Now, finally, you can have-a da Mango. The showy shorts donned by Chris Kattan’s recurring Saturday Night Live character are being auctioned off—and they’re expected to fetch a pretty penny.
Mango’s screen-worn shorts are now up for grabs as part of Juliens’ current auction, “Channel Surfing: A Broadcast to Binge Auction.” The California auction house is selling over 600 pieces of TV memorabilia at the two-day event, including a number of items from SNL, The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, and Late Night with David Letterman—including Letterman’s iconic Velcro suit.
The stretch shorts—outfitted with “small gold metallic discs” and signed on the waistband by Kattan—appeared alongside stars like Matt Damon and Samuel L. Jackson, and even rubbed up against Jennifer Lopez during Mango’s run on thelegendary sketch show.
According to Julien’s, Kattan originally donated the shorts to Rosie O’Donnell for a benefit auction supporting her charity For All Kids.
One of his most popular characters, Kattan first portrayed the exotic dancer in an October 1997 sketch with host Brendan Fraser. “You can’t have-a da Mango” became one of the era’s best-known catchphrases, reverberating so widely that it was uttered Wednesday night in Late Night with Seth Meyers’ “A Closer Look.”
All told, Mango made sixteen appearances on SNL in less than five years. But the character outlived his last sketch appearance in 2002. Kattan appeared as Mango in an Alexander Wang campaign—a partnership that also saw Saks Fifth Avenue collaborate with SNL to offer Mango shorts to consumers as part of its “Live from New York” capsule. Entertainment Weekly ranked that offering the second-most ridiculous of the collection, behind only a Coneheads beanie. Saks’ take on the shorts, however, was notably less ridiculous than the real glittery gold pair.
Now that real pair can be yours for a few hundred dollars. Bidding on the lot began at $100 and, as of this post, now stands at $300. Julien’s estimates the item will ultimately net around $500-700.
Also among the ten SNL-related items in the auction are John Belushi’s Killer Bee head appliance, and a Conehead prosthetic worn by Dan Aykroyd. Those, however, are far less affordable. They’re each expected to net about $20-30,000 when all is said and done.
Julien’s “Channel Surfing: A Broadcast to Binge Auction” culminates in a live auction May 7-8.
