It’s rumored that “Saturday Night Live” creator Lorne Michaels hates it when the show’s sketch comedians break character on air. Fortunately, that hasn’t stopped it from happening countless times over the NBC series’ 50-year history. Everyone from Bill Hader and Kristen Wiig to Kate McKinnon and even Will Ferrell have all stumbled into their own moments of out-of-character laughter.
In honor of “SNL’s” 50th anniversary special this Sunday, here are 10 of the best times that the show’s cast couldn’t keep it together.
Pete Davidson in “Uncle Ben”
The funniest moment of “Uncle Ben,” a 2020 sketch about a group of Black brand figures like Aunt Jemima (Maya Rudolph) being fired after being deemed culturally insensitive, is born out of a seemingly unscripted moment. Having already cracked up himself, Dave Chappelle decided to turn his sights on cast member Pete Davidson, who appears in “Uncle Ben” as Count Chocula. “I’m not even Black,” Chocula argues when the prospect of also being retired comes up. “I’m made entirely of chocolate!”
“Likely story,” Chappelle’s deep-voiced take on Allstate spokesman Dennis Haysbert replies. “Look at those big chocolatey lips behind them fangs. Big old fat lips.” Turning to look directly at the camera, Chappelle then urges, “Seriously. America, look at Pete Davidson’s lips.” The moment not only shatters the sketch’s already thin fourth wall, but also makes Davidson start laughing so hard he has to spit out his Chocula fangs.
Bill Hader in “The Californians: Stuart Has Cancer”
Bill Hader broke a lot during his “SNL” tenure. He may be best known for the many times he did so as “Weekend Update” correspondent Stefon, whose physical mannerisms were dictated by Hader’s desire to cover up his own out-of-character giggles. However, no sketch Hader ever participated in made his face contort so hilariously from his own, desperate attempt to hold in his laughter like “The Californians: Stuart Has Cancer” did. A soap opera parody, the sketch stars Hader as a blonde Californian with a mullet whose affair with a similarly blonde Californian woman (Kristen Wiig) lands them both in trouble when her husband (Fred Armisen) gets home early.
Adopting the silliest twists on surfer-bro accents imaginable, Hader, Wiig and Armisen spend most of the sketch arguing while also giving — as only true Angelenos could — overly convoluted directions of where they’ve been and where each other should go. Hader breaks early in the sketch and does his best (i.e., not very well) to hold in his laughter as Armisen’s upset husband tells him, “I said go home! Get back on San Vicente, take it to the 10, then switch to the 405-N and let it dump you out onto Mulholland where you belong!” By the time Armisen is done, Hader is completely gone.
David Spade in “Matt Foley: Van Down By The River”
One of the most iconic sketches in “SNL” history also features one of its best and, frankly, most understandable breaks. The late Chris Farley’s debut as Matt Foley, an amped-up motivational speaker who tries to steer those he’s paid to advise away from ending up in a “van down by the river” like him, is electrifying and star-making. The sketch isn’t just propelled by Farley’s over-the-top, manic energy, though, but also the uncontrollable giggles of David Spade. Farley, as playful an instigator as “SNL” has ever seen, immediately zeroes in on Spade’s crumbling performance and doubles down on, well, everything.
That night’s “SNL” host Christina Applegate also breaks character throughout the sketch as the other teen being lectured to by Farley’s Matt Foley. She does a better job, however, of hiding her giggles than Spade, who receives the full brunt of Farley’s comedic force. Farley shouts in Spade’s ear and even goes so far as to pick his fellow “SNL” cast member up and shake him. By the end of it all, Spade looks kind of like a giggling kid, and who could blame him?
