SNL’s Late-Night Cameos
A “cameo” is a brief, unbilled appearance by a famous individual in a film or a TV show who is usually instantly recognizable to the audience. One of Saturday Night Live’s predecessors, Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In (1967–1973), featured weekly cameos by an eclectic roster of movie stars and entertainers. The show’s second season opener in September 1968 included cameos by John Wayne, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Jack Lemmon, Bob Hope, and the undisputed king of comedy himself, President Richard Nixon, who uttered the show’s most famous catchphrase in the form of a question: “Sock it to me?” Check it out on YouTube.
Saturday Night Live has featured cameos by actors, models, athletes, and politicians, along with an occasional appearance by a famous person whose name is more recognizable than his or her face.
ABDUL, Paula (23.20, 30.18): The former Laker Girl turned Grammy- and Emmy-winning singer/choreographer made her first appearance on SNL when Spartan cheerleaders Arianna and Craig (Cheri Oteri and Will Ferrell) attended Paula Abdul’s Cheerleading Camp (23.30). Seven years later, she returned (30.18) during her American Idol (2002–present) judging days to introduce a sketch about the current scandal involving Abdul (Amy Poehler) and Idol contestant Corey Clarke (Finesse Mitchell). At the end of the sketch, Abdul gives Poehler and her costars, Chris Parnell (as Simon Cowell) and Kenan Thompson (as Randy Jackson), a few notes on their performances before opening the show with “Live from New York, it’s Saturday Night!”
ARMANI, Giorgio (18.12): On January 21, 1993, the day after his inauguration, President Bill Clinton and First Lady Hillary Clinton revived a presidential tradition and greeted two thousand citizens selected by lottery in the Diplomatic Reception Room of the White House. In a cold opening (18.12), the Clintons (Phil Hartman and Jan Hooks) meet several crazy visitors, including an Italian, who turns out to be Italian prime minister Giuliano Amato, played by famous fashion designer Giorgio Armani.
BARROWS, Sydney Biddle (13.5): “I ran the wrong kind of business, but I did it with integrity,” Sydney Biddle Barrows admitted to journalist Marian Christy in a 1986 interview with the Boston Globe. Barrows (under the pseudonym Sheila Devin) ran a high-class Manhattan escort service, which is only illegal if the women are having sex in exchange for money (and they were). When the Cachet Escort service got busted in 1984, she became an overnight celebrity and was dubbed “The Mayflower Madam” (Barrows was from a prominent Philadelphia family whose ancestors came over on the Mayflower). Her appearance on SNL (13.5) with guest host Candice Bergen coincided with the premiere of the 1987 made-for-TV movie based on her memoir, Mayflower Madam, with Bergen in the title role. Barrows serves as the narrator of the real story of the first Thanksgiving—a “celebration of whoremongering”—in which the original Mayflower Madam, Priscilla Biddle Barrows (Candice Bergen), throws a dinner party to introduce the Indians to the female pilgrims.
BURNETT, Carol (10.13): “One of the reasons why we’re in this business is right here,” says host Harry Anderson (10.13), who brings a surprised Carol Burnett, who is sitting in the front row, up onstage. The audience applauds wildly as Anderson and the cast wave goodbye. Burnett also gives her signature tug on her ear, which was her way of telling her grandmother who raised her that she was well and that she loved her.
BURROUGHS, William (7.5): In season 7, SNL tried to regain some of its counterculture edge with an appearance by writer William Burroughs (7.5), who, looking like an old time newscaster, sat behind a metal desk and read excerpts from two of his novels, Naked Lunch and Nova Express (see chapter 8).
BUTTAFUOCO, Joey (20.6): Buttafuoco’s fifteen minutes of fame were sparked by his affair with a minor, Amy Fisher (dubbed “The Long Island Lolita”), who, in 1992, shot Buttafuoco’s wife, Mary Jo, leaving her deaf in one ear and her face partially paralyzed. The story and the subsequent trial of Fisher made headlines around the country. Fisher served seven years in prison; Buttafuoco served several months in jail for statutory rape.
