Bobby Moynihan on ‘Saturday Night Live’s ‘Guy Fieri's Full Throttle Christmas Special’
After a handful of appearances as Guy Fieri on Weekend Update, Bobby Moynihan took the impression to a whole new level on a December 2013 episode of SNL. The pre-taped fake Food Network promo began with Moynihan’s Fieri cackling like a madman while promoting “Guy Fieri’s Full Throttle Christmas Special,” co-hosted by Kid Rock (Brooks Wheelan), who enters via chimney.
Fieri/Moynihan then goes on to name-drop an insane parade of early 2010s reality TV personalities as the special’s guest stars — Criss Angel, Bret Michaels, Dog the Bounty Hunter, Big Ang from Mob Wives, the casts of Duck Dynasty and Pawn Stars — as well as, for no reason whatsoever, Verne Troyer and Mimi from The Drew Carey Show.
The promo also features the most insane Guy Fieri-like Christmas recipes imaginable, such as a stocking filled with bean dip and “Straight Cake” — as opposed to fruit cake — made from bacon and Matchbox cars.
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The sketch is a head-spinning two-and-a-half minutes of hilarious gags, and here to break it down is Moynihan himself, who also gets into his friendship with the real Guy Fieri.
My Kind of Guy
On my very first episode of SNL, Michael Phelps was the host, and William Shatner was in the audience as part of the monologue. It was supposed to be Barack Obama, but he backed out at the last minute and we got Shatner instead. Shatner stands up, says his line and sitting next to him is Guy Fieri. I’m looking at the monitor going, “Is that Guy Fieri? Is he in the show?” But he doesn’t say anything, he’s just in the audience.
Then I’m at the after-party talking to Chevy Chase when I feel a punch to my chest. I’m wondering, “Who feels this familiar with me?” and it’s Guy Fieri. He says, “Dude! I’m Guy Fieri! I was at the show tonight! I’m a huge fan!” One of the writers saw that and said, “You have to play him.”
We kept trying to get it on, but Guy Fieri wasn’t in Lorne Michaels’ world — I don’t think he knew who he was. But one day, I was walking down the hallway and Lorne said, “I saw Guy Fieri in the cab in a TGI Fridays commercial. You can do it.”
How to Be This Kind of Guy
There are people on SNL — like Phil Hartman and Jay Pharoah — who are excellent mimics. I’m not that kind of guy. I go for loud Italian vibes — Snooki, Guy Fieri; it’s more energy for me. For Guy, I thought it was funny that he wore sunglasses wrong. It was just fun to make fun of him. But now, somehow, I make videos for his kids on their birthday.
Yes, Guy Fieri reached out after I played him a few times, and we became friendly. We talk all the time. He’s done my podcast a couple of times. He’s really nice, friendly and funny. He wanted to be on SNL as a cast member before he was a chef.
Guy Fieri’s Full Throttle Christmas Special
“Guy Fieri's Full Throttle Christmas Special” was one of those weird, three in the morning things. I was talking to Brooks Wheelan, and we were like, “Let’s write something.” It started out with “How do we get Kid Rock on?” Then it turned into “I wonder if Kid Rock and Guy Fieri could do a Christmas thing?” It turned into a Christmas special at Guy Fieri’s house, and Kid Rock is coming down the chimney — we thought that was funny.
We had John Goodman as host, and somebody said John Goodman claimed he could do a funny Dog the Bounty Hunter. That’s where it started with the special guests. Then Kate McKinnon said she wanted to play Big Ang. The Duck Dynasty guys were played by Kings of Leon, the musical guest that week. They came up with the bit — a harmonized Christmas song. As for Mimi, it just felt like she should be there.
We shot the entire thing, but then they called and said, “There’s been a horrible accident. The digital cards that had all the footage got erased.” We had to bring everyone back, including John Goodman, and put them back in costume. All that stuff had to be re-shot. And it was like four hours just to do the Pawn Stars thing where I’m all four Pawn Stars. There was heavy makeup for each one of those guys for a two-second second shot. I was there until 10 in the morning on Saturday.
When we showed it during dress, it was like a five-minute thing, but we had to hack it to pieces to get it down to two-and-a-half minutes. Brooks, who wrote so much of it, ended up with one line, and during the broadcast, the audio crapped out during it. The sketch came out great, though; it’s one of the things I’m most proud of.
Guy loved that sketch too. It was that thing where, yeah, SNL made fun of you, but that’s a pretty cool thing — Guy always understood the gravity of that.