Rachel Dratch (and Everyone) in “Debbie Downer: Disney World”
“Debbie Downer: Disney World” is a simple sketch undone by a ludicrous sound effect and one unfortunate flub. The sketch focuses on a family’s visit to Disney World as it is slowly ruined by Debbie Downer (Rachel Dratch), a pessimist who responds to everyone’s excited, celebratory remarks with horrifyingly sad facts. Dratch and the sketch’s other performers (Jimmy Fallon, Fred Armisen, Amy Poehler, Horatio Sanz and host Lindsay Lohan) did not know that each of Debbie’s lines would be accompanied by a “wah-wah” sound effect, and it immediately begins to produce giggles among the cast.
When an already struggling Dratch then flubs a line by referring to North Korea’s media industry first as “sensitive” instead of the scripted “secretive,” the sketch goes past the point of no-return. Dratch has a hard time holding herself together for the remainder of it, and her sketch mates all giggle themselves into different states of disarray throughout the ensuing minutes. It’s a train-wreck — one in which Sanz wipes the tears of laughter from his face with fake Disney waffles.
Aidy Bryant in “Close Encounter”
Few “SNL” cast members have proven to be as adept at making their co-stars break as Kate McKinnon. That skill is on full display in “Close Encounter,” a sketch about a pair of government agents (Aidy Bryant and Bobby Moynihan) tasked with interviewing three survivors (Cecily Strong, Ryan Gosling and McKinnon) of two wildly different alien abductions. The sketch takes its main turn when McKinnon reveals that her abduction was more like a perverse act of sexual deviance on her alien captors’ parts than the peaceful interspecies meeting Strong and Gosling’s hippie survivors experienced. Every detail McKinnon’s cigarette-smoking redneck reveals is more appalling than the last.
As funny as McKinnon’s scripted lines are, though, they almost pale in comparison to the comedic effect of each cut back to Moynihan and Bryant, the latter of whom just becomes more and more of a giggling mess by the end of “Close Encounter.” Bryant wasn’t a habitual breaker, but there were moments when certain sketches were simply too ridiculous even for her. “Close Encounter” was one of those, as it was for many who watched it. Nine years later, it serves just as much as an example of McKinnon’s knack for comedic timing and delivery as a relatable moment of fourth-wall-breaking laughter on Bryant’s part.
Gilda Radner and John Belushi in “The Farbers Meet The Coneheads”
Breaks weren’t as common in the early years of “Saturday Night Live” as they are now, but even comedic legends like Gilda Radner and John Belushi broke character from time to time during their respective tenures on the show. One of the best instances of this comes at the end of “The Farbers Meet the Coneheads.” The sketch focuses on a married couple (Belushi and Radner) who invite over their new conehead neighbors (Dan Aykroyd, Jane Curtin and Laraine Newman), unaware that the aliens are not, in fact, humans. Plenty of lovably stupid jokes ensue, but the sketch’s best moment arguably comes at the very end.
Frightened out of their wits by the Farbers’ new hairdryer, the three coneheads make their loud escape from their neighbors’ home by literally leaping through their living room’s glass window. While Aykroyd and Newman dive easily through the window, though, Curtin flubs the gag a bit by tripping on the set’s window table. The mistake immediately breaks Radner, who hunches over and proceeds to recite the sketch’s final lines through obvious laughs right alongside an equally giggling, flabbergasted Belushi.
Everyone in “The Love-ahs with Barbara and Dave”
“The Love-ahs with Barbara and Dave” features one of the more legendary cast breaks of its “SNL” era. Chronic giggler Jimmy Fallon leads the sketch as Dave, a normal guy whose trip to his hotel’s hot tub is complicated by its other occupants, Will Ferrell and Rachel Dratch’s eccentric, perpetually horny “love-ahs” Roger and Virginia Klarvin. The duo tell Dave in excruciating detail about their sexual exploits before trying to set him up with Barbara Hernandez (host Drew Barrymore), a mutual friend. Fallon starts to lose his composure early due to Ferrell secretly poking him under the water, and he’s followed shortly by everyone else in the sketch.
