Sketch show actors breaking character

[Guest Redhawk]

If anyone saw last week's SNL (the Lohan girl hosted), there was a skit called "Debbie Downer" with Rachel Dratch playing Debbie. Basically, she's that friend who always ruins the mood with bad jokes or depsressing antecdotes. So the skit had Dratch, Lohan and some others at DisneyWorld, and Debbie Downer kept saying the wrong thing and depressing everyone. And everytime she made such a comment, they'd play this "wah-wah" music and zoom in on her. So after the third of fourth one, Dratch lets slip a laugh, which the crowd immediately picked up on. Which would would been okay, except for one thing: two of the other people in this skit were JIMMY FALLON and HORATIO SANZ. It was over after that. The whole rest of the skit, everyone was cracking up, snickering and just breaking character left and right. It was pretty damn funny, actually.

 

So anyway, what are some other memorable moments of people breaking character on live shows? Blue Oyster Cult comes to mind. (I expect Fallon and Sanz will be mentioned several times...)

[Mik 0]

I just watched that. It was so damn funny. Second coolest thing on SNL behind Usher's sick backflip.

[MarvinisaLunatic 0]

The infamous Andy Kaufman incident on Fridays.

 

Broadcast from Studio 55 at the ABC Television Center in Hollywood, the show started at 8:30 PM Pacific Time in order to be telecast live to East coast viewers at 11:30. Andy appeared alone onstage at 8:25 and took the microphone in hand. His rambling, out-of-control, laugh-filled antics took the rowdy audience of 200, as well as, the Fridays crew by surprise. At 8:30 Andy ignored director Bob Bowker's signal that they were now on the air live. Doubled over in self-absorbed laughter, Andy struggled to do the planned monologue as the studio audience began to hoop and holler. With a gleam in his eye Andy stopped - looked at the crowd and laid it on the line:

 

"All week long we've been rehearsing a certain way" Andy said. "I'm not gonna do it!! You know Ladies and Gentlemen this is live, you know - and I've never hosted a show live before, but-but I just realized something. I can do anything I want up here and they can't do anything to me!! They told me I couldn't say, 'crap.' I just did! They said I couldn't wrestle any women, but I think I'm gonna wrestle every woman in the audience!! Come on!! Come on!! Who wants to wrestle??" With that announcement, Andy had taken the entire cast and crew of Fridays, the studio audience and a nation of television viewers hostage.

 

After jumping around clucking like a chicken and generally acting defiant Andy continued, "I feel like the bad kid in school!" Co-producer and script supervisor Jack Burns and John Moffit pointed at their watches and pleaded with Andy to finish the monologue - he refused. Finally the theme music began and Andy reluctantly walked offstage. From that moment on the show was out of synch. A flustered Burns stumbled through the introduction and as one audience member later described it, "After Andy's rant at the beginning, a tension just filled the studio. For the rest of the show you felt an adrenaline rush like you get after narrowly avoiding injury in a car accident."

 

With the exception of "The Masked Magician" sketch (Bob Zmuda as a snubbed and disgruntled magician bent on exposing the secrets of magic in order to exact revenge on the "magician's union"), Andy purposely made mistakes whenever in front of the camera. The audience was not sure what to think; the cast and crew, however, were beginning to get very angry.

 

To this day it is not known how many of the members of Fridays were in on Andy's hoax. At a minimum, it can be assumed that Kaufman, Moffit, Bowker, Burns and Richards knew about it from the start. With Moffit's permission, Andy purposely self-destructs during a live television broadcast. Bowker and Burns knew of Andy's intent to "improvise," but did not know exactly what Andy meant by that. "How would the cast react when Andy flubbed his lines? What would the audience think? What would happen would be anyone's guess and whatever that would be - would at least be interesting," they thought. Once again, Andy had successfully created another piece of living theater. Until things got a little out of hand...

 

"Why is everyone so uptight??"