In November 1994, host John Turturro (20.6) was starring at the time in the film Quiz Show (1994). Turturro plays Herbert Stempel, a contestant on the NBC quiz show 21, who was fed the answers and then forced to throw the game in favor of a more popular contestant, the handsome Charles Van Doren. Stempel eventually blew the whistle that set the whole scandal in motion. To be chosen as host of the show, Turturro is required during his monologue to answer a series of questions (for example, fill in the blank: “It’s ____ to be here hosting Saturday Night Live!”). Otherwise, Buttafuoco, who has been watching backstage, will be allowed to host.
To our relief, Turturro answers the final question (fill in the blank: “Lorne Michaels is a ________”) with some help from Michaels, who has been feeding Turturro the answers from the control room. Buttafuoco is certain the game is rigged and storms off. Or maybe he just suddenly remembered that two years earlier, an episode of SNL (18.10) included not one, but three parodies of the Buttafuoco-Fisher scandal: Aaron Spelling’s Amy Fisher 10516, a made-for-TV movie starring Tori Spelling (Melanie Hutsell) as Fisher and host Danny DeVito as Buttafuoco; Amy Fisher: One Messed-Up Bitch, with an all-black cast that included Jackée Harry (Ellen Cleghorne) as Fisher and Tim Meadows as Buttafuoco; and a Masterpiece Theatre version, The House of Buttafuoco, with Julia Sweeney as Fisher.
CAGE, Nicolas: Andy Samberg first impersonated actor Nicolas Cage on a parody of The View (35.5) before making recurring appearances on Weekend Update in a segment called “In the Cage,” in which the actor talks to fellow thespians about their craft and their recent film. Samberg as Cage interviews Jake Gyllenhaal (36.18), Bradley Cooper (36.22), Jude Law (37.10), and Liam Neeson (37.21), and after discussing their latest movie, Cage/Samberg always asks the same question, “How am I not in that movie?” At one point he is joined in the cage by Cage himself (37.14), who explains that his dream as an actor is to appear in every film ever released, which made it necessary to clone himself. Like all the other actors who stepped “into the cage,” he also plugs his latest film, in this case Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance (2012). Proving he’s a good sport who can laugh at his own on-screen persona, Cage explains that the film has the “two key qualities of a classic Nic Cage action film: All the dialogue is either whispered or screamed and everything in the movie is on fire.” Samberg also imitated Cage in an earlier sketch in which he competes against Jude Law for the role of Hamlet (35.17), though Jimmy Fallon was the first to impersonate the action star as a contestant on Celebrity Jeopardy! (24.16). Cage hosted the show back in September 1992 (18.1) with his Moonstruck (1987) costar Cher making a cameo.
CAMERON, James (24.10, 35.12): Director James Cameron shows he has a sense of humor about his own work when he introduces (24.10) the “original ending” of his 1997 blockbuster Titanic, in which Rose (Cheri Oteri) finishes telling her story to treasure hunter Brock Lovett (guest host Bill Paxton, who played the role in the film) and his crew. Only they’ve grown impatient and are really only interested in the Heart of the Ocean necklace. When she admits that she was never on the ship, they start to rough her up. With his latest blockbuster, Avatar (2009), breaking box-office records, Cameron returned in 2010 (35.12) to help Bill Hader and Andy Samberg pitch James Cameron’s Laser Cats, with Sigourney Weaver playing “Ripley,” her role in Alien (1979), to Lorne Michaels. Once again, Michaels tells them to all get out of his office. In 2012, Michaels had a similar response to Steven Spielberg’s pitch for Laser Cats 7 (37.19).
CHRISTIE, Chris (38.8): The governor of New Jersey made a surprise appearance on Weekend Update (38.8) to give a status report on the cleanup efforts following Hurricane Sandy. He gives anchor Seth Meyers a little Jersey attitude and jokes about never taking off his signature fleece pullover with his name and title on it, which he wore throughout the hurricane.
