Bob Mackey,Cracked Staff
Tim Meadows remained trapped on SNL for 10 years, we think because Lorne Michaels possessed the last copy of an underground porno Meadows starred in during the '80s. Meadows was never offensive and mainly stuck to parts like "utility black guy" when a sketch called for someone to wear a hilarious afro. But somewhere along the line, a writer or producer on the show saw Tim-possibly on the phone with Chris Rock, asking him how he escaped-and thought, "Hey, you haven't been annoying yet!" And, so Leon Phelps, aka The Ladies Man, was created, bringing pimp jokes and, yes, hilarious afros to a TV-watching public that was already sick of 1970s nostalgia.
If you don't remember Jim Breuer, he was the guy who made a living pretending to look high all the time. Jim also had a very, very small handful of impressions, the lifeblood of SNL. And since Joe Pesci happened to be one of these impressions, Breuer was given the chance to rehash jokes from Goodfellas dozens or possibly hundreds of times during his reign of terror as a cast member. Sure, he sounded the part, but on the Celebrity Impersonation Difficulty Index, the Joe Pesci is ranked pretty close to the bottom (right above Marlon Brando in The Godfather and just below Jack Nicholson).
What can be said about Mr. Peepers? He spits apple chunks. He shouts "BAH!" He often attempts to rape both male and female hosts. These sketches had a bit of novelty value before they became dreaded, and we'll give you the fact that Kattan' hamming it up as "The Missing Link" deserved a chuckle the first and possibly second time. Ah, but this is the curse of the SNL recurring character. They're like pancakes, after you've had about a half dozen of them, you can't even remember why you wanted one. With each sketch we progress through the four stages of recurring character reaction: Novelty, Boredom, Annoyance, then finally Homicidal Rage.7"Total Bastard Airlines" (David Spade)
Catchphrase lodged in America' brain: "BUH-bye!"
This one would have been much higher, if not for the fact that only two "Total Bastard Airlines" sketches were made. But this concept was so annoying, so manipulatively designed and so Spade-y, that it made the list.
The year was 1994, and America was growing tired of adding "NOT!" to the end of sarcastic utterances. "Total Bastard Airlines" sought to change this with Spade' spiteful stewardess character dismissing passengers with acidic remarks capped off with a "BUH-bye." These sketches were difficult to watch, not only for its repetitiveness, but also because it was awfully hard to hear Spade over the noise of factories churning out "BUH-bye!" T-shirts and bumper stickers, which we can only assume were burned when these sketches didn't take off.
There was no "BUH-bye" movie, and no "BUH-bye" amusement park. And, while the terminally uncool are still uttering lines from Wayne' World, it' nearly impossible to catch anyone still dismissing a hated friend or stranger with "BUH-bye." That' right, Spade actually came up with something so annoying, even the annoying people of the world had to step back and say, "No, that' taking it too far. Don't go there! SCHWING!"
6Cajun Man (Adam Sandler)
Catchphrase lodged in America' brain: "_____TION!" (imagine hilarious accent)
Adam Sandler' Cajun Man act consisted of forcing Kevin Nealon to ask him a series of set-up questions that would allow Sandler to reply with one-word answers in a cartoonish accent that no one would have recognized as Cajun, had the character not been called "Cajun Man."
We're thinking the Cajun Man character was probably invented during a commercial break. Like maybe somebody broke a crucial prop for the planned sketch and, in a panic, gave Sandler a funny hat and said, "We've got two minutes to kill! Now go out there and work your magic!" Plenty of classic Sandler characters have started this exact way: "Take this guitar and say something about Hanukkah;" "Here' a spoon and a plant. Say something about Halloween;" "Here' a wig and a cape. Sing something in Italian."
Unfortunately, not all of Sandler' spontaneous creations can be as brilliant and nuanced as the Hanukkah song, Opera Man or the Crazy-Spoon-Head Guy who wanted candy, and Cajun Man was one of Sandler' attempts that fell short.
Sorry, Adam. Put a spoon on that Cajun guy' hat and you've got yourself a three-picture deal.
5"Jarret' Room" (Jimmy Fallon)
Catchphrase lodged in America' brain: "( pot-induced snickering)"
The entertainment industry' best-kept secret is that Jimmy Fallon actually has some talent. If you take a look at his earlier work on SNL, he exhibited quite the range of impressions. Then it was realized Fallon could be the show' Tiger Beat poster boy, and that he was physically unable to keep a straight face on the air. Fallon was immediately thrust into "goof-around-and-giggle" roles, much to the frustration of cast members with any degree of professionalism. Therefore we get "Jarret' Room," a sketch designed for Fallon to goof around and giggle, making it as fun to watch as experimental eye surgery.
Set up as a parody of webcasts, "Jarret' Room" aspired to be a "Wayne' World" for the 21st Century, but it failed for one major reason: namely, Jimmy Fallon and Horatio Sanz not having a single sinew of the comic timing present in a Mike Myers/Dana Carvey pairing. Yes, that' right. Chuckle-buddy Horatio Sanz was in the "Jarret' Room" sketches, making each one an exercise in crack-ups and cue-card flubbery for both he and Fallon. And despite how funny they thought it was, it wasn't. We can only assume that Fallon' giggling ended after the reception of Taxi, his first feature film starring Queen Latifah and a talking car.
Note: We'd rather not see Taxi and continue assuming the car talked than find out for sure.
Hans and Franz appeared on SNL as sweatsuited Arnold Schwarzenegger clones in a series of sketches that consisted entirely of insulting the masculinity of the viewer in wacky fake Austrian accents. And yet, 20 years later, you can still catch the occasional guy at your office dropping his voice and calling someone a "little girlie man." If the Hanz and Franz Go to Hollywood movie hadn't gotten scrapped, we may have had to rank this one higher. Also, we'd probably quit the comedy business altogether after the inevitable series of straight-to-DVD sequels. Just imagine having to sift through Hanz and Franz Go to France!, Hanz and Franz Save Christmas! and Hanz and Franz Meet the Harlem Globetrotters (And Save Christmas)! in the five-for-a-dollar bin at Target.
Mary Katherine Gallagher was a clumsy Catholic school nerd played by Molly Shannon. The sketches were mostly her smelling her fingers and crashing into pieces of furniture. If you're asking why anyone would bother to make a movie out of that, you're apparently unfamiliar with the concept of Saturday Night Live movies. These are the people who made a movie out of Night at the Roxbury and the characters in that sketch didn't freaking speak. The setup of the Mary Katherine Gallagher sketches were similar to those of Chris Farley' motivational speaker-except drained of all humor. As a physical comedian, Farley was funnier standing in line at the DMV than Shannon was at full-ham.
However, as the Richmeister sketches continued to reproduce, Schneider grew exponentially more abrasive. Audience reception went from "Hah, that guy is annoying!" to-well, in text, it' hard to quote people who are speaking in tongues in fits of mindless rage.
Witness one of Belushi' more famous characters, The Samurai, from his heyday on SNL. Here' the premise for The Samurai sketch: The Samurai finds himself in a job that is inappropriate for a person with a samurai' skill set. Things are chopped, gibberish is screamed and suicide is attempted - over and over again.
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