Bat in my collection. I used to have two, but when Nirvana came on in 1993, I got to chat with Dave Grohl and he was a fan of Nerf Crotch Bat so I gave him one. I’m sure he doesn’t have it anymore, but I definitely gave it to him.
