BY MICHAEL GOODPASTER
(FOUR) ED GRIMLEY
I’m not a Martin Short fan. There is something about his comedic style and delivery that just rubs me the wrong way. It’s like he’s being funny at us and not for us or something. He seems like a cool guy and I’d love to have a drink with him, but I’d not go out of my way to watch him do his thing. One character that was pretty awesome though was Ed Grimley. I’m VERY surprised the character never had a movie. There was a cartoon, but not a movie. I don’t get it. The character was a neurotic hyped up nerd who was obsesses with the obscure. The character is just so over the top and weird that you can’t help but laugh your ass off at it.
(THREE) VELVET JONES
Eddie Murphy rocked many characters, but Gumby, Buckwheat, and Mr. Robinson were all parodies. I’m trying to stay away from direct parodies for this list. That leaves very little for some people. Eddie still had Velvet Jones though. The character first debuted in 1981. It was a fake commercial for his book “I Wanna be a Ho”. From there was more and more. Velvet Jones was quickly getting popular and then it just ended. At one point, they had Jones in the first two sketches in a row. That’s pretty much unheard of. After the commercial, they came back and Eddie broke character and talked to the camera. He explained that Velvet Jones would no longer be seen on SNL as he had just died of overexposure. A movie would have been overexposure, dammit.
(TWO) HANS AND FRANZ
“We’re going to pump… you up!” Awesome. Dana Carvey and Kevin Nealon rocked it as Hanz and Franz. They were Austrian jocks with huge fake muscles taking about pumping up and showing off their bodies. It got pretty popular for awhile. There WAS a movie planned for this one, but the bad SNL movies ruined it. After the failures of “Stuart Saves His Family” and “It’s Pat”, the producers ditched the idea. Another reason to hate Al Franken.
(ONE) THE CHURCH LADY
Could this be the biggest missed opportunity in SNL movie history? Very possibly. Dana Carvey was awesome with Mike Meyers in Waynes World and he and Nealon rocked it as Hanz and Franz, but this was his baby. From 86 to 90, we got to see this. This was right around when my brain started functioning and I have some very fond memories of Church Lady as a child. Carvey’s physical comedy and reactions were very cartoon-like. Then as I got older and old enough to understand the jokes the character was even cooler. It’s an elderly religious woman who is very uptight and veeeey judgmental. The one liners were huge at the time, but the best and most known was “Well, isn’t that special?” It’s not too late. It could still happen…. Please?
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