Saturday Night Live Sketches That Were Not Turned Into Useless Movies But Maybe Should Have Been, Just For Kicks, 1989-2009

Remember the 1990s/early 00s, when it seemed like every marginally marketable SNL concept made the transition to the big screen, often with awful results?

If you had the money, the power, and nothing better to do with your time, which concepts would you turn into movies that would, admittedly, be critical flops and watched by pretty much no-one?

Matt Foley, Motivational Speaker

hahahaha

(naturally, this would have needed to be made when Chris Farley was still among us)

letterman biopic

did they make a movie about Will Ferrell's cheerleader character? (i can't remember the name of the woman who did that sketch with him)

(btw, the idea for this thread was born when I was trying to imagine what shape a bitchpleeze.com movie could possibly take)

Cheri Oteri!

oh yeah, that's right!

i guess it's too early to posit a Jeff Mongomery movie

MACGRUBER

(would gross $14 opening weekend)

^^^ WOULD SEE!

The whole MacGruber/McGuyver sequence of sketches was awesome.

i thought there were actually really plans to do a complete failure of a macgruber movie! and i was thinking about the bitch pleeze lady too, i already really like ol whatserface who does her

I don't know how one would stretch it to 90 mins, but I really love Fred Armisen as "Fericito."

i would too, i'm embarrassed to admit. but only if they threw in lots of Pepsi plugs and cheesy ass 80s TV signifiers: smokebombs made out of soda cans, hella mullets, flipping vans, etc. and somehow the whole thing would have to take place in that one grimy control room.

Mango

http://nymag.com/daily/entertainment/2009/05/will_macgruber_be_the_next_snl.html

i think my favoritre string of MacGruber skits was the episode where he lost all his money in the stock crash

Dare we dream the dream of an epic Laser Cats tale? Nah, probably not. But Ras Trent could be funny.

did they make a movie about Will Ferrell's cheerleader character? (i can't remember the name of the woman who did that sketch with him)

no, but there was a really funny running gag for a couple years where they'd repeatedly allude to Lorne planning "Cheerleader: The Movie" or whatever

Mr. Peepers: The Movie

i'm just going to spend the rest of the day after lunch trying to sketch out a terrible stuart saves his family type vehicle for tim calhoun

FIX IT!

toonces the driving cat

I'd lament Phil Hartman's absence the whole time. :(

always liked the Poehler/Sanz 'Kaitlyn & Rick' characters and felt like I could watch them interact for an hour or two, although i have no idea how that could be turned into a decent movie.

Is Kaitlyn supposed to be a hyperactive child or a developmentally challenged teen? I could never tell for sure.

But yeah, I'd watch that movie too.

I would watch a movie version of Deep House Dish

Dare we dream the dream of an epic Laser Cats tale?
Do you mean Action Cats, one of the great fake commercials from the late 80's SNL? I'll nominate Big Red, then.

ZOMG U GUYS

BRIAN FELLOW'S SAFARI PLANET LOCK THREAD

Laser Cats is a recurring Samberg digital short. not a big fan of it personally.

xpost

i think i'd be more into an Astronaut Jones movie, if we're thinking about Tracy.

happy fun ball

It was a one-off skit but that one about the uncomfortable suburban key party was so legendary that I think it should have become a movie; the sketch itself is the definition of "slow-burning" in that I spent the first minute going "wow this is stupid" and then suddenly something clicked and I just completely lost my shit (Tina Fey is superawesome in it, too).

HOLY SHIT, GOOGLING FOR THE COMPLETE VIDEO LED ME TO THIS:

http://www.buddytv.com/articles/saturday-night-live/saturday-night-live-star-to-le-19851.aspx

the italian talk show host

Astronaut Jones is a very open and closed sketch theme, though. Shows up on planet, dirty talks a sexy alien. Brian Fellow has a lot more potential (plus, the character's just funnier...to me, anyway).

tracy morgan just needs to be in more movies

i would rather see a movie-length clip reel of Tracy Jordan's film career than any of TM's SNL characters in a movie, actually

I would watch a movie version of Toonces The Driving Cat or Nick Burns: Your Company's Computer Guy

you just said you'd watch a Jimmy Fallon movie. just wanted to point that out.

Merv the Perv

obviously that Bee Gees talk show sketch should totally be a movie

"BRIAN FELLOW'S SAFARI PLANET LOCK THREAD"

lmao

exactly what i thought of when i saw this thread title

I thought that too but for some reason decided it was too obvious

i would like a 3 hr judy grimes movie just kidding id like it 2 be 5 hrs

i'm kind of a big fan of Two A-Holes

The Ambiguously Gay...Movie!

it's really a shame Smigel never got a really proper creative vehicle outside SNL, the Comedy Central series of TV Funhouse just didn't live up to its potential.

