‘SNL’ Stars Love to Break. Is That Funny?
We’re celebrating 50 years of “Saturday Night Live”! All this week, we’re digging into the late-night comedy institution with new stories, including lists, essays, interviews, and more.
In 8th grade there was a popular kid, I’ll call him Tim. Tim was 6-feet tall and he had a cool haircut (for the time, and ironically it would probably be cool again today). Tim was either good-looking or he was good-looking for the ’90s, I really can’t remember. Either way, let’s say he was at least contextually attractive, tall, and had a haircut — more than enough to be the big kid in middle school. But Tim thought he had another quality that he most certainly did not have: Tim thought he was funny.
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Why did Tim think he was funny? Well, a cool thing happens in 8th grade when the cool kid makes a joke — even a lame joke — the other kids laugh. The masses laughing at Tim’s bad jokes never bothered me. What bothered me was when one specific person laughed at Tim’s jokes: Tim. Tim cracked himself up. He was like Dave Chappelle but without the material (or delivery, or POV, or…). In comedy, a little self-control goes a long way. You don’t have to be Steven Wright, but don’t be 2006 Dane Cook either.
Jimmy Fallon is about the same height as Tim was in 8th grade. He’s got pretty cool hair and is contextually good-looking. And he is the poster boy for breaking on “SNL.” You either love him for it or dislike him for reasons you can’t quite identify, though perhaps we just did. (Bill Hader also broke all the time, though his breaking feels more excusable because of his value to the show and versatility.)
Breaking, when an actor loses their character, the scene, and control of their face and body through laughter, is a divisive topic when talking about “Saturday Night Live.” One player breaking can often have a ripple effect through the cast, the studio audience, and even to viewers at home. Like yawning, it’s contagious and involuntary. Also like yawning, you can probably tell that I’m bored by it.
For a live show like “SNL,” breaking cannot be fixed with another take or in post-production. That danger builds a tension — and a camaraderie — among cast and audience. As onlookers, we have an appreciation for the assumed risk. You know who does not necessarily appreciate breaking on “SNL”? “SNL” creator and executive producer Lorne Michaels. That said, Michaels is OK with his cast and host occasionally breaking, a person close to the show tells IndieWire — so long as it “works.”
Usually, breaking is uncontrollable. The actor simply finds something too funny to contain him or herself. In that way it is inherently endearing. But it can also bastardize a carefully written, blocked, and rehearsed scene. That’s not my problem with breaking, however. My problem is when breaking is used — to borrow pro-wrestling parlance — to create a cheap pop.
Breaking creates the easiest laugh available in comedy this side of a pratfall. When rare and genuine, it can be an effective tool. But when allowed to be pervasive, it should be viewed as a slight to the audience, and when breaking is celebrated, it is a slight to comedy.
If you ask my wife what her favorite thing about “SNL” is, she’ll say, “When they laugh.” And she’s certainly not alone in that. I get it, I’m not a completely joyless hater. A genuine laugh where there is not supposed to be one is a signifier that someone is having an unmanageable amount of fun. Watching another human being enraptured with joy can be intoxicating — often literally. Laughter releases dopamine, oxytocin, and endorphins. So count me in for the health benefits and a few smiles here and there. But breaking should not be your favorite part of a comedy institution like “Saturday Night Live.” It shouldn’t be Top 10, there’s just too much actual work to celebrate instead.
With all due respect to “Debbie Downer,” perhaps the most infamous “breaking” moment in “SNL” history was 2000’s “More Cowbell,” in which the band Blue ?yster Cult records 1976’s “(Don’t Fear) The Reaper,” a real song by a real band. For “SNL” purposes, Blue ?yster Cult is comprised of Chris Parnell, Chris Kattan, Horatio Sanz, Will Ferrell, and Jimmy Fallon; the conceit of the sketch is that we’re watching a VH1 “Behind the Music” episode.
Ferrell is on the cowbell, and fictional music producer Bruce Dickinson’s (Christopher Walken) gotta have more cowbell, baby. The behind-the-scenes story of the “Behind the Music” sketch is that Ferrell opted for a too-small shirt for live TV than for dress rehearsal. The choice crippled Fallon.
More recent was the “Beavis and Butt-Head” sketch from just last year. At the mere sight of Ryan Gosling as Beavis and Mikey Day as Butt-Head, Heidi Gardner buckled. It was a domino effect from there with Kenan Thompson being the only one able to keep his composure this side of Michael Longfellow, who had like one line. Actually that’s not completely right, because you know who else played it straight? Literally every extra in the scene. Of course, it is so much easier to keep it inside when you do not have to speak. Worst-case scenario: disassociate.
This time there was a real benefit to the breaking. “Beavis and Butt-Head” went viral because of the breaking. Gardner did multiple interviews, including here at IndieWire, about the unplanned moment. Word got around and within a week, the April 13, 2024 “SNL” had racked up nearly 9 million viewers — the most in two-and-a-half years.
Breaking should never be the goal. “The Californians” is the definition of a one-joke sketch: It’s funny because this is how people in Southern California speak about their infrastructure. But “The Californians,” a soap-opera in which most of the melodrama stems from a character’s commute, has pretty much become a vehicle in which the cast attempt to break each other.
It’s fine, I guess; “The Californians” is for them. And it’s not like I never laugh when a character breaks — I laughed numerous times watching old videos for this commentary — but it is not what “SNL” does best. This is one of those rare cases where we should be laughing at you, not with you.
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