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Peyton Manning Showed Off Serious Dance Moves in SNL's "Locker Room Motivation" Sketch
Football icon Peyton Manning was inspired by an unlikely song in this Will Forte sketch from his 2007 SNL episode.
When the two-time Super Bowl champ Peyton Manning hosted Saturday Night Live on March 24, 2007, he starred in a cult-favorite sketch that lives on in the minds of all who witnessed it: "Locker Room Motivation." In it, Manning joins Will Forte for a rousing basketball halftime speech that turns into a joyfully silly dance party set to....a James Bond theme?
It doesn't have to make sense, when Peyton and Forte's dance moves are pure magic.
Watch Peyton Manning dance at halftime in the "Locker Room Motivation SNL sketch.
Halftime becomes a dance party in Peyton Manning's SNL sketch
The sketch opens with the team that features Manning — along with SNL Season 32 cast members Andy Samberg, Bill Hader, Fred Armisen, Kenan Thompson, and Jason Sudeikis — entering a locker room at halftime. Coach (Forte) tries to raise basketball players' defeated spirits.
"All right, listen up! I see a lot of mopey faces around here. Granted, we’re down by 34 points, McMillan broke his ankle, and our cheerleaders have started to cheering for the other team," Forte's Coach tells them. "That doesn’t mean we can’t come back and win this thing!"
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"Guys, this is my senior year. And as team captain, this is not how I wanna end my last game," player Wally (Manning) tells his teammates. "So you guys listen up, and listen good: Let’s get the eff outta here! I mean, there’s an exit near the showers. We can get back to the bus and get back to Des Moines before they even know we’re gone."
Just when the other players are about to follow Wally's lead, Coach tells them a story about a team that was "down by 56 points at half-time," only to "manage the biggest comeback in college basketball history."
The secret motivator: The song "Casino Royale" by Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass, the theme from the 1967 James Bond spy film of the same name.
"All I ask of you is to listen to this song once — and then decide if you’re gonna run home with your tail between your legs or if you want to go back out there and kick the snot out of those bastards," the Coach tells them, and presses play on the song.
Coach soon lets the music overtake him as he performs eccentric dance moves to the zippy jazz tune.
Eventually, Manning's Wally joins in, bumping hips with Coach and even playing his leg like a guitar. Motivated by the music, Coach and Wally dance out of the locker room, headed back to the court.
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Will Forte explains the "Locker Room Motivation" song choice
In 2015, Forte spoke with Fast Company about the genesis of "Locker Room Motivation," and he revealed that it was "that rare time when a sketch comes across exactly how you want it to." He also shared that Late Night with Seth Meyers writer and 30 Rock actor John Lutz was behind the random soundtrack.
“Over my eight years there, there are probably five or six sketches that turned out even better than I had hoped for," Forte shared. "I wrote that one with John Lutz, who’s on Seth Meyers’ show now, and was a writer at SNL. And he had found that song, 'Casino Royale,' by Herb Albert."
"We’d just talked about writing something together, and then he played that song and I said, ‘Oh, I’ve always had this idea of a coach who wants to motivate his team by playing them a stupid song. This would be perfect,'" Forte continued, adding, "Looking back, if I had to pick a favorite thing in my time there, that’s probably the one I would pick."
