Gasping for Airtime - Jay Mohr [40]
His weight soared in the two years I was on the show. That was the cylinder that was skyrocketing—his eating. He would also have three huge cups of black coffee before read-through, like a guy doing shots at a bar. Despite his weight, there were times when he looked absolutely handsome. He’d have his hair slicked back, with the mousse making it kick out on the side, and he’d be wearing sunglasses. He would try to dress up, but at heart he was still Chicago’s Second City, so he would wear the army boots with the suit.
As far as I’m concerned, Chris was also the funniest man who ever lived. No one can ever touch Farley. In basketball, there’s Michael Jordan and there’s everyone else. Well, there was Farley and then there was everyone else. But Farley was better than Jordan in his prime. A ball can go through the hoop only one way. More than anyone I have ever seen in the history of Saturday Night Live, Chris made each segment he was a part of absolute madness. He fed off the live audience, and they couldn’t get enough of him.
I’ve never seen a performer showered with love as Farley was in the “Little Women” figure-skating sketch when David Hyde Pierce hosted. The characters (played by Pierce, Farley, Spade, and Janeane Garofalo) were all dressed in costumes from the 1800s. As they took turns on the ice rink, doing figure eights and showing off, Farley criticized them with foppy lines like “I think you should pay more attention to your schoolwork.” At the end, as everyone argued with everyone else, Farley went out to skate and broke the ice. When Farley fell through the trapdoor into the ice-cold water, he screamed, “Shut the hell up, you stupid whores, and get me out of here!” As the little women came to his aid, he pulled them all in the water with him.
At the end of the sketch, everyone climbed out of the water quickly to escape the cold—except Farley. He didn’t pull himself out until the show had gone to commercial and the band began to play. When he emerged from the hole, his coat had fallen off and he was clutching the soggy garment in his hands. He was standing directly under the cantilevered balcony seats and in front of the people seated on the floor in front of the stage where the sketch had been performed. Dripping wet, Farley held his clothes over his head like a cross between an ancient gladiator and David Lee Roth. He was an absolute god and a sopping wet mess, and the crowd went berserk.
What was true for the audience was true for the performers: If you were in a sketch with Farley, you were going to have some serious fun. You never knew what craziness Chris was going to pull out of his bag of tricks. Even though the sketch’s lines and all the parts were written on cue cards, Chris always managed to come up with something fresh and new. He also had the uncanny ability to make everyone else in the sketch tremble while holding in his own laughter. It was as if Chris was on a mission; if he didn’t make you laugh, he had somehow failed.
Martin Lawrence was hosting the show near the end of my first season, and a “Motivational Speaker” sketch had been written starring him and Chris. The premise was based on the Scared Straight! program. I was only about eleven years old when I first saw Scared Straight! It was the first time I had ever heard swearing on television. Wayward kids were assembled inside a jail in front of a group of prisoners. Each kid thought he was pretty hot stuff, and because they were chosen for the Scared Straight! program, you could bet they were capital