I love Smigel on Conan O'Brien, though. Hopefully he'll follow along to L.A.

I will always laugh at McGruber and even a weak Jean K. Jean. (Would pay theater prices for a crappy Jean K. Jean movie.)

― nabisco, Monday, October 20, 2008 1:21 PM (7 months ago) Bookmark

Now that I think about it, I suspect Will Forte in any of his manly/dramatic/action modes actually could carry a movie pretty decently (Kenan doing Jean K Jean not so much, but still)

yeah...Will Forte has always reminded me a bit of Mark McKinney, who was always surprisingly believable when he did a dramatic role or even a brief serious moment in a sketch, so that makes some kind of sense to me.

def Tim Calhoun: http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=18382797

i thought The Brothers Solomon was pretty decent, although obviously Forte didn't really flex any dramatic muscle in that. xpost

Mr. No-Depth Perception

http://www.publispain.com/posters/mr_magoo.jpg

Goth Talk...no, maybe not.

there should be a movie of horatio sanz and jimmy fallon half staring at cue cards and half uncontrollably breaking character to crack up

Saturday Night: The Horatio and Jimmy Story...shot documentary style. Clips of them breaking character and cracking up, but atop dour, dramatic music and harsh lighting effects.

I'd like to see an Anally Retentive Chef movie where they didn't mess with the formula at all. It would be the most obnoxious film ever, but I'm pretty sure that I'd literally die laughing.

Or 'Anal Retentive', even. Sheesh.

All I can think of is late '80s characters. Massive Headwound Harry!

The Bad Doctor Movie

Goat Boy Bleats Again

If Tammy Faye hadn't died, and Phil Hartman hadn't died...sigh.

A mockumentary on the glory days of PTL starring Jan Hooks as TF Bakker and Phil Hartman as Jim Bakker (like they did on the Church Chat sketch) would be fantastic.

DEMONIC RAISINS, I REBUKE YOU!

Jean K. Jean!

that whole idea gets funnier the more i think about it

i still say Mike Meyers should drop everything he's doing at the moment and get that Sprockets movie made

he would totally ruin it now, the entire thing would be about Dieter ironically farting Socialist anthems

he'd have to be reined in, yeah.

Dieter should just have a cameo in the Jean K. Jean movie, perhaps during a setpiece in Switzerland

It would be like the "Planet Rock" of bad SNL-character movies

dude now you've got me imagining a long, dialogue-free montage of Jean wandering around France with a baugette or three under his arm for no apparent reason, set to Daft Punk or something

was that Electroma?

Celebrity Jeopardy: The Movie

came here to post BRIAN FELLOWS SAFARI PLANET but i see i have been beaten to it

what were the names of the singing couple will ferrell and ana gasteyer played? could've been a musical.

thing w/ brian fellows movie is he could go out on some kind of SAFARI or something

Saturday Night: The Horatio and Jimmy Story...shot documentary style.

Only if it was a snuff film.

Horatio's thin now, btw. I nearly didn't recognize him on that (pretty bad) Tales from the Motherhood show.

Sprockets was good, but Philip the Hyper Hypo would be fun too… can we have Will Ferrell in it with Mike somehow? Also, cosign on the Celebrity Jeopardy! Movie..

Morning Latte.

That sketch where Vince Vaughn and Will Ferrell played executives at a Cat Toy company.

omg THE LOVERS

The Night Of The Masturbating Zombies

Haha, what?

http://tv.popcrunch.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/horatio-sanz-100-weight-loss.jpg

I like the gag where Andy Samberg plays the white rapper who cannot rap, let's have a movie based on that

also the italian talk show (second nomination)

Mr. Short-Term Memory: The Movie is just the vehicle Tom Hanks needs to get a new Oscar streak started.

Oh, also: Those two loser guys who would try to suavely talk to women played by Hanks and Lovitz.

Oh, also also: The Continental! Shot entirely in first person!

I think we really could wind all Europe-related things into one movie -- a picaresque adventure in which Jean K. Jean meets Dieter, winds up on the Italian talk show, runs into Nuni & Nuni, cameo joke about a fat, washed-up Hans & Franz back in Austria, etc.

Master Thespian!

Momus as Bob Brasky

Bill Brasky.

Merv the Perv

came here to post this. parnell never had a chance!

Fred Armisen and Jason Sudeikis as Barack Obama and Joe Biden ...in a 1980s buddy action movie. Air Force One plus Lethal Weapon, kind of thing.

Gay Communist Gun Club

the one in which Jay Mohr played a former hair-metal singer working as a real estate agent...

