Jim Gaffigan made headlines this weekend following his debut as Tim Walz on SNL, but it wasn’t his first time on the show. That happened nearly 30 years ago, long before the comedian and actor was a household name.
Gaffigan’s first Saturday Night Live appearance came in a Jack Handey video on the January 13, 1996 episode hosted by Christopher Walken. (The video re-aired later that season, on the May 11 episode hosted by Christine Baranski).
The 35-second sketch was an installment of Handey’s “Fuzzy Memories” series of shorts. In the video, a man recalls a childhood memory of a house on his street that he thought was haunted, citing the screams he’d often hear and the guests who entered but never left. Alas, it was only a murderer’s house. That’s when Gaffigan appears as the homicidal neighbor being led out in handcuffs, struggling to break free.
Handey, who first joined SNL as a writer in 1985, regularly contributed short videos during his time on the show. Most famously, he was the mind behind “Deep Thoughts by Jack Handey,” a series that recurred from 1991 to 1998.
Gaffigan’s villainous Saturday Night Live debut is a far cry from his role on the show this past weekend, when it was revealed that the seven-time Grammy nominee had been chosen to portray Minnesota Governor and Democratic vice presidential candidate Walz. Fans had bandied about the comic’s name as a fitting choice to portray the balding midwestern dad who has become known for his jovial Everyman spirit.
Gaffigan was five years into his standup career when he made that first SNL appearance. In fact, Gaffigan’s acting credits on IMDb only go back to 1998, so this appears to have been his television debut. However, he wasn’t the only non-SNL face to pop up that week. The episode’s cold open featured the real Rudy Giuliani, then the mayor of New York City.
