SNL's "Ambiguously Gay Duo" Sketch Secretly Starred Steve Carrell and Stephen Colbert
Robert Smigel's recurring "TV Funhouse" characters actually originated on another former SNL cast member's show.
In the weeks leading up to February 16's three-hour 50th anniversary celebration on NBC, the team behind Saturday Night Live has selected one sketch from every single season — 50 seasons in 50 days — to reflect the show's rich legacy across five decades. Presenting the sketch chosen to represent Season 22: "Ambiguously Gay Duo: Safety Tips" starring Steve Carrell and Stephen Colbert.
Writer Robert Smigel's long working relationship with Saturday Night Live dates back to Season 11; he was even a Featured Player from 1991-1993. While Smigel's fingerprints are all over SNL during his nonconsecutive 20-year run there, his inventive, boundary-pushing "TV Funhouse" animated shorts are among his most enduring contributions.
The "TV Funhouse" episode "Ambiguously Gay Duo: Safety Tips" debuted during Pamela Anderson's April 19, 1997 episode. Drawn in the style of early-1980s cartoons like Super Friends and G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero, it finds masked heroes Ace and Gary showing some neighborhood kids how to...safely ride a bike, use the buddy system, and administer the Heimlich maneuver.
When the children speculate about the nature of Ace and Gary's relationship, as so many have, Gary tells them, "You'll all be happy and gay if you follow our tips!" The fourth entry in the series, it would be followed by eight more — including a live-action finale featuring Jon Hamm, Jimmy Fallon, and The Office's Ed Helms.
Watch "The Ambiguously Gay Duo: Safety Tips" here.
But funnily enough, despite being one of the best-known "TV Funhouse" installments, "The Ambiguously Gay Duo" didn't actually originate on SNL. Which largely explains why the duo was voiced by two people who were never SNL cast members: Steve Carell and Stephen Colbert.
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Why Steve Carrell and Stephen Colbert voiced SNL's "Ambiguously Gay Duo" Ace and Gary
In 1996, Robert Smigel co-created, wrote on, and performed in The Dana Carvey show, a variety show starring SNL alum Dana Carvey. It also co-starred a pair of veteran sketch actors, long before their days as a late night TV host and star of The Office (or even their respective turns as Daily Show correspondents). Running for just one shortened season on ABC, it's so fondly remembered as a pivotal piece of comedy history that there's an entire documentary about it.
Stephen Colbert and Steve Carrell made their debut voicing Ace and Gary, the Ambiguously Gay Duo, when the very first installment debuted on The Dana Carvey Show. It was subsequently re-aired on SNL, which was home to the sketches going forward.
During a visit to Watch What Happens Live in 2017, Stephen Colbert told Andy Cohen that he modeled his character after "serious" cartoons of the era, like Jonny Quest. Smigel told the Television Academy that the sketches were also inspired by old Batman cartoons meshed with the Joel Schumacher era of the live-action films, and other over-the-top action movies of the '80s and '90s.
"There's a whole other joke going on about the fine line between masculinity as a celebrated requirement of the male experience, and homoeroticism," Smigel said.
