Less than two months before the tragic death of Chris Farley, the actor and comedian returned to the place that made him a household name. Chris Farley was one of the youngest stars hired for Saturday Night Live and in 1997 he came back to host it. Robert Smigel, probably most known for the animation he created on SNL also wrote several of the show’s most memorable sketches. Of course, not everything he wrote made it to air, but we now have a look at one of the sketches that Farley could have done when he hosted the show.
Smigel recently appeared on the Inside Late Night podcast and, while the writer said “I may regret this,” he read out the entire sketch that saw Chris Farley play then talk show host Rosie O’Donnell. At least, that’s where the sketch started. After a minute the sketch would go meta, Smigel said that Farley…
Suddenly tears off his wig and disgust and yells, ‘Damn it! I suck! Can’t do Rosie O’Donnell. Sorry, I’m sorry. Gee!’ Lorne enters. ‘What the hell’s going on, Chris?’ ‘I’m sorry, I have no idea how she sounds. I can’t.’ ‘Chris, we spent a fortune on this set and that costume because you said you could do Rosie. Now what are we going to do?’ ‘Oh, God, oh God… Look, I’ll do someone else. Who’s fat?’
From this Farley came out in an entirely different wig, though otherwise looking like Rosie, and claimed he was now Marlon Brando. But Farley would stop again, claiming he couldn’t remember how to be Brando. Lorne Michaels and Tracy Morgan would then come out and start to brainstorm the names of fat celebrities trying to figure out who Chris should try to be. The sketch would then shift to focus on Farley, and he would begin singing…
Chris sings. ‘Why must I always be the fat guy?’ .... ‘Why must I dance the fatty dance? There’s a whole world of thin people that I could play, if you’ll only give me half a chance.’
Chris would sing about all the thin celebrities he could play, with images of Farley costumed as them appearing as if from his imagination. The audience would, of course, love this, ultimately making the “sketch” a hit, and Lorne Michaels happy. Smigel explained the point of the sketch saying…
I was basically, obviously what I was doing was making a comment on how Chris is being exploited for being fat and that I mean honestly, that’s 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 well’ over and over and over and then creating just this absurd joke that he can play Jennifer Aniston or whoever Richard Gere, which he obviously couldn’t, but it was not, you know, it could easily be misinterpreted as saying all Chris can do is be fat guys, but I don’t think that was the point.
Chris Farley is one of the biggest stars to come from SNL but he was frequently “the fat guy” in roles that he played both on SNL and in film. Farley’s friend Bob Odenkirk, who also wrote on SNL during Farley’s original tenure has lamented that fact, especially criticizing the Chippendale sketch Farley did with Patrick Swayze, possibly the most well-known sketch Farley was in. Smigel himself has specifically defended that sketch, saying it wasn’t simply about a “fat guy” wanting to be an exotic dancer, but showed off Farley’s ability to move, something most probably wouldn’t expect he’d be able to do, and that was the joke.
This sketch seems like it would have covered similar ground. Maybe it wasn’t a sketch ”about” Chris Farley’s size, but it could easily be interpreted as poking fun at that alone. It sounds like that possibility was at least part of the reason the sketch didn’t it to air. Maybe it’s a lost masterpiece. More than likely it’s best as a memory that we never saw.
A biopic about Chris Farley is on the way, and we can be sure that the film will deal with the comedian's size and the way it was used, or misused to get a laugh. Perhaps even this sketch could make an appearance.