If my wife watches 'barry gibb talk show' on hulu again, I'm gonna scream ... truth be told, the tune gets an occasional grin ...

i'm feeling pretty confident that if "Bronx Beat" were greenlighted it would be a contender for worst comedy ever, and that i'd be the only person in my local theatre watching it.

always liked the Poehler/Sanz 'Kaitlyn & Rick' characters and felt like I could watch them interact for an hour or two, although i have no idea how that could be turned into a decent movie.

― NEO-GEO v THE DREAMCAST (some dude), Thursday, May 28, 2009 12:27 PM (5 days ago) Bookmark

^this

Love Toilet II: Electric Poopaloo

i'd love to see that amisten/poehler "new york stories" skit about yankee stadium being torn down turned into a random free-for-all feature film

Give Up The Ham: A Musical

In the spirit of the original "Debbie Downer," which devolved into all-around laughter amid lines like "It's official: I can't have children," I suggest an intense two-hour drama of some sort, throughout which every actor is losing it over something off-camera. (Obviously this is an art film, very Brechtian.)

That one Weekend Update thing Finesse Mitchell & co. did as Starkeesha, Frerejacqua, and Appreciante

http://www.hulu.com/watch/4087/saturday-night-live-weekend-update-maya-angelou

Tracy and Finesse were so underrated.

David Alan Grier's Maya Angelou sketch from the time he hosted >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Tracy's MA

Juice: How Much Do You Like-a It?

xp true that. That's what I was originally searching for when I found Tracy

MacGruber movie is apparently a go now: http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118005755.html?categoryid=13&cs=1

kind of insane that a sketch that usually runs 30 seconds is being turned into a feature but at the same time MacGruber has always cracked me up so what the hell, i'll be optimistic

Cheri Oteri!

Her best thing ever is still the looney tunes nanny on Curb Your Enthusiasm.

on topic: Lyle, the Effeminate Heterosexual

In the spirit of the original "Debbie Downer," which devolved into all-around laughter amid lines like "It's official: I can't have children," I suggest an intense two-hour drama of some sort, throughout which every actor is losing it over something off-camera. (Obviously this is an art film, very Brechtian.)

― nabisco, Monday, July 6, 2009 1:56 PM (3 days ago) Bookmark

I really hate how easily the recent casts have "lost it" (and also bungled lines). It's so amateurish.

cheri oteri: i think i could maybe watch an hour of the pilled-up bus driver character

Yeah she was really good at tweaky and nuts.

Dieter should just have a cameo in the Jean K. Jean movie, perhaps during a setpiece in Switzerland

― nabisco, Thursday, May 28, 2009 11:47 AM (1 month ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

It would be like the "Planet Rock" of bad SNL-character movies

― nabisco, Thursday, May 28, 2009 11:47 AM (1 month ago) Bookmark

SPROCKFUCKINGETS

http://www.nbc.com/Saturday_Night_Live/video/clips/milkshakes/221737/

I don't think there's been much cracking up at all since the heyday of Fallon/Sanz. To be completely honest, it usually reads to me as less "amateurish" and more (in limited amounts) like some kind of actual energy/fun is in the show, and it's not just a dead professional slog through concepts that ceased to be funny after the first rehearsal

Seriously, though, that original Debbie Downer is outside normal analysis of this, the whole concept depends on zoom-in close-ups of Dratch making a glum face, and it becomes almost like a sporting event watching her attempts.

yeah, that one DD skit w/ Lohan was one of the best live TV crackups i've ever seen, just the perfect sketch for that to happen in

someone in Hollywood obviously read this thread...MACGRUBER...coming to a theater/dvd near you...

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118005755.html?categoryid=13&cs=1

That milkshake sketch is still funny, although Kenan and Will Forte are actually the funniest things about it.

is Forte singing the theme song? cause that part's funny but his character barely does anything in it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLcXGP8g7rY&feature=player_embedded

ok yes

btw <3 Kristen Wiig

kilmer!

pretty much the only way this can be worthwhile is if, after a, b, and c trailers and a multi-million dollar marketing campaign, the movie itself has a runtime of 4 minutes

As with the voice of KITT in the new Knight Rider, Kilmer is looking to be a poor substitute for Will Arnett.

can't wait for "upper decker" to join "shart" in the decade-too-late-too-slang fratboy humor of dads and ilx display names

talk to the hand!

"Crazy Doctor" is the best SNL sketch of all time, and the only one I would ever want to see turned into a movie.

Now one of you is supposed to say "Crazy Doctor WAS turned into a movie.. it was called Anchorman" and then I'm suppose to say "STFU."

will go stare at ryan phillipe

i would def watch a jean k. jean stand up special

i would watch a movie of jean k jean trying to get a def jam special

also starring mc solaar as the host of french def comedy jam

only thing that i hate about jean k jean is the way they intro him every time as a "def jam comedian" -- i mean when have the comics on the def comedy jam ever been referred to that way?

