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Watch Will Ferrell, Bowen Yang and John Oliver Star in an Unaired SNL Sketch
"Mr. Kotter" was a "comedic catastrophe" during dress rehearsal.
On June 12, Late Night with Seth Meyers once again became "Second Chance Theatre," a recurring segment in which Saturday Night Live alum and celebrity guests reunite to perform SNL sketches that never made it to air. The latest Second Chance Players: SNL legends Will Ferrell and Rachel Dratch, Season 49 cast member Bowen Yang, and Last Week Tonight Host John Oliver.
Doing his best Masterpiece Theatre impression in a leather wingback chair, Host Seth Meyers introduced a staging of a sketch from Ferrell, "Mr. Kotter," which never made it past SNL dress rehearsal.
"Tonight, a series of unfortunate events turns the dream of meeting one's personal hero into a hellish nightmare," said Meyers. "The kind of nightmare that can only occur when your hero is actor, comedian, and star of the 1970s sitcom Welcome Back, Kotter, Gabe Kaplan."
The sketch starts with Yang and Oliver playing Frank and Alex, respectively, in the kitchen break room of their office, discussing how they just saw Gabe Kaplan.
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Interrupting their conversation is their coworker Doug, played by Will Ferrell. The SNL alum is in Welcome Back, Kotter cosplay, dressed as Kaplan from the 1970s ABC sitcom, complete with blazer, sweater vest, permed hair and a thick mustache.
Overhearing his coworkers talk about seeing Kaplan, Doug is stunned as to why no one came to find him, knowing that he's a Kaplan superfan. Just then, Julie (Rachel Dratch) comes in saying she just saw Kaplan downstairs.
With disdain, Doug's coworkers explain why they didn't come find him during Kaplan's visit, with Frank telling Doug that he's a "freaky guy who should have been fired a long time ago."
Will Ferrell tells Seth Meyers about his cut "Mr. Kotter" sketch
In a post-sketch conversation with the Second Chance Players, Meyers sat down with Ferrell, Yang, Dratch, and Oliver, asking Ferrell to explain why his original "Mr. Kotter" sketch bombed.
Meyers shared that a video of the "Mr. Kotter" dress rehearsal was sent to all five of them, and Oliver couldn't believe how awkward it played in front of the audience.
"I was startled by the fact that you didn't oversell just how unflinching and unremitting the silence was," Oliver said. "I feel like sometimes people say it went badly, and you think, 'It went fine. You're over overstating how badly it went.' This was a comedic catastrophe."
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While the normal length of an SNL sketch is around 10 pages, Ferrell laughed that this was a "confident 13 pages," adding that Kaplan is also not widely known to younger generations.
Their conversation led to the SNL cast members revealing their own comedic bombs and sketch ideas that never made it to air, like Dratch trying to make the character of David Mack Wilson, a "really precocious, really annoying" child star happen, or when Yang and May 11 SNL Host Maya Rudolph played a pair of obnoxious bird watchers in Brooklyn's Prospect Park.
Watch Ferrell, Dratch, Oliver, and Yang's "Mr. Kotter" and their Second Chance Theatre Q&A above.