 

The last sketch of the night featured four friends (two married couples) out for dinner on a Saturday night. Each one had brought along a joint thinking that, for one reason or another, no one else smoked dope. So when each person left the table, what he or she did was sneak into the restroom to get stoned. At first, Andy played the part as written. When it was his turn to get up and "go get high" he returned and stopped the sketch complaining, "I feel stupid." Melanie Chartoff and Maryedith Burrell were dumbfounded. (You don't stop a sketch in the middle of a live telecast!) Michael Richards stood up, walked offstage, grabbed the cue cards and tossed them in front of Andy. Andy responded by throwing a glass of water on Richards. Exasperated, Chartoff and Burrell began throwing bread and butter at Andy as stagehands and cast-members moved to jump into the fray. Jack Burns shouted (to Director Bob Bowker), "Bob cut to commercial!!" as Andy began yelling at Chartoff for throwing butter in his hair. Burns, after moving Chartoff and Burrell aside, lunged at Andy. People everywhere began pushing and pulling at Andy (see photo above) and Andy was terrified. Finally, cooler heads prevailed and Kaufman was escorted off the stage as the studio audience sat in stunned silence. After a commercial break the final two minutes of the show became an improvised farewell. Brandis Kemp quipped, "We'd like to thank the portion of Andy that showed up tonight."

 

In typically unpredictable Kaufman fashion, Andy did not attend the cast party after the show (held in the soundstage next door). During the party, calls from East coast television stations began to flood the ABC switchboard. Word of the on-air fisticuffs spread to national newswires and the incident was featured in newspapers the next day. Kaufman, Moffit, Bowker, Burns and Richards never revealed that the incident was a "work" planned in advance, and this generated more controversy and speculation regarding the continuing strange saga of Andy Kaufman. Many people close to the show were horrified by Kaufman's actions and felt betrayed by his lack of professionalism.

[bob_barron 0]

She didn't laugh cause of those two. She laughed cause she fucked up her line, realised it and then just lost it.

 

In my soon to be published review (OMG SHILLING) I wrote 500 words defending Debbie Downer.

 

EDIT:

 

They also were cracking up during the dress rehearsal version of Debbie. It just occured during the end and it wasn't as bad.

[Damaramu 0]

That Andy Kauffman story is great....

[razazteca 0]

Every single Weekend Update that had JIMMY FALLON and HORATIO SANZ on it, especially the skits that had one of them singing.

 

The wine testing skit from 2 weeks ago.

 

Will Ferrel in the fashion boutique skit that had everyone laugh when he answered his mini cell phone.

 

Dana Carvey in the headwound harry skit that had a dog that would not stop licking Carvey's wound.

[Guest OctoberBlood]

The Debbie Downer "Screwup" (if that's what you want to call it) was the only thing (other than Lohan) worth watching. The skit itself wasn't that funny, but what made it great was the fact they were all laughing at themselfs. Fun stuff. Too bad the rest of the show sucked majorly.

[NoCalMike 0]

slipups resulting in giggling is only funny when the actors/actresses can recover and still deliver the lines though. That is a big beef I have with Fallon/Sanz. I mean I remember Adam Sandler would crack grins and an occasional laugh during his songs he sang on weekend update, but he had the composure to recooperate and still deliver his lines. Fallon/Sanz often don't.

[Conspiracy_Victim 0]

Christina Applegate and David Spade losing it during the "Motivational Speaker" skit on SNL. I think Chris Farley was purposely trying to make them lose it, and they both damn near fall off the sofa laughing when Chris goes through the coffee table.

[eiker_ir 0]

my favorite one is the one with Ferrel in that all fashion store when he cam in in his scooter with the glasses and answered the miniminimini celphone. Later used in Zoolander

 

anyones knows where i can download this?

[The Electrifyer 0]

There was this skit with Will Ferrel and Dana Carvey being George Bush Sr and Jr going fishing. In the skit, Carvey was supposed to "hit" Ferrel and the soundman would put in the special effect of a hit occuring. The sound came late though, about after Carvey's hand came near Ferrel's head and while it was already in the air above his head. The improperly timed sound made the two break character and laugh I think. It was pretty funny too, actually, since those two are not usually ones who break character.

[DrVenkman PhD 0]

When the vomit was not properly coming out of the hoses in that one sketch about police awhile back. Most notably, Chris Elliot going to vomit, nothing happening, saying "Oh I guess I'm OK", then vomit coming out of his sleeve (or something very similar).

[Downhome 0]

One word.

 

COWBELL!

[Guest slacklet]

"Massive Headwound Harry" is the classic, come on now.

[JHawk 0]

There was an SNL in the 70s where Candice Bergen was hosting and was doing a commercial skit with Gilda Radner and accidentally called Radner "Fern"...which was the name of Bergen's character. And Radner's next line was "We can't all be smart like Fern here", which caused Bergen to lose it.

