It's part of the nature of sketch comedy that bits are going to be hit-or-miss. What you see in an average episode of Saturday Night Live is a good mix of both – and even that is the result of a week's worth of material from the writers room being culled down. Some ideas don't even make it past the table reads let alone rehearsal, and Sarah Sherman recently shared a story about one of hers that bombed on a special level.
Sherman has been part of the Saturday Night Live cast since 2021 (promoted to being a repertory player in 2023), and many of her contributions end up being episode highlights. During an appearance on Late Night With Seth Meyers, however, she told the story of one of her worst ideas.
Sarah Sherman's Doomed Sketch Involved Her Being A 'Human Instrument'
Offering some insight into her personal creative process, Sarah Sherman said she has a habit of coming up with basic sketch ideas, scribbling them on a napkin, and sharing them via photo with the Saturday Night creatives. In her story, Timothée Chalamet was getting ready to return as host (it's unclear if this was in November 2023 or for his double duty job in January 2025), and Sherman was struck with inspiration that she felt compelled to share with the show's director of animated shorts:
So, I had this idea for a sketch that I scribbled on a napkin, and then I sent it to Leigh McG, our amazing in-house illustrator and animator - give it up for Leigh! Timothée Chalamet was hosting, and I was like, ‘Oh my god, he’s hosted before. He’s like basically my best friend at this point. Obviously he should play me like a human instrument.’
As presented in illustration, the idea was that her body would be covered in various knobs and switches, have a keyboard in her chest, a harp in the nook of her knee, and a triangle hanging from her elbow. The idea was for Timothée Chalamet to parody Keiji Haino – whom Sherman described as one of her "favorite, crazy Japanese noise musicians," and she stayed up late with staff writers writing the sketch thinking that they were spinning gold. The SNL star continued,
So me, Gary Richardson, Will Stephen stay up, I’m going to say ‘til five in the morning, laughing, ‘Ha ha ha.’ Knee slapping. I’m a human instrument, obviously.
Unfortunately, it may be the case that sleep deprivation stopped them from recognizing the disaster that was being crafted.
How It Went At The Table Read
So, how bad did things turn out with the sketch? It was so bad that Sarah Sherman won't even share them name that was conjured for the human instrument that she would have become. With Seth Meyers as a sympathetic ear (he having spent more than a dozen years working on Saturday Night Live), she vaguely explained what else went into the bit before offering a delightful metaphor for the disaster it became. Said Sherman,
I actually can’t tell you the name of the instrument ‘cause it bombed so hard at table that I’m not gonna speak it out loud because I learned my lesson. And then he played me like an instrument and then the noises came out of my mouth. I was like, ‘Honk honk.’ And then Bowen [Yang] would come in and change my batteries by putting batteries in my mouth. And it bombed so hard you could hear butterflies flapping their wings, like, in China.
There's only one word that comes to mind hearing that: oof.
The "Human Instrument" sketch may be remembered as a black spot on Sarah Sherman's record during her time at Saturday Night Live – but the good news is that her disastrous pitch is drowned out in memory thanks to all her other great work on the show, whether it be her comical harassment of Colin Jost or moments of epic grossness.
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