When most people get fired, they’re not normally quick to return to the premises, usually because they’ve been advised not to. But it’s an entirely different thing when you’re a big star who’s been booted off of a TV show, as Adam Sandler can attest. When NBC tried to get him back on the air after firing him from Saturday Night Live, his form of revenge was forcing them to buy him a fax machine. Normal, right?
With his latest film The Cobbler hitting theaters this weekend, Sandler recently appeared on Conan and shared a hilarious story about his return to NBC after getting shitcanned. He said his manager called him up with the news that NBC wanted him to appear on Late Night with Conan O’Brien (go figure) because it was sweeps week. Here’s how the rest of the conversation between Sandler and his manager went, according to the actor.
And I said, ‘I thought they don’t like me. They just fired me.’ And he said, ‘No no no. It’s for Conan, though. It’s not Saturday Night Live.’ I was like, ‘But isn’t that NBC?’ And he was like, ‘Yeah.” And to make like a big stand – I was young and I was angry – I said, ‘Well you tell them I will do Conan’s show, but they have to buy me a fax machine.
In the annals of deal-brokering, I can’t image that a fax machine was at the heart of the matter many more times than this. Sandler explained he and his brother were talking about fax machines around the time he got that call, but the $400 price tag made him balk. Luckily, that’s when the call came in and Sandler actually was granted a fax machine for doing the Late Night gig. But, as he said soon after, “I wasn’t very great at it.” I don’t really see how someone can be bad at faxing, but then I’m not very good at acting, so there’s the tradeoff.
Check out the whole story in the video below, which features the hardest that anyone has ever laughed at anything involving a fax machine since Office Space.
Sandler also shared a great story about Michael Keaton’s SNL hosting gig, because all Michael Keaton stories are good ones. For more silly tales about all things pop culture, watch Conan every weeknight on TBS.
