Recurring Saturday Night Live characters and sketches introduced 2001–02
The following is a list of recurring Saturday Night Live characters and sketches introduced between September 29, 2001, and May 18, 2002, the twenty-seventh season of SNL.
Donatella Versace[edit]
Maya Rudolph parodies fashion designer Donatella Versace.[1] Donatella, a demanding diva, speaks in broken English and is always smoking or drinking champagne. She is usually surrounded by scantily clad manservants and hangs out with her celebrity friends like Elton John, Madonna, and Bono, or other designers. She gets easily impatient with her friends and guests, yelling, "Get ouutttt!" at them when they annoy her.[2] In some sketches she hawks her own line of products, like Versace Hot Pockets and Versace Egg Nog. Debuted September 29, 2001.
- Appearances
| Season | Episode | Host | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 27 | September 29, 2001 | Reese Witherspoon | Donatella promotes her video "Donatella Versace For the Children." Her guests are Grace Jones (Dean Edwards), Karl Lagerfeld (Darrell Hammond), and John Galliano (Chris Kattan). |
| 27 | December 8, 2001 | Hugh Jackman | Donatella welcomes Karl Lagerfeld (Mick Jagger), Steven Cojocaru (Jimmy Fallon), and her friend Ingo (Jackman). |
| 27 | March 16, 2002 | Ian McKellen | Donatella hosts an Oscars party featuring Yves St. Laurent (McKellen), Elizabeth Hurley (Ana Gasteyer), and Bono (Chris Kattan). |
| 28 | October 4, 2002 | Matt Damon | Donatella advertises Versace Hot Pockets, endorsed by her celebrity friends Rosie O'Donnell (Horatio Sanz), Puff Daddy (Tracy Morgan), Farnsworth Bentley (Dean Edwards), and Axl Rose (Damon). |
| 28 | December 7, 2002 | Robert De Niro | A Very Versace Chanukah. Donatella is visited by Siegfried (De Niro) and Roy (Harvey Keitel) and Sharon (Amy Poehler) and Ozzy Osbourne (Horatio Sanz). |
| 28 | March 15, 2003 | Salma Hayek | Versace Oscar Fashion Preview. Donatella previews Oscars fashion with her assistant Adriana (Hayek). Christina Aguilera makes an appearance. |
| 28 | May 17, 2003 | Dan Aykroyd | Donatella hosts her Backyard Barbecue, featuring Esteban (Aykroyd), Anna Nicole Smith (Ana Gasteyer), and David Letterman (Jeff Richards). |
| 29 | October 18, 2003 | Halle Berry | Donatella hosts a Halloween party with Naomi Campbell (Berry) and Elton John (Horatio Sanz). |
| 29 | December 13, 2003 | Elijah Wood | Donatella promotes Versace Egg Nog. Rosie O'Donnell (Horatio Sanz) and Boy George (Wood) stop by to promote the Broadway musical Taboo. |
| 29 | February 14, 2004 | Drew Barrymore | Donatella celebrates Valentine's Day with special guests Courtney Love (Barrymore), Madonna (Amy Poehler), and Elton John (Horatio Sanz). |
| 30 | February 5, 2005 | Paris Hilton | While skiing, Donatella runs into Paris Hilton. |
| 30 | May 7, 2005 | Johnny Knoxville | Donatella celebrates Mother's Day with her mother (Rachel Dratch), Elton John (Horatio Sanz), and David Furnish (Knoxville). |
| 32 | February 3, 2007 | Drew Barrymore | Donatella hosts a Super Bowl party with guests Victoria (Barrymore) and David Beckham (Seth Meyers) and Prince (Fred Armisen). |
Gay Hitler[edit]
Gay Hitler (Chris Kattan) was a character loosely based on a theory described in German historian Lothar Machtan's book The Hidden Hitler,[1] which attempts to prove that Adolf Hitler was a homosexual. The flamboyant Hitler character was known for the catchphrase "Sprechen Sie dick?" Gay Hitler was the author of the fictional autobiography Mein Boyfriend, a satire of Hitler's actual autobiography Mein Kampf. Gay Hitler also appeared as Speed Skating Hitler, rendering the Sieg Heil salute repeatedly as he skated in place. Debuted October 13, 2001.
