Lorne Michaels Planned to Bring Back a Controversial Sketch for ‘SNL50’
Saturday Night Live’s 50th anniversary special featured a number of recognizable characters from the show’s history, including Kate McKinnon’s frequently-probed Miss Rafferty and the recent viral star Domingo. But SNL50 also dusted off several less-obvious sketches that most viewers weren’t expecting to see, including “Black Jeopardy” and “The Lawrence Welk Show.”
And now we’ve learned that Lorne Michaels came surprisingly close to bringing back one of the show’s ickiest sketches.
In the newest episode of The Lonely Island and Seth Meyers Podcast, the hosts discussed working with future Five-Timers Club inductee Paul Rudd when he hosted the show for the very first time back in 2008. In addition to starring in a Digital Short involving nude paintings and horrific violence, Rudd also starred in the first of many “Kissing Family” sketches.
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In the original sketch, Rudd plays a college student who brings his friend (Samberg) home to meet his parents. It quickly becomes clear that the Vogelcheck family are extremely close, and extremely into smooching each other. Noticing the Samberg’s character’s discomfort, the patriarch (played by Fred Armisen) launches into a monologue about how his grandfather came to America in search of a country where “they wouldn’t punish people who are affectionate and kissy with their families,” before proudly proclaiming, “We’re Vogelchecks.”
The Vogelchecks were brought back on several other occasions, passionately kissing each other during Thanksgiving dinner, Christmas and even at a funeral.
Some viewers love “Kissing Family” and even complained when Rudd didn’t revive the sketch when he hosted the show in 2019. Others have blasted it as SNL’s “most awkward” and “grossest” sketch.
One of the sketch’s biggest fans, it would seem, is Michaels. “I think maybe the line that made Lorne laugh the most, every time he heard it, was the end of a ‘Kissing Family,’” Meyers explained, “where Fred would do his long run, and the way he said (‘We’re Vogelchecks’) would make Lorne, like, go off.”
According to Meyers, Michaels was such a fan of the sketch’s punchline, that he wanted to include the sketch in the anniversary special. “Lorne even told me like a month before the 50th, he’s like, ‘You know, I’m thinking maybe a Kissing Family because you know, then you have, ‘Because we’re Vogelchecks,’” the comedian recalled. “And it’s a great line. But I always want to say to Lorne, ‘You know, that’s not, like ‘Isn't that special?’’” Meyers said, referring to the Church Lady’s far more memorable catchphrase.
Considering that a number of people in attendance at SNL50 became ill as the result of what Steve Martin called the “SNL 50th COVID curse,” it’s probably for the best that none of the show’s sketches called for guest stars and cast members to literally exchange bodily fluids with one another.