CHUCKY (24.3): In what is perhaps one of SNL’s most unexpected cameos, Chucky, star of the Child’s Play horror franchise, gives an editorial on Weekend Update defending President Clinton, who at the time was preparing for his impeachment defense. Chucky also pulls a knife on anchor Colin Quinn and is hauled off the set, only to return at the end when host Lucy Lawless says her good nights.
GANDOLFINI, James (30.1): In his only appearance on SNL, the late, great actor demonstrates why he would have made a terrific guest host. Identified only as a “New Jersey Resident,” Gandolfini gives an editorial on Weekend Update about New Jersey governor Jim McGreevey’s announcement that he is gay and resigning over his involvement with a staffer. Gandolfini explains that McGreevey is a fanook (a derogatory slang term for “gay” used by wise guys) and had an affair—“big deal”—but the mistake he made was putting him on the payroll. As he continues to make offensive remarks, anchor Tina Fey repeatedly interrupts him, which ticks him off. When he’s finished, he tells anchor Amy Poehler it was nice to meet her “and the mouthy one [indicating Fey]—I’m not so sure.”
HASSELHOFF, David (20.6): Here’s a good example of how far SNL would sometimes go for a laugh. When Norm Macdonald hosted Weekend Update, one of the running jokes concerned actor/singer David Hasselhoff’s popularity in Germany, which would end with the line: “Which once again proves my theory: Germans love David Hasselhoff!” What Macdonald is saying is in fact true. In between his two hit television shows, Knight Rider (1982–1986) and Baywatch (1989–2001), Hasselhoff’s 1988 recording of “Looking for Freedom” held onto the number-one spot on the West Germany pop charts for eight weeks from March 31 to May 19, 1989 (the song was originally recorded in 1978 by German singer Marc Seaberg). He performed the song, about a rich man’s son who leaves his hometown and goes off on his own looking for freedom, at the Berlin Wall on New Year’s Eve, 1989. In his appearance on Weekend Update (20.6), he gives an update on his recent world tour and names all of the countries he’s been—only Germany is not on the list. When Hasselhoff is asked about how much Germans love him, he’s modest, forcing Macdonald to write “Germans love me” on a piece of paper and ask him to read it out loud (which he does). Macdonald thanks him and Hasselhoff bids the audience, “Auf Wiedersehen.”
JEWELL, Richard (23.1): One of the show’s most unusual cameos was an appearance by former security guard Richard Jewell, who discovered the pipe bomb at Centennial Olympic Park during the 1996 Summer Olympic Games in Atlanta and was later suspected of planting it so he would look like a hero. Several newspaper and television news networks reported that Jewell was a “person of interest,” and although he was never charged, his home was searched and he was put under surveillance. The real bomber, Eric Robert Rudolph, was caught and eventually took responsibility for the attack along with several others. Meanwhile, Jewell filed lawsuits against the New York Post, NBC, and CNN, which settled out of court. Afterwards, Jewell made an appearance on Weekend Update during which he is questioned by anchor Norm Macdonald, who suspects he was also involved in the deaths of Lady Di and Mother Teresa.
Apparently Macdonald was not happy that he had to share the Weekend Update desk with Jewell. “He was creepy,” Macdonald told Mark Seliger of Rolling Stone. “What the hell did he ever do? Not bomb something?”
KUHN, Maggie (1.8): The fight for racial equality that began in the 1950s with the civil rights movement in the United States gave birth to the women’s rights movement in the late 1960s and the gay and lesbian rights movement in the 1970s. Another war waged in the early 1970s was against age-ism, and its leader was sixty-seven-year-old Margaret Kuhn, founder of a movement known as the Gray Panthers. As Eleanor Blau reported in a 1972 New York Times article on the Panthers, the group’s goal is to “liberate the old.” Since their inception, the organization tackled common problems faced by retirees in the areas of health care, civil rights, jobs and economic security, and sustainability. Kuhn made a brief appearance on SNL’s first Christmas show hosted by Candice Bergen (1.8), who asks Ms. Kuhn if she could give us anything for Christmas, what would you choose. Ms. Kuhn obviously came prepared. Her “give” list includes changing the way people think about old people, and the fear of getting old (Bergen admits she is). She would also like to give everyone who has “copped out” and given up a “big shot in the arm of courage and guts to be involved, to get to work and heal this sick old world of ours.” She ends with a “Gray Panther” sign-off—with her fist in the air, she shouts, “Off your asses!”