Dratch breaks for the first time when she and Ferrell start to share a plate of lamb shanks in the hot tub — an absurd bit that prompts her to burst into a fit of giggles. Ferrell cracks up moments later when, whilst recounting a spiritual experience, he’s forced to say, “Somewhere in the distance, we heard the pounding of native drums.” The usually stone-faced Ferrell immediately breaks into an out-of-character grin. By the time the sketch is over, he, Fallon, Dratch and Barrymore all look like they’re barely holding themselves together.
Kate McKinnon in “Apple Picking Ad”
During her time on “Saturday Night Live,” Kate McKinnon didn’t crack up nearly as much or often as she made her fellow performers break. The “SNL” titan couldn’t contain her laughter, however, in “Apple Picking Ad.” She and Aidy Bryant star in the sketch as a pair of middle-aged sisters whose apple-picking farm in “the part of New York state that has confederate flags” gets mixed reviews from its customers and tries to appeal to as many people as possible by also offering a petting zoo with depressed animals and “pears in theory,” “cherries in theory,” “strawberries in theory” and “penis gourds.”
It doesn’t take much for both Bryant and McKinnon, who are clearly reading from cue cards in the sketch, to break. When “SNL” cuts back from yet another customer’s confused, disappointed review of the farm, both Bryant and McKinnon are visibly laughing to themselves. The latter has to pause multiple times before saying her next line, which comes out in high-pitched gasps in between her laughs. It’s an infectiously funny moment in a sketch that, like many of “SNL’s” best, gradually builds its humor through mundane, strange details until you just can’t help but laugh. McKinnon certainly did.
Kristen Wiig and Maya Rudolph in “Super Showcase Spokesmodels”
Kristen Wiig starts to break early in “Super Showcase Spokesmodels,” a “Price is Right” spoof about a pair of incompetent spokesmodels (Wiig and Maya Rudolph) who struggle to present the night’s biggest prizes. While she clearly tries to cover up some of her initial laughs, Wiig completely loses her composure when she and Rudolph are forced to unpack a raw chicken, which Rudolph tickles in a brilliant bit of improvisation. Wiig can’t even make it through all of her lines about the chicken in a moment of helplessness that forces co-star Bill Hader to also break character as the sketch’s game show host.
Rudolph fares better than Wiig, but even she breaks when Wiig nearly hits her with a golf cart at the end of the sketch, and she’s overcome by a full-blown laugh when Wiig then crashes through a nearby standee. It’s a gloriously messy end to a chaotic sketch, and Rudolph and Wiig’s respective giggle breaks are prime examples of what can happen when two “SNL” cast members aren’t just undone by the show’s writing, but by each other’s comedic choices.
Heidi Gardner in “Beavis and Butt-Head”
Heidi Gardner isn’t an easy “SNL” cast member to break. She doesn’t give up an unplanned laugh easy. That’s what makes “Beavis and Butt-Head” so special. It’s an endearingly dumb sketch about a conversation with a leading scientist (Kenan Thompson) about AI that gets interrupted by two audience members (Mikey Day and Ryan Gosling) who look strikingly like Beavis and Butt-Head. That concept alone feels like a perfect “SNL” idea, but what makes the sketch even more memorable is the spot-on prosthetics applied to Gosling and Day and the well-timed cuts that perfectly punctuate each of the sketch’s visual jokes.
After forcing Gosling’s Beavis lookalike to move out of the eyeline of Thompson’s AI expert, Gardner’s news anchor is asked to make his seat replacement, Day’s Butt-Head doppelgänger, move as well. When she turns around to do so, Gardner breaks into a full-throated laugh at the sight of Day. It’s an immediate impact — one that makes you wonder whether the “SNL” crew prevented Gardner from seeing Day in his full Butt-Head makeup beforehand. She has to repeatedly look away from the camera to cover up her laughter, and she can barely make it through her next scripted lines. It’s a lightning-in-a-bottle moment that, like a few others on this list, better emphasizes the joy and humorous spirit with which “SNL” is made than perhaps any other could.
