How Christopher Walken "Truly Surprised" Will Ferrell During SNL's "More Cowbell" Sketch
The iconic SNL sketch didn't always seem destined for success, but found its way into the comedy pantheon.
What the 50th anniversary of Saturday Night Live could use is a little more cowbell.
Peacock's four-part docuseries SNL50: Beyond Saturday Night, available to stream now, devotes its entire third episode to the legendary sketch, exploring all the ins and outs of how “More Cowbell,” propelled by Will Ferrell and Host Christopher Walken, went from underdog concept to instant classic. Audiences may be surprised to learn, for example, that the Season 25 sketch (air date: April 8, 2000) didn’t feel so promising to those behind the scenes, right up until the moment it stole the show.
“This sketch is a great example of the freedom to kind of create something that crazy,” Will Ferrell said in Beyond Saturday Night. “It’s definitely a testament to trusting your gut where you’re like, ‘Yeah, let’s just try it.’”
Here are a few fun facts revealed in the docuseries about the sketch, written by Ferrell and starring Walken as fictional music producer Bruce Dickinson — “Yes, the Bruce Dickinson.”
“More Cowbell” originally had no cowbell at all
Those taking part in the new docuseries, including Dana Carvey (an SNL cast member from 1986 to 1993) and Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl, were stunned to learn that during the first table read for the sketch, months before it would actually be featured in the show, Ferrell’s stage directions referred to “more woodblock” instead of “more cowbell.”
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“Clearly, cowbell was the right choice,” said Grohl.
Featuring Chris Parnell, Chris Kattan, Jimmy Fallon, and Horatio Sanz, the idea for what was then “more woodblock” revolved around what audiences are familiar with today: Fictionalized members of Blue Öyster Cult in the music studio, recording their 1976 rock hit “(Don’t Fear) The Reaper.”
“I had a corkboard in my office where I would put cards as potential ideas, and ‘(Don’t Fear) The Reaper’ must have come on somewhere,” Ferrell recalled. “I remember listening to that song as a kid, on the radio in the car. It’s a great song, and I loved the song first, and then I heard the cowbell second.”
Ferrell said that even as a child, he wondered what life was like for the person playing the cowbell in the background.
“I guess it was germinating for decades in the back of my head,” Ferrell explained. “That must have just un-lodged in my brain, and I thought, ‘That could be a funny leaping-off point.’”
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Thankfully, it was the cowbell, and not the woodblock, that won the day.
"We would not be talking about the sketch today if it was Christopher Walken saying 'I need more woodblock,'" author and journalist David Itzkoff said in the docuseries.
Speaking of Walken ...
"More Cowbell" wasn't initially written for Christopher Walken
Ferrell actually wrote “More Cowbell,” then known as "Recording Session," months before it made its indelible impact on the show, imagining Host and former SNL cast member Norm Macdonald (on the show from 1993 to 1998) as Dickinson for Season 25, Episode 3 (air date: October 23, 1999).
However, it didn't make it to air.
“Norm was funny and everything like that, but just, as it goes, that week it just wasn’t picked,” Ferrell said. “So, it was shelved for two or three months. I remember thinking, ‘Oh, it’s a little too weird for the room. I’ll just hold onto it. Maybe there’ll be a better fit.’”
Lo and behold, when Walken showed up nearly six months later to host SNL, Ferrell gave the sketch a rewrite with the Academy Award-winning actor in mind. Beth McCarthy-Miller, SNL director from 1995 to 2006, said Ferrell’s second go at the cowbell sketch was “so funny” and “perfectly written” to suit Walken's distinctive speaking rhythms.
Ferrell, set to play the shaggy-haired band member Gene Frenkle in a T-shirt several sizes too small, brought a cowbell from the props department to the Wednesday table read.
But even then ...
The performers didn't have much faith
At dress rehearsal, Ferrell said things were “kind of fine,” though most were concerned about Walken’s performance.
“I was surprised at how low-key he was playing it,” Parnell told Beyond Saturday Night.
“He doesn’t do full Walken, and I don’t think I’m as physical,” Ferrell confessed.
“More Cowbell” had some things working against it, including its location on “stage one,” which was positioned at the edge of Studio 8H and thus more removed from the live audience. Nicknames given to the lot included "Coffin Corner," "the Death Corner," and — as Ferrell called it — "S--tcan Alley."
RELATED: Is Gene Frenkle, Will Ferrell’s Cowbell Character, a Real Person?
Fallon said the bit felt “actually doomed.”
“At the time, I don’t think anyone had any faith that that sketch would air,” said Fallon.
Of course, "More Cowbell" not only was chosen for the live show, it was the first sketch after Walken's monologue and he ratcheted up the energy once it was showtime.
"Christopher Walken added this thing where he gets all fired up and leans into it on such a level that I didn't even expect," Ferrell said. “I was truly surprised that Christopher Walken found this new kind of intensity.”
The rest is SNL history.
Watch past episodes of Saturday Night Live, now available on Peacock.