LEWINSKY, Monica (24.18): Lewinsky was the former White House intern whose affair with President Bill Clinton became the biggest political scandal of the decade. Clinton’s denial that he engaged in “sexual relations” with Ms. Lewinsky led to his impeachment on two charges (perjury in regard to his testimony on his relationship with Lewinsky and Paula Jones and obstruction of justice in the Jones case). The House of Representatives voted to impeach Clinton, who was acquitted of all charges on February 12, 1999, by a Senate vote (a two-thirds majority was needed to convict). From the moment the story broke to the Senate trial, SNL had a field day with the scandal with a series of sketches that reenacted such events as the conversations between Monica (Molly Shannon) and her former confidante, Linda Tripp (played by John Goodman in drag) (23.12, 24.7), who recorded their conversations, which she handed over to independent counsel Kenneth Starr.
It was only a matter of time before Lewinsky would appear on SNL, though Michaels had the good sense to wait until May 8, 1999, about three months after the Senate vote was taken. The episode opens with a dream sequence in which Clinton imagines his postpresidential life in Malibu with his “old lady”—Lewinsky (who opens the show with “Live from New York”). Later in the episode, Lewinsky is a guest on The Ladies Man with Leon Phillips. She answers callers’ questions and gives advice about affairs with people at work (“First, people around the office start gossiping, and the next thing you know, your face is all over Arabic newspapers”) and phone sex (“If you do it, don’t tell anybody about it”). They also take a call from Linda Tripp (John Goodman in a cameo), who asks for Lewinsky’s forgiveness. She flatly refuses and seemed to be relishing the opportunity to say it on national television. As for Tripp, she told Larry King in an interview that she “laughed hysterically” at John Goodman’s imitation of her, but admitted her feelings were hurt over the most recent sketch (in which NBC’s Linda Gangel [Ana Gasteyer] interviews Tripp, “the most hated person in America” [24.13]). A compilation of the sketches aired on February 27, 1999, under the title Saturday Night Live: Best of the Clinton Scandal. Excerpts from the sketches were published in book form that same year under the title SNL Presents: The Clinton Years.
LIBERACE (10.15): For over three decades (1962–1993), talk show host Joe Franklin was a fixture on New York television. The Joe Franklin Show, which aired on WWOR-TV (Channel 9), gave its legendary host a chance to share his extensive knowledge of show business and movie trivia while chatting with everyone from the famous to the relatively obscure. Billy Crystal impersonated the legendary talker in parodies of The Joe Franklin Show. In one episode (10.15), Franklin is joined by songwriter Irving Cohen (Martin Short), a Hispanic ventriloquist (Christopher Guest), and the real Liberace, who looks a little unsure why he’s there. When Liberace died two years later, in 1987, Phil Hartman appeared in a cold opening in which Liberace is wearing angel’s wings and playing in heaven (12.11). The following week, the cold opening once again features Liberace (Hartman), who is being interviewed by Robin Leach on Afterlife Styles of the Rich and Famous (12.12). More recently, Fred Armisen has portrayed Liberace in a series of parodies of 1950s holidays specials hosted by Vincent Price (Bill Hader) in celebration of Halloween (34.6, 36.5), Valentine’s Day (34.16), and Christmas (35.10).
