Fun
Frisky
Nostalgic
Intense
Adventurous
Choked Up
Curious
Romantic
Weird
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: October 12, 2013
PROGRAM ORIGINALLY AIRED ON THIS DATE: Saturday Night Live, “Bruce Willis / Katy Perry” (season 39, episode 3).
WHY IT’S IMPORTANT: There is a tried and true way to handle Saturday Night Live hosts who are of the action-hero type: make him look as awkwardly “fun” as possible. And while 2013 Bruce Willis was a far distance away from original Die Hard Bruce Willis (no matter how many Die Hards he keeps making), he still carries with him the stern comportment of a gruff leading man who doesn’t have any fun. And why should that be so? Willis did have that short-lived, harmonica-based music career, after all. He knows fun.
So when Saturday Night Live welcomed him back in 2013 — any guesses what he was promoting? Did you guess “nothing, but RED 2 was his most recent film”? — their most successful sketch was the short video that put Willis and the men of SNL (Taran Killam, Kenan Thompson, Bobby Moynihan, Beck Bennett, and Jay Pharoah) into a super crazy dance party.
It’s a funny video, but what it mostly is is a historical curiosity, given that two months later, we got the first Pussycat Dolls-inspired music video starring Kate McKinnon, Aidy Bryant, Vanessa Bayer, and crew, and it eventually spawned a mini-franchise on the show. “Ya Girls” collaborated on “Do It On My Twin Bed,” “Dongs All Over the World,” “Back Home Baller,” and “First Got Horny to You,” with each one a show highlight. I suppose there is an alternate universe wherein “Boy Dance Party” spawned a fake-boy-band revival on SNL, but we’re probably all better off that it was a weird, wonderful one-off.
