Bowen Yang’s Saturday Night Live farewell sketch originally featured a few more cast members and a bunch more eggnog—until boss man Lorne Michaels opted to focus on the emotion of the moment.
Yang looked back on his final show in an “exit interview” with co-host Matt Rogers on their Las Culturistas podcast, zeroing in on how they found the right tone for his big send-off.
Slotted as the night’s final sketch, “Delta Lounge” cast Yang as an eggnog server in a Delta Air Lines lounge, messily serving the drink to several castmates before ending in song with host Ariana Grande and musical guest Cher. Former SNL writer Celeste Yim, who often collaborated with Yang as a writer from Seasons 46-50, returned to pen the sketch with Yang.
‘LORNE KNOWS HOW TO PRODUCE’
Yang shared on his and Rogers’ podcast that “Delta Lounge” originally included at least two other players: Mikey Day and Sarah Sherman. Also, the eggnog machine initially went a bit more haywire, and was more of a focal point.
“We had Mikey [Day] and Sarah [Sherman] there in the back, just cleaning up the mess,” Yang explained. While some performers did wind up getting sprayed, Michaels had the foresight to scale back the distracting physical comedy.
“It got to be too much,” said Yang. “Lorne came up to me and Celeste before the show, after dress [rehearsal], and he was just like, ‘I think it’s better if it’s just you guys and you just play into the emotion of it.’”
Yang knew that was the right call, noting: “Lorne Michaels knows how to produce.”
With that change, though, it became even harder to incorporate other cast members.
“My only wish is that we had gotten a bunch of other cast in there, ideally the entire cast in there,” for his sendoff, Yang admitted. “I want to be there with the other people. It did just come down to logistics.”
While Yang ended the sketch in an emotional embrace with Grande and Cher, he went on to recount how the iconic musical guest’s participation in “Delta Lounge” wasn’t always a given.
“We weren’t sure if she was going to do it, down to like Saturday. We wrote a bunch of different versions of it, and she just wanted spare dialogue because—she will tell you—she’s a dyslexic icon,” Yang said, adding that Cher also wanted to make sure her character was “kind.”
CHER FAMILY REUNION, RESCINDED
That wasn’t the only instance Cher could have been on-screen that episode. In addition to the farewell sketch, Yang and Yim penned a “Cher Family Reunion.” The sketch—like past versions featuring Adam Sandler, Jim Carrey, and Christopher Walken—would have featured a parade of cast members doing their Cher impressions in front of the real deal.
Of course, as with most SNL sketches, it was also possible that Yang’s entire sendoff would be cut.
“It’s like landing the Mars Rover on a square foot of terrain. There were no guarantees about how any of it was going to shake out,” Yang acknowledged on his podcast. “Going into it, down to like 12:55 AM, not being sure if that sketch was going to air… It kind of is perfectly illustrious of what that job is.”