NICHOLSON, Jack (23.9, 33.3): Academy Award–winning actor Jack Nicholson’s television appearances are limited to awards shows, so it was a genuine surprise when he made two appearances on the main stage of Studio 8H. The first was in 1997 (23.9). During her monologue, guest host Helen Hunt, who was promoting her new film, As Good as It Gets (for which she and costar Nicholson won Oscars), is interrupted by cast members, who all come out and do their lousy Jack Nicholson imitations. When the real Jack Nicholson appears, Jim Breuer asks him what he thinks of his imitation, and Nicholson responds with the famous line from A Few Good Men: “You want to know the truth? You can’t handle the truth!” He later pops up in a sketch as Hunt’s husband. Ten seasons later (33.3), Nicholson appeared without warning during the goodnights to introduce Bon Jovi, who closed the show with “Who Says You Can’t Go Home?”
OBAMA, Barack (33.4): Senator and Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama made a surprise appearance on SNL on November 3, 2007, in the cold opening set at a Halloween costume party in the Westchester County home of Bill and Hillary Clinton (Darrell Hammond and Amy Poehler). The guest list includes senators and politicians who are vying to be Hillary Clinton’s vice-presidential running mate for the 2008 election (Joe Biden and Chris Dodd are dressed like Spongebob Squarepants twins). The guest in a Barack Obama mask turns out to be the future president himself, who gets to open the show with a “Live from New York, it’s Saturday Night!”
PELLER, Clara (9.17): Eighty-two-year-old Clara Peller became one of the most famous faces on television in the 1980s when she asked the question “Where’s the beef?” on commercials for the fast-food chain Wendy’s (the question was posed to Wendy’s competitors, whose burgers were skimpy on the beef). Peller appeared on SNL in a commercial parody pitching a line of frozen dinners suited for those living below the poverty line. The commercial begins with Dad (played by host and former Democratic presidential candidate George McGovern) coming home after a long hard day of hopeless job hunting and is disgusted that they have to eat surplus cheese-loaf for the eighteenth day in a row. His wife (Mary Gross) asks how a welfare mother is supposed to plan a menu on $11 a day? Then Ronald Reagan (Joe Piscopo) appears to introduce America to White House Foods’ new collection of “starvation-level cooking from around the Third World.” The selections include “Curried Fish Heads and Bread Crusts,” “Dead Pigeons with Paint Chips,” and “African Dirt Pie.” Peller appears at the very end of the question to ask, “Where the beef?”
RENO, Janet (22.12): Will Ferrell tapped into a small part of his feminine side to play United States attorney general Janet Reno in a sketch, Janet Reno’s Dance Party, a teenage dance party show broadcast from her basement. In the first Dance Party sketch, Ferrell/Reno is joined by Secretary of Health and Human Services Donna Shalala (Kevin Spacey) and President Bill Clinton (Darrell Hammond) (22.12). On January 20, 2001, the day President Clinton’s successor, George W. Bush, was sworn in as the 43rd President of the United States, Reno (26.10) appeared alongside her impersonator in the final episode of Dance Party. After some reminiscing and a surprise visit from Clinton (Hammond), the real Janet Reno, wearing an identical blue dress and pearls as Ferrell, breaks through the wall and joins her impersonator in a final dance. In a 2001 interview with Playboy’s David Rensin, Ferrell credited his wife Viveca for the suggestion that he impersonate Reno because she was around the same height as Ferrell, who is 6'3". “Somebody’s always going to do the president and probably the vice president,” Ferrell explained, “but there’s no reason to do Reno. It’s creating something out of nowhere.”