A scene in the film Step Brothers shows fellow SNL cast member Will Ferrell dressed as a Nazi asking the antagonist "Sprechen sie dick?".
Nicole, The Girl With No Gaydar[edit]
A Rachel Dratch sketch. Debuted November 3, 2001.
America Undercover[edit]
An HBO show, similar to Fox's COPS series, where a white trash couple (played by Amy Poehler and Chris Kattan) fist fight and police (or other authority figures) are called in to break them up. Debuted November 3, 2001.
Drunk Girl[edit]
Drunk Girl was played by Jeff Richards between 2001 and 2003. Her eyes are always squinted shut and she has shoulder-length blonde hair, and often a bared midriff. Debuted December 8, 2001.
Drunk Girl tends to do certain things while drunk:
- tells people to "shut up!", whether they have actually said anything or not
- asks people if they want to know something repeatedly, even after they say no, slurring the words more and more as she repeats the phrase. (During the Weekend Update Halftime Special, even though Jimmy Fallon said he wanted to know, she continued to repeat the phrase anyway.)
- bursts into tears for no reason
- acts sexually promiscuous; also takes off her bra and/or lets something inappropriate, such as food, fall out of it in later episodes
- falls out of chairs frequently in later episodes
Astronaut Jones[edit]
A Tracy Morgan sketch. Debuted February 2, 2002.
The Leather Man[edit]
A Jimmy Fallon sketch. Debuted February 2, 2002.
Amber, the One-Legged Hypoglycemic[edit]
An Amy Poehler sketch. Debuted March 2, 2002. Amber was "rockin' one leg" (as she described it) -Poehler held one leg up behind her body so it would appear to have been amputated at the knee. She was impatient, bitchy, vulgar, dirty (literally "dirty" in that her clothes were covered with grime and she appeared not to bathe very often), and just generally obnoxious and gross. She saw herself as extremely sexy and desirable. Her catchphrase was, "Yeah, I farted. Jealous?!" Occasionally, another similarly boorish behavior would be substituted for "I farted". Apparently due to hypoglycemia, she would continuously munch on some unhealthy snack, usually a fatty fried food like french fries or potato chips throughout each sketch. The male characters in each sketch tended to appreciate her self-confidence, but fell well short of agreeing that she was sexy or desirable. She would never win the various beauty/popularity based contests that she would enter.
Appearances:
- Mar. 2, 2002: Host Jonny Moseley. Amber and her equally obnoxious frenemy (Maya Rudolph) vie for the affections of a goofy young man (Moseley).
- May 18, 2002: Host Winona Ryder. Amber auditions to be a Playboy centerfold.
- Nov. 2, 2002: Host Eric McCormack. Amber is a contestant on The Bachelor.
- May. 15, 2004: Host Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen. Amber appears on The Swan. While the other contestants on the show got radical plastic surgery makeovers (as was typical of that show), they essentially did nothing for Amber (which was OK with her, as she saw herself as perfect already). The Olsen twins appeared as another contestant, and that contestant's reflection in a mirror.
- May. 21, 2005: Host Lindsay Lohan. Amber is a contestant on America's Next Top Model.
- Feb. 23, 2008: Host Tina Fey. Amber competes to become Bret Michaels' (played by Jason Sudeikis) wife on a reality program.
- Sep. 25, 2010: Host Amy Poehler. Amber gets her own reality show on Showtime.
The Ferey Muhtar Talk Show[edit]
The Ferey Muthar Talk Show was a very short-lived sketch on SNL, appearing only twice (season 27 on the March 16, 2002, episode hosted by Ian McKellen and again on the season 28 episode hosted by Nia Vardalos). It was a talk show from Turkey, with Horatio Sanz as the host and Darrell Hammond as his sidekick. It was a parody based on Turkish reality show Ateş Hattı by Reha Muhtar.
References[edit]
- ^ Sischy, Ingrid; Versace, Donatella (February 20, 2013). "New Again: Maya Rudolph". Interview. Retrieved May 22, 2024.
- ^ "Maya Rudolph's Ten Most Iconic SNL Characters". primetimer.com. June 22, 2022. Retrieved May 22, 2024.