The weekend’s Big Slick charity weekend in Kansas City was already a hot ticket for Saturday Night Live fans, given the sheer number of current and former cast members participating, but no one expected this.
On Saturday night, Robert Smigel and George Wendt led an all-star cast in staging a brand new installment of their classic SNL sketch “Bill Swerski’s Superfans.”
The new sketch saw Smigel and Wendt reprise their characters Carl Wollarski and Bob Swerski, while Jason Sudeikis stepped into the role of Todd O’Connor, originally played by the late Chris Farley. Sudeikis had three points of connection to the sketch: He’s a former SNL cast member, grew up in Kansas, and is Wendt’s nephew.
While the Superfans are best known as diehard Chicago fans, this time around they turned their focus to Kansas City’s hometown Chiefs with help from two very special guests: Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes, and tight end Travis Kelce.
The sketch is generating some buzz for some of its jabs. At one point, Wendt made a reference to Kelce’s teammate Harrison Butker, who is facing backlash for a slew of homophobic and misogynistic comments he made during a commencement speech at Benedictine College last month. “Happy Pride Month,” Wendt told the Kansas City crowd. “Or as your kicker calls it, June.”
“Let’s not get off track here,” Kelce dodged in reply.
At another point, Sudeikis asked Kelce when he planned to “make an honest woman” out of girlfriend Taylor Swift. “Taylor doesn’t need to be working anymore,” Sudeikis continued. “And I know your kicker agrees with me.”
The Big Slick’s official video of the sketch describes it as the first time Smigel and Wendt have reprised their roles since Chris Farley’s death — which is partly true.
Smigel and Wendt have guested on other shows over the years as their Wollarski and Swerski characters. In 2006, Wendt appeared as an unnamed Superfan in a pre-Super Bowl sketch with Mike Ditka. And in 2014, Smigel and Wendt both brought the characters back for a State Farm ad campaign—again steering clear of character names, or any references to “da Bears” or the Bulls.
But the duo haven’t staged a proper “Superfans” sketch since Farley’s passing. The last one came as a pretaped piece when Farley hosted SNL in October 1997, less than two months before his death.
SNL first staged “Bill Swerski’s Superfans” on January 12, 1991, with host Joe Mantegna. The sketch recurred on the show nine times over the next two years.