RUBIN, Jerry (1.2): Former Yippie leader Jerry Rubin was one of the seven protestors known as “The Chicago Seven,” who led the protests against President Johnson’s policies in the Vietnam War at the 1968 Democratic National Convention. Five of the seven were found guilty of crossing state lines with the intent to incite a riot—a violation of antiriot provisions of the Civil Rights Act of 1968. Their convictions were reversed by an appeals court. Seven years later, Rubin appeared in the second episode of SNL in a commercial parody for the Berkeley Collection (by Chemstro)—three kinds of vinyl acrylic-coated wallpaper covered with graffiti and slogans from the 1960s: “The Dissident” (it contains slogans like “Legalize Abortion” and “Death to U.S. Imperialist Warmongers”), “The Peacemaker” (“Flower Power,” “Get Out of Vietnam,” etc.), and “The Digger” (“Free Bobby Seale,” “Free Angela Davis”). This commercial was repeated when President Gerald Ford’s press secretary, Ron Nessen, hosted the show (1.17), for which the president did a filmed cameo, so it was likely he would be watching (see chapter 15). By the 1980s, Rubin traded his tie-dyed T-shirts in for a suit and tie and became a successful entrepreneur. The man who once told young people to “never trust anyone under 30” died in 1994 at the age of fifty-six when he was fatally injured while jaywalking in the Westwood section of Los Angeles.
SCORSESE, Martin: Director Scorsese is not exactly known for his sense of humor. When one of his films ventures into comedic territory, like The King of Comedy (1983) and After Hours (1985), his dark sensibility still prevails. Scorsese first appeared as a guest (17.6) on The Chris Farley Show, though Farley isn’t smart enough to ask his guest any in-depth questions (though to his credit, he gets Scorsese to do a little of De Niro’s “You talkin’ to me?” speech from Taxi Driver [1981]). The following season he made an appearance backstage with Robert De Niro when their buddy Joe Pesci is hosting (18.3). In his third appearance, Scorsese is taken hostage by Admiral General Aladeen, played by Sacha Baron Cohen, who is promoting his film The Dictator (2012). With the help of electroshock, Aladeen gets the director to endorse his movie. The Cohen-Scorsese connection stems from Cohen’s appearance in Scorsese’s latest film, Hugo (2011).
SHEINDLIN, Judge Judy (24.3): Judge Judy is one of the more entertaining TV courtroom shows, and Cheri Oteri’s impersonation of TV’s most popular judge emphasizes her impatience with the plaintiffs and defendants who appear in her courtroom, especially when they get out of line or, even worse, when she suspects they are lying (“Don’t pee on my shoe and tell me it’s raining, sir!”). In one sketch, just as Oteri as Judy is about to rule, the real Judge Judy Sheindlin makes a surprise visit, tells Oteri to get her “bony ass” out of her chair, and rules in favor of the plaintiff.
SISKEL, Gene and EBERT, Roger (8.1, 9.1): Chicago movie critics Gene Siskel (of the Chicago Tribune) and Roger Ebert (of the Chicago Sun-Times) were television stars themselves with their own weekly review show, At the Movies (retitled Siskel & Ebert), when they made their first of three appearances on SNL (8.1). They appeared at the end of the show to provide their honest reviews of three of the sketches we just watched. Ebert found a televangelist sketch to be a “tired and clichéd reworking on an ancient old satirical target.” Siskel thought a sketch about white liberals and angry blacks worked because of Eddie Murphy. The duo also later appeared on one of SNL’s early specials, SNL Film Festival (3/2/85), a compilation of the best shorts and commercials from past seasons.
STONE, Oliver (34.5): Josh Brolin hosted the show in October 2008 to promote his new film, W (2008), Oliver Stone’s biopic of President George W. Bush. During his monologue, while Brolin talks about how he prepared for the role, Stone stands up from the audience and reminds him to tell people it opened this weekend and give the name of the film. The same show marked the appearance of Republican vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin, who, in her book Going Rogue, revealed she is not a fan of the director: “Unbelievably, he is a supporter of Communist dictator Hugo Chavez [President of Venezuela] who in a 2006 speech to the United Nations referred to the president of the United States [George W. Bush] as ‘the devil himself.’” Knowing where Stone stands, one wonders if he even extended his hand to her.
Coffee Talk host Linda Richman (Mike Myers, seated left), Liz Rosenberg (Madonna, seated center), and her mother (Roseanne, seated right) get a surprise visit from Barbra Joan Streisand (17.14).
