Today in TV History: Will Ferrell, TV’s Best Performer of Boring Crazy Guys, Was Born

Of all the great things about television, the greatest is that it’s on every single day. TV history is being made, day in and day out, in ways big and small. In an effort to better appreciate this history, we’re taking a look back, every day, at one particular TV milestone. 

IMPORTANT DATE IN TV HISTORY: July 16, 1967

WHY IT’S IMPORTANT: It would be difficult to over-estimate Will Ferrell’s impact on Saturday Night Live. He defined an entire era for the show, and he was a machine at cranking out repeatable characters the likes of which the show has never seen (with the possible exception of Kristen Wiig, whose recurring characters were far more divisive).

He’s since gone on to become a giant movie star, and he’s probably going to win an Oscar someday for some atypically non-comedic role, but his greatest impact on entertainment still lies in the dozens and dozens of classic Saturday Night Live sketches he produced.

Choosing one sketch to be emblematic of Ferrell’s impact is a fool’s errand. Pick a George W. Bush sketch … but which one? Pick a Spartan Cheerleaders sketch … but which? “Dog Show”? “Celebrity Jeopardy”? The Lovers? Harry Caray? Janet Reno? The Culps? James Lipton?

My guess is that most searches for Ferrell’s best SNL sketch would center on “More Cowbell” Gene, and it’s hard for me to argue against that one. It’s iconic for a reason. But my own little fiefdom that I keep here, I’m going with the “Wake Up and Smile” sketch, with Nancy Walls and David Alan Grier.

This is the perfect Will Ferrell sketch in that its emblematic of his most quintessential qualities: he can come across as the most boring, basic, whitebread guy, but the second things start getting weird, he becomes a volcano, revealing the barely held-together chaos underneath. The best part of the sketch is listening to the audience process it. They’re with it at first, then they get uncomfortable at how dark it’s getting (and particularly at the punch lines that won’t come), and things get almost silent, and THEN Ferrell emerges with Grier’s severed head, and the screams (literal screams) of combined laughter/revulsion from the crowd had to have been the most satisfying thing for the performers. A++

[You can watch the best of Will Ferrell on Saturday Night Live on Yahoo Screen]

Joe Reid (@joereid) is a freelance writer living in Brooklyn. You can find him leaving flowers for Mrs. Landingham at the corner of 18th and Potomac.

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