-Tonight's
"Second Chance Theatre"
is a sketch that you guys worked
on together called "Unicorn.
-That's right.
Yeah, this was from the --
one of the last episodes of my
first year writing for "SNL.
So 2010.
And it went to dress with
an actress named Betty White
-Yeah.
From the very beginning, thi
sketch was an uphill battle.
Betty was not fully on board
Can you talk a little bit
about the why?
-Yeah. So, I got just
kind of blindsided by this
I got called
into her dressing room.
It had gone well on Wednesday,
and I assumed she liked
that it was getting laughs
and people were nice about it.
And I got called
into her dressing room
on Friday or Saturday.
And her manager,
who's much older than her...
[ Laughter ]
...started to lay into me
and slapping the coffee tabl
saying, "We said no animals!
-Right.
-And I was just flabbergasted.
We didn't have an actual horse
playing the unicorn even.
It was always
a very fake stuffed animal
So I was confused by that.
And then I tried to talk to them
about how the unicorns
aren't actual animals.
And how there is kind of a fun
in that Betty White is
the most unlikely of people to
be this cold unicorn euthanizer.
-Yeah.
-And we just kind of lost --
and then our concession,
we realized this week when w
looked back at the final dress
script was we put
a paragraph at the end
where Betty says,
"No unicorns were hurt."
And it's not a joke.
It's for other people out ther
who are maybe worried.
A bizarre jokeless
moment in "SNL."
-Yeah.
-Yep.
-And now there was, you know
I think all three of us
would agree "SNL" has
the best staff in the world.
-Yep.
-The best props, best wardrobe
best hair and makeup,
and when you first brought
this sketch to them, it wasn't
necessarily going to just be
fake unicorns, right?
-Yeah, they offered to get
a horse and put a horn on it
-Which, now that, that to me
seems like some animal cruelty
by default.
-That's a good point.
We probably should've let them
know, like, Betty know
and her manager that, hey, w
could have gone this route
and we didn't because of you
The only other option was
I think Lorne's daughter
at that time had a real unicorn,
which I know we're not
supposed to talk about.
-Right, I know, very much so
I think Lorne showed us pictures
and said --
[ Laughter ]
Now, it should be noted
because I do want to take
some of this onus off
Betty White.
You did try it one other time.
-Yeah, in my third season,
we did it with Ferrell.
And it's more the version
that we're doing for
"Second Chance Theatre"
where it's a little bit more
about the back-and-forth between
what was Jason and Ferrell
-Will Ferrell, one of the
all-time greatest sketch actors.
-Yes.
-Yeah.
-Yeah, not that Colin Farrel
wouldn't have crushed it,
totally capable.
Um, but, yeah.
Yeah, giving it his all.
-And Will Ferrell liked it
and tried really hard.
In my memories, it went medium
then, or it maxes out at medium.
[ Laughter ]
-And now the other thing that'
very -- so now we're admitting
right now we're about to sho
people a sketch that bombed with
Betty White and only did mediu
with Will Ferrell.
Is this the worst -- was
Betty White "Unicorn" the wors
either of you ever bombed
at dress?
-Ooh.
-I have one worse.
And it was --
Mulaney and I wrote one wher
we'd read a true story
that Stephen Hawking
was seen going to a strip club
in England.
-Yeah.
-And that the guy in the article
was interviewed as saying,
"Yeah, every time he comes in,
I always say,
'Stephen, do you want to tal
about planets
or do you want to
just look at the ladies?'"
And Stephen always says,
"Just the ladies this time."
And so Mulaney and I wrote
a sketch about
what an idiot that guy would be.
But as soon as Fred came out
in a wheelchair and was, like,
talking in an electronic voice
the audience --
I mean, I think
some crew guys walked out.
-Yeah.
-Yep.
-And it should be noted this was
not some ad homonym attack
This was ripped
from the headlines.
-Yep.
-Yes.
-I should say it was
ripped from a headline
that not a lot of people
had seen.
So it definitely felt like
you had made it up.
[ Laughter ]
-Which just seems like it'
such a random weird thing
to say about him.
-There's a couple things
we should note
and then we're going to come
back and watch this thing.
One, obviously, it was meant t
be a live sketch.
We shot it
in three different locations
Two, the children were alway
played by cast members.
So you had people like
Nasim Pedrad and Abby Elliot
and Vanessa Bayer
all playing children.
We did -- Sudeikis and I -
we used our kids.
And I think it adds
to the verisimilitude
of a mythological beast sketch
called "Unicorn."
So we're going to all
watch it together,
and then we're going to come
back and talk about it.
Everybody stick around
for the first performance
on television of "Unicorn.
