Before Seth Meyers found fame on Saturday Night Live (and long before he was tapped to host NBC’s Late Night), he was Doug—a guy at a party annoying the holy heck out of Charlie Sheen.
Though Meyers was a virtual unknown when he joined SNL, his network television debut actually came seven months earlier, in a February 2001 episode of Spin City. The ABC sitcom was in its fifth season by that point, with Charlie Sheen already having replaced original series lead Michael J. Fox.
Meyers appears in a single scene in the episode “Rain On My Charades.” In the episode, Charlie’s friends convince him that he’s missing the unspoken expectations of his new girlfriend, Julia, by opting for a guys’ night over a night in with her. As Charlie adjusts to the social outings of relationship life, he finds himself at a game night with Julia’s friends. Enter Meyers—who, as you might glean from the episode title, is depicted playing charades.
Meyers, as Doug, is first seen passionately participating in the game night that Charlie has begrudgingly attended, forcing him to miss a Knicks game with his friends. Doug frantically shouts incorrect answers before egging Charlie on to guess, and celebrating when Charlie identifies the charade easily.
“Now it’s time to play If the Hat Fits,” Doug then announces excitedly. “You put on a hat and then you act out its personality.”
When Charlie pulls out a basket of fruit to wear on his head, he decides to make a run for it. Faking a stomach flu, he passes the hat off to Doug, who happily puts it on and is heard launching into “La Cucaracha” as Charlie exits the apartment.
While hisc haracter is little more than a means of advancing the plot for Sheen’s character, an enthusiastic Meyers manages to make the most of it.
By that point, Meyers had been active in the improv scene at both Chicago’s ImprovOlympic and Amsterdam’s Boom Chicago. He caught the attention of Saturday Night Live after bringing one of those Boom Chicago shows to Chicago proper, and would become a cast member that fall. (“SNL recruits from overseas,” read a Hollywood Reporter headline about Meyers’ hiring that August.)
But for that one night on ABC primetime before all that, Meyers was simply a man who was, as Sheen’s character says, “shimmying around with a fruit salad on [his] head.”
Watch Meyers‘ Spin City scene below:
Previously:
Before They Were SNLers: Colin Jost On The Weakest Link