[bob_barron 0]

That's one of my favourite bits. I love seeing Gilda stay in character and Candice just die laughing.

 

The only time Phil Hartman laughed was pretty historic.

 

In one Xena parody Brendan Frasier's wig just fell off and everyone just stopped and laughed

[Guest wrestlingbs]

The "I lost your baby" skit with Ferrel was a classic one. After "Dr.Poop" comes in and does the robot Molly Shannon just loses it and can't stop laughing.

[Guest Redhawk]

On "In Living Color," Jamie Foxx used to do a skit where he was this old man who had a dog named Duke. Thing was, Duke was dead. Anyway, one time Jaime made Duke do something and then the dog just kinda flopped to the ground. Foxx almost lost it.

[DerangedHermit 0]

I like the military sketch with Ferrell and David Spade when he hosted. Friggin' hilarious when Will prods Spade with his hat.

[Jingus 0]

One classic version of this was the Lunchlady Song, where Sandler was obviously having the battle of his life trying not to crack up at every single thing that Farley was doing.

 

I remember an ooooooold skit with the original cast where similar things happened. John Belushi and Original Cast Token Black Dude (I can never remember his name) are burglars robbing an apartment, but they keep running into random witnesses and killing all of them. The dubbed gunshot sound effects are WAY offtimed throughout the entire sketch, and about half the cast is lying on the floor, trying to pretend to be dead, while laughing uncontrollably the whole time.

[River City Rocker 0]

I couldn't even count exactly how many times Goldie Hawn used to crack up during her skits or one-liners on Laugh-In. In her case, it was the producers trying to sabotage her by mixing up her cue cards, or writing all sorts of dirty jokes on them. The producers thought Goldie's habit of giggling nervous was cute, so they tried to set her off constantly.

 

There were at least two instances where Goldie lost it bad enough that her castmates actually would throw pages of the script at her.

 

-Ben

[JoeDirt 0]

The "I lost your baby" skit with Ferrel was a classic one. After "Dr.Poop" comes in and does the robot Molly Shannon just loses it and can't stop laughing.

"What's my deal? I'll tell you what my deal is bucko. I'm going to get Karate on your face! That's my deal! Is that a good enough deal for you? HUH? HUH?"

 

"YOU SHUT THAT SMELLY MOUTH OF YOURS, BEFORE I SLAP YOU!"

[Anakin Flair 0]

People still watch SNL?

[bob_barron 0]

Way to add to the topic!

 

In fact their two shows in April did some of their highest ratings in sometime

[Ripper 0]

One classic version of this was the Lunchlady Song, where Sandler was obviously having the battle of his life trying not to crack up at every single thing that Farley was doing.

 

I remember an ooooooold skit with the original cast where similar things happened. John Belushi and Original Cast Token Black Dude (I can never remember his name) are burglars robbing an apartment, but they keep running into random witnesses and killing all of them. The dubbed gunshot sound effects are WAY offtimed throughout the entire sketch, and about half the cast is lying on the floor, trying to pretend to be dead, while laughing uncontrollably the whole time.

GA-RRETT MO-RRIS

[Ripper 0]

Michael Macdonald gets someone on Mad TV everyweek and that guy NEVER breaks character.

[Guest Cerebus]

Christina Applegate and David Spade losing it during the "Motivational Speaker" skit on SNL.  I think Chris Farley was purposely trying to make them lose it, and they both damn near fall off the sofa laughing when Chris goes through the coffee table.

That happened a lot with the Matt Foley sketches if I recall.

[Tully316 0]

I always liked the crack-ups on the Carol Burnett Show.

 

Tim Conway was the best at getting everyone to break character

[JHawk 0]

I always liked the crack-ups on the Carol Burnett Show.

 

Tim Conway was the best at getting everyone to break character

Which reminds me of the Mama's Family sketch where Conway completely ad-libbed a story about siamese elephants joined at the trunk. He's already got Harvey Korman trying in vain to keep from laughing, and then Vicki Lawrence comes back with "Is that little asshole through yet?" The entire cast lost it, including Conway.

[Ravenbomb 0]

I remember that one episode of That 70's Show where Donna found panties in Eric's car, and Donna's mom runs in saying they're hers, and Fez and Kelso yell how Eric is a god, and bow. It looked like they were just about to lose it all the time they were on the ground