Saturday Night Live Transcripts
Special: Saturday Night Live in the ’90s: Pop Culture Nation
Paula Pell: It’s always ben such a saving grace for the show when there’s… interesting, screwed-up things going on in our world, and we can reflect on it.
Gin Blossoms perform “Follow You Down”: 03/23/96
Gin Blossoms: [ singing ]
“Anywhere you go, I’ll follow you down
I’ll follow you down, but not that far.”
??: The stuff in the 90’s was, like, intersecting with politics.. it was intersecting with crime.. it was intersecting with sports. So it felt like we could really do a rich show that kind of covered American life.
Will Ferrell: When we were doing it right — when we weren’t just making the obvious choice, we were actually throwing these kind of dubious characters into situations that made it really funny.
Unabomber Class Reunion: 04/13/96
FBI Agent #1: You have ten minutes, Ted!
Ted Kaczynski: Fellas, thanks again for letting me come to this — a class reunion doesn’t happen very often! And, I tell ya, it feels like I never left!
James: [ approaching ] Oh, my God! Don’t tell me.. don’t tell me.. uh.. uh..
Ted Kaczynski: [ covers his nametag ] No peeking!
James: [ laughs ] Ted Kaczynski! Where did they find you?!
[ they hug ]
Ted Kaczynski: Jimmy Mallory, you old pool shark! How the hell are you?
James: Not bad.. So, what have you been up to?
Ted Kaczynski: I’ve been doing a lot of writing..
James: Yeah, really? You, uh, get anything published?
Ted Kaczynski: Yeah. One thing.
Adam McKay: To play the bogeyman — to play the Devil as a goofball — is just a fun game to do, you know? and then you get the right performer doing it, and, all of a sudden, you can start having a run with these characters.
Steve Higgins: Everything about Ted Kaczynski was just so… insane. Because he was more like a character we’d create, than a real human.
Unabomber Defense Plan: 01/17/98
Ted Kaczynski: [ stands ] Terrific! Great! I think that went well!
Steve Higgins: Who else to play that, but Will?
Norm MacDonald: As soon as I saw him, I thought, “This guy is like Chevy.” Because he’s an all-American guy, but he has this, like, incredible subversive streak in him.
The Terry Gantner Family Workout: 12/07/96
Terry Gantner: [ punches board, breaking Terry’s hand instead of the board ] Oh, God! Oh.. God! Oh, sweet God! Sweet bastard! Oh, my God! What kind of wood was that!!
Julian Gantner: Dad, are you all right?
Terry Gantner: What kind of wood was that! What kind of wood was that!! Sweet God!
Molly Shannon: Will’s a great writer, too. I loved writing stuff with him, because he’s so supportive, and if you say any crazy things like, “That’s great!” he’ll say, “We’ll be crazy together.” Um — I think we share a similar dark sensibility.
Dog Show: 12/05/98
David Larry: Hello, and welcome to “Dog Show” —
Miss Colleen: A show for people —
David Larry: About dogs —
Miss Colleen: Starring one dog —
David Larry: And one dirty dog.
Miss Colleen: That’s right — that’s me.I’m Miss Colleen, and I! Like! Huh-dogs! [ she dives forward ]
David Larry: And I’m David Larry. And I like dogs. As usual, I’m sitting next to my special dog friend — [ the dog dives into David’s drums ] Mr. Bojangles – -who is actually a girl. But I gave her a boy’s name. Because I’m playing a TRICK on her!
Will Ferrell: “Dog Show”? It was really funny-strange.. but we somehow tricked Lorne into thinking it was funny-ha-ha. Adn he would put it on in the heart of the show. Or, sometimes, it would be the second sketch up. [ he laughs ]We’d just look at each other, like… “How did we fool him?” ‘Cause we’re holding these little tiny dogs, but —
Adam McKay: And that was sort of the power of Will Ferrell, and that’s why all the writers, like, loved him and wrote for him endlessly. Because he broke that barrier between funny-strange and funny-ha-ha.
Mark McKinney: He is the kind of spirit of crazy that you want, and, at the same time, you know, none of the, you know, sort of darker personal issues that usually haunt that type of person. He was always friendly, always accessible. You always felt like Will was your bud.
Ana Gasteyer: Probably the most popular people in the workplace are like, you know — Will Ferrell has this, just impossible-to-replicate calm and confidence about whathe’s doing. And it’s contagious.
Adam McKay: The game was mot: “Look how funny I am.” The game was: “We like to play with each other.”
Marci Klein: Every night, they were doing improv… and improv games and theater games. It was just completely different.
Steve Higgins: The more you know somebody, the more you know how they’re funny in a way that people haven’t seen before. Norm and I were hanging out in his office one day, playing a game where he had words and you had to do an impression of somebody saying the same sentence, and he did Burt Reynolds doing it, and we’d go, “Well, there you go! So how can we get Burt Reynolds on TV?”
Norm MacDonald: And they wanted me to do Burt Reynolds now, with a grey beard, and I said, “No, let’s do it in the 70’s, ’cause that’s when I loved him the most.”
Celebrity Jeopardy: 10/23/99
Alex Trebek: [ as Burt Reynolds walks up wearing a large hat ] Mr. Reynolds, what are you doing?
Burt Reynolds: Ha-ha! Yeah, I found this backstage, an over-sized hat. It’s funny.
Alex Trebek: No, it’s not!
Burt Reynolds: Sure it is. It’s funny. It’s funny because it’s ah, bigger than, ah.. [ clears throat ] ..you know, a normal hat.
Alex Trebek: Uh, I see that. Get back to your podium.
Will Ferrell: The “Jeopardy” sketch, to me, is the spirit of “Saturday Night Live.” It’s, like, you know, the whole cast is working at one time, and there’s really some clever writing going on…
Celebrity Jeopardy: 03/20/99
Alex Trebek: Mr. Connery, why don’t you pick a category?
Sean Connery: I’ve got to ask you about the Penis Mightier.
Alex Trebek: What? No. No, no, that is The Pen is Mightier.
Sean Connery: Gussy it up however you want, Trebek. What matters is does it work?
Darrell Hammond: And none of it really ever made any sense. It made no sense that Connery didn’t know the answers… and it made no sense that he had such an intense dislike for Alex Trebek… 
Celebrity Jeopardy: 10/23/99
Alex Trebek: “This is the sound a doggy makes.” [ Connery buzzes in ] Mr. Connery.
Sean Connery: Moo. [ buzzer sounds ]
Alex Trebek: No.
Sean Connery: Well, that’s the sound your mother made last night! [ laughs ]
Darrell Hammond: It’s the most popular thing I’ve ever done. It’s the thing people know most about me when they come to my shows.
Norm MacDonald: And then one time, I was talking to Burt Reynolds, and he said he wanted to come on the show while I was doing “Celebrity Jeopardy”, and then, uh, punch me in the face and take over… and then, he’d be even stupider — but then I got fired, and so he couldn’t do it!
Coming up next… Norm Vs. The Network
