Saturday Night Live still stands as one of the best sketch comedy shows ever because of its ability to deliver original and hilarious sketches that make audiences laugh uproariously. However, I've always wondered if the cast knows they are making a hit as they perform it live from New York. Well, now, Jimmy Fallon has addressed that, as he explained how they realized they were "cooking" with the legendary "More Cowbell" sketch.
It’s hard to look back at classic Saturday Night Live moments and not think of “More Cowbell.” In the great SNL sketch featuring A-list host Christopher Walken, he played music producer Bruce Dickinson as he requested the band he was working with to add more cowbell to "(Don't Fear) The Reaper." Will Ferrell played the cowbell player, and in the back, you can see Jimmy Fallon working really hard to not laugh. In the moment, the sketch worked well, however, in the years since, it's become legendary.
In a sneak preview video of the four-part docuseries SNL50: Beyond Saturday Night (which is set to air on the 2025 TV schedule), Fallon explained how he could tell the hilarious sketch was working as they performed it, explaining:
It was so surreal and bizarre, but you could feel in the air that it was working. And the room kinda got hot.
You can tell that Jimmy Fallon had a lot of fun being featured in that sketch. The part that gets to me is seeing the Tonight Show host hide his face away as he breaks out in laughter. However, seeing Will Ferrell as Gene Frenkle wearing a small shirt and aggressively defending his use for more cowbell also gets me chuckling. Clearly, the audience felt the same too, because they were laughing throughout the sketch.
One of the important things about shooting with a live studio audience, according to Gabriel Iglesias, is getting audience feedback to know what works and what doesn’t. That's true for SNL too, as Jimmy Fallon continued to say he could feel the energy in the room and he knew they were “cooking” during the “More Cowbell” sketch:
When the sketch is going, it's cooking, the room almost shakes a little bit. And it was shaking that night.
I can totally picture what he's describing, especially since Studio 8H is small, I imagine that you can take the temperature of the audience quickly during any given sketch. So, feeling the room shake with laughter must be the best feeling in the world as well as a telltale sign that you have a hit on your hands.
You can thank Will Ferrell for this iconic sketch because he wrote it. After writing a few skits a week back when he was a member of the sketch comedy troupe The Groundlings, the Elf actor lent his writing and acting skills to Saturday Night Live. Penning and starring in so many well-written sketches, like "More Cowbell," paved the way for Ferrell, and he became one of the show’s most successful alums. What can I say, he knows how to play a room.
Jimmy Fallon and the cast of SNL knew “More Cowbell” would be a successful sketch after feeling what was “cooking” in the room. With Will Ferrell’s commitment to that cowbell and Christopher Walken’s deadpan delivery, you can’t help but laugh hysterically at the silly premise and you'll probably never hear “(Don’t Fear) The Reaper” the same way again.
All four episodes of SNL50: Beyond Saturday Night will be available with a Peacock subscription on January 16th. And if you’ve got a fever and need “more cowbell,” you can find the memorable sketch there as well.
