No list of the most memorable SNL sketches of all-time would be complete without “Chippendales Audition.” In it, a panel of Chippendales judges have to decide which of two shirtless dancers, played by guest host Patrick Swayze and cast member Chris Farley, they want to hire to join the troupe. The top comment on the sketch’s YouTube video: “Probably one of the funniest skits ever with two men that are missed.”
But not everyone was a fan.
In his memoir Comedy Comedy Comedy Drama, Bob Odenkirk, who created one of Farley’s most beloved characters (Matt Foley, a motivational speaker who lives in a van down by the river) shared what he thought of “Chippendales Audition.”
Odenkirk hated the sketch that made Farley a star in his first season — the “Chippendale’s Audition” with Patrick Swayze, in which the audience shrieked with laughter while an overweight Farley writhed on stage. “I know it confirmed Chris’s worst instincts about being funny, which was how he proved his worth — that getting laughed at was as good as getting a laugh,” Odenkirk writes. “F*ck that sketch.”
Odenkirk also wrote about the last time he saw Farley, who died from an overdose at 33 years old in 1997 (seven years after “Chippendale’s Audition”). “He was in a limo parked in an alley in Aspen, Colorado, with a neon sign on the hood that was flashing LAST CHANCE TO SAY GOODBYE,” the Better Call Saul star said. “Chris looked like a big zit, about to pop. Red, bloated, stubble-faced, and sweating profusely. We chatted, and the whole time I’m thinking, ‘Goodbye, my friend’… I watched the limo pull away, and a few weeks later we all had a funeral. What a dumb story. Sh*t.”
Comedy Comedy Comedy Drama comes out on March 1. You can pre-order now.
(Via the New York Post)