First look at MacGruber movie

Loud, boorish and borderline mentally retarded, Jorma Taccone's stupid-fun paean to '80s action flicks, "MacGruber" is still admittedly a good time of imbecilic laughs and hilariously dumb sequences.

And like promised by co-writer Bill Hader, "MacGruber is a hard R that is shockingly crass and vulgar at times. While some of these jokes go too far and miss the mark, they do also provide some unexpected and outrageously fun laughs.

Make no mistake: "MacGruber" is dumb, but it's not dim-witted or cornball, and there's value (and laughs) to be found in its adolescent humor (yes, we too like to laugh at dumb shit when its well-executed).

Based on a pretty mediocre Saturday Night Live sketch (like many SNL skits these days), this should really be the end of the conversation and we admittedly groaned hard when this project was first announced, but we were happy to be proven wrong.

As you'd expect, the action comedy doesn't put a high premium on story and the narrative is seemingly lifted from every thick-headed action comedy from the Reagan years. The plot zeroes in on ex-special operative MacGruber (Will Forte) who is called back into action to take down his archenemy, Dieter Von Cunth (Val Kilmer), who's in possession of a nuclear warhead and hellbent on destroying Washington, D.C. for no apparent reason other than cold hard cash (what else).

The problem is that after Cunth killed MacGruber's wife (Maya Rudolph) at the altar with a rocket launcher (now that's an objection to a holy matrimony), the special ops super solider eventually retired and swore off fighting crime with his bare hands and his resourcefulness (the character is a spoof of '80s TV show "MacGyver" that starred mulleted Richard Dean Anderson as a peaceful, yet inventive do-gooder). Living in a Mexican village and acting as a sage to the loving children around him (they hurl epithets at him and call him a loser), MacGruber initially turns down the offer from his old army chief Colonel Jim Faith (a perfectly cast Powers Booth) to finally get revenge on his arch enemy and save the country as well.

Yet, eventually, he relents. But the first act of friction arrives with Faith's new golden boy soldier, Lt. Dixon Piper (Ryan Phillippe in a funny turn he still might regret for the rest of his life, joking... sort of). The two butt heads (literally) and while the Colonel insists they work together the hard-headed soldier — still living in an '80s time warp of feathered hair, red Miatas, pull-out tape deck boxes and Rick Springfield-like soft rock — refuses until his own mishaps force him to turn for help (we can't spoil, but holy shit was this funny).

MacGruber eventually then enlists Piper and Vicki St. Elmo (Kristen Wiig) — the best friend of his wife and now a talented piano songwriter and lyricist — to act as a covert group to infiltrate and thwart Cunth's nefarious plans.

To divulge the plot further is pointless, as their isn't much of one. MacGruber soon reveals to himself to be an inept moron and the young Phillipe starts to lose respect for the single operative who has been awarded 16 purple hearts, 3 Congressional Medals of Honor and 7 presidential medals of bravery. But eventually his ingenuity (and luck) outweigh his brainlessness.

There's one particular celery scene that may go down in infamy and might be one that Phillipe never lives down (or one that prevents him from ever getting nominated for an Academy Award), but at the very least it reveals the actor to be a good sport and one with a big sense of humor. As you might expected, Val Kilmer is largely awesome as the bloated asshole villain as well. Look, the picture is beyond absurd and completely ridiculous, not every joke comes up aces either and some are just too flat and pedestrian for their own good, but that MacGruber provides real laughs at all was somewhat unexpected. Overall, the picture was much more enjoyable than we would have ever imagined (remember our fangs were out at first over the idea).

Don't get it twisted: "MacGruber" isn't masterpiece theater, it's a big dumb, fun ride through the cliches of '8os testosterone-filled mansploitation films like "Rambo," any number of Arnold Schwarzenegger films and the trashy greatest hits of Dolph Lundgren and Jean Claude Van Damme, and it's not even that clever. But it is also one of the best SNL movies in a long time (not that that's saying a lot) and is pretty damn enjoyable for what it is. The laughs are frequent enough, the explosions are silly and it's just far better than it really has any reason to be. We're also quite aware that we saw it during the infectious energy of a film festival and the picture went over raucously, but if we enjoyed it more in that circus like environment, it wasn't by much. Those who were entertained by the moronic and mentally handicapped humor demonstrated in Will Ferrell's "Step Brothers" — an especially juvenile and dumb movie, we can't help but laugh with — should probably appreciate the value of "MacGruber." It's not aiming to be anything other than an amusing send-up and celebration of self-assured idiot characters and acid-washed jean eras and in that it respect it mostly succeeds.