NBC/Photofest © NBC
STREISAND, Barbra (17.14): In February 1992, Coffee Talk hostess Linda Richman (Mike Myers in drag), joined by her mother (guest host Roseanne) and Liz Rosenberg (surprise guest Madonna), were all verklempt when they received a surprise visit from Barbra Joan Streisand (17.14). Linda Richman repaid the favor when Myers appeared onstage as Richmond in the second act of the opening of Streisand’s 1994 tour on New Year’s Eve, December 31, 1993, at the opening of the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. Myers brought along his then-wife Robin and her mother, on whom the character of Linda Richman was based, to meet Streisand in person. In between SNL and Vegas, Myers did an impersonation of Streisand singing a few bars of “People” at Clinton’s 1992 Inaugural Gala (18.11) and again later that year as one of a long line of artists recording a song with Frank Sinatra for his album Duets (19.6).
WAHLBERG, Mark (34.5): Actor Mark Wahlberg is another good sport because they don’t just go after him, they also go after his mom. Although October 18, 2008 (34.5) is best remembered for an appearance by the real Sarah Palin (or better yet, Adele, who sang “Chasing Pavements” and “Cold Shoulders”), it also featured a cameo by Mark Wahlberg. His appearance was prompted by Andy Samberg’s impression of him in a sketch entitled “Mark Wahlberg Talks to the Animals.” This was not the first time an SNL cast member imitated the actor with the heavy Boston accent. Adam Sandler played him as one of Sassy magazine’s “Sassiest Boys” (18.12), as well as his brother Donnie as one of the New Kids on the Block in a spoof of The Arsenio Hall Show (17.13). As played by Jim Breuer, Mark Wahlberg later turned up as a guest on The Robin Byrd Show (23.5), with Cheri Oteri as the porn star turned cable access host.
Samberg’s rendition of Wahlberg is less conventional. He walks through a farm set in the studio and stops to talk to a dog (“I like your fur, that looks great”), a donkey (“You eat apples, right? I produce Entourage”), a chicken (“How’s it hangin’?”), and a goat (“I like your beard. I had a beard like that in The Perfect Storm”). He punctuates each conversation with: “Say hi to your mom for me, all right?” The following week (34.5), Wahlberg confronts a nervous Samberg. Their conversation gets interrupted by Amy Poehler, host Josh Brolin, and a donkey—and he talks to each one just like Samberg in the sketch (including “Say hi to your mom for me, all right?,” though he includes “stepmom” for Brolin [his dad is married to Barbra Streisand]). Samberg promises not to do it again, and the two even “hug it out” à la Entourage.
But Samberg breaks his promise later in the season when Samberg’s Wahlberg is sitting in the audience during How I Met Your Mother star Neil Patrick Harris’s monologue (34.12), which gives him the opportunity to make “Hey, you know how I met your mother?” jokes, and again in “Mark Wahlberg Talks to the Christmas Animals” (and a snowman) (35.10) (“Hey partridge. How’s it hanging? How’s your pear tree?”).
When asked about how he really felt about the sketch by Nadine Rajabi on nationallampoon.com’s The Zazz, the actor admitted, “Once they do that kind of thing, it’s very flattering . . . I never say that. Now I have a new catch phrase, so I will.”
ZUCKERBERG, Mark (36.13): The cofounder of Facebook was given the chance to confront host Jesse Eisenberg, who just scored an Oscar nomination for his portrayal of him in The Social Network (2010), and Andy Samberg, who had done his impression of the young billionaire earlier in the season (36.3, 36.10). Samberg interrupts Eisenberg’s monologue, claiming to be the real Zuckerberg, who we see backstage with Lorne Michaels, who tells him he’s better off backstage. When Zuckerberg appears onstage, Samberg makes a hasty exit. Eisenberg asks him if saw the film—he did and said it was “interesting.” Eisenberg accepts the compliment and graciously asks Zuckerberg to announce the name of the musical guest (Nicki Minaj). Eisensberg invites the audience to “stick around, we’ll be right back.”