Throwback to when one of greatest SNL cast members of all time provided a wild impression of one of the greatest country artists of all time.
Thanks to this vintage skit from Saturday Night Live, we got to see one of the greatest physical comedic actors – Chris Farley – put his all into a Hank Williams Jr. impersonation. If you ask me, I’d say Farley did a respectable job with his exaggerated take on Bochephus. To be fair, he sounds more like Wolfman Jack, but sadly, Farley wasn’t in his best health at the time. This was just two months before he tragically passed away from an accidental speedball overdose.
The premise of the sketch, which aired in October of 1997 and was an episode hosted by Farley, was that Hank Williams Jr. had come into the studio to record some more singing parts for his Monday Night Football theme music.
From 1989 to 2011, Bocephus’ “All My Rowdy Friends Are Coming Over Tonight” acted as the theme song for the NFL’s Monday Night Football programming. It was removed after Hank Williams Jr. made some political comments that were deemed “problematic” by the network, and was briefly brought back in 2017 before being omitted once again right before the 2020 season.
This skit, which featured the likes of Will Ferrell, Tim Meadows, Ana Gasteyer and Colin Quinn, had Chris Farley dressed up in Bocephus garb and repeatedly yelling, “Are you ready for some football?” Granted, there are some dull moments in the skit (that is increasingly hard to find nowadays), but it did feature a couple of good jokes, a comical Hank Williams Jr. impersonation from Farley, and a somewhat poignant ending.
Check it out:
I can’t help but wonder what Hank Williams Jr. thought about that one… these days, you have to imagine he probably isn’t a fan of Saturday Night Live. The sketch comedy show certainly has seen better days, and has seemingly wore out its welcome with those who lean to the right. Even today, many find this sketch rather unfunny and nothing more than coastal actors mocking southern folks and country music. But at the time, things were far less contentious.
It seemed like the idea for the skit was just to dress up Farley in a cowboy hat and have him scream about “football” and “his rowdy friends,” but the clip did manage to showcase the talent Chris Farley had comedically and vocally.
Though no one can match Hank Williams Jr. when it comes to performing the Monday Night Football version of “All My Rowdy Friends Are Coming Over Tonight.” It just never gets old, and maybe one day, the fine folks over at MNF will choose to revive it once more:
