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Seth Meyers Names the Iconic Star Who Had the "Hottest" SNL Dress Rehearsal Ever
"It destroyed at a level I've never seen," the Late Night Host said of Betty White's Emmy-winning episode.
The May 8, 2010 episode of Saturday Night Live was one for the history books when television icon Betty White became the oldest person to ever host the show at age 88.
Featuring sketches with Bill Hader, Kristen Wiig, and returning cast Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, Maya Rudolph, Ana Gasteyer and Molly Shannon, White's episode was electric — and the dress rehearsal was equally so, as Seth Meyers revealed on the December 9 episode of The Lonely Island and Seth Meyers Podcast.
In fact, the dress rehearsal got the biggest audience reaction Meyers had ever seen during his 13 years with the show.
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"The hottest dress I was ever at was the Betty White show," Meyers told co-hosts Andy Samberg and Akiva Schaffer — meaning "hot" in the live comedy sense, in that the audience was laughing and fully on board with what they were watching.
The Late Night Host went on to explain that toward the end of SNL's dress rehearsal — which occurs at 8pm the night of a new episode — it became very clear they'd developed enough sketches to round out the night's lineup.
Thus, "Lorne [Michaels] left and went back up to his office early, because he knew he had his show — the last two sketches it didn't matter how well they went, he had a show," Meyers said on the podcast. But then White killed it so hard in an installment "Scared Straight," it made Meyers run to Michaels' office to he could come back and watch.
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Betty White's "Scared Straight" sketch "destroyed" the SNL audience
"'Scared Straight' is one of the most four-dimensional sketches that has ever been on SNL," Meyers said of the recurring sketch. Kenan Thompson stars as a criminal hired by Officer Sikorsky (Jason Sudeikis) to frighten young offenders away from committing more serious crimes.
"In that 'Scared Straight', Betty White was a felon with Kenan — and I remember it was like a scene from a movie, where I said to Lorne, 'I think you might wanna watch this!'" Meyers recalled. "Because while he was picking the show, I was just watching the monitor and the audience was screaming."
"It destroyed at a level I've never seen," Meyers added.
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Betty White's SNL had cameos from "census taker" Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, Molly Shannon and more
The Mother's Day weekend episode featured many memorable moments, including a "Lawrence Welk Show" cold open with cameos by SNL alums Rachel Dratch, Tina Fey, Ana Gasteyer, Amy Poehler, Maya Rudolph, and Molly Shannon. It also featured a return to Delicious Dish, and a "Bronx Beat."
You can even watch the dress rehearsal take of White's "Bronx Beat" — featuring a pregnant Amy Poehler! — below.
Tina Fey played a census taker who meets a wacky woman in an excellent edition of the recurring sketch.
Not only was the episode a hit with the in-studio audience, it was deemed an instant classic by viewers and the Television Academy, with White winning an Emmy for her hosting gig.
