When ‘Saturday Night Live’ apologised to Tom Hanks: “We let him down so hard”
If there’s one TV show that can be deemed the least likely to offer a heartfelt apology to Tom Hanks, then Saturday Night Live is surely at the top of the list.
After all, ‘America’s Dad’ and the long-running sketch comedy series have become virtually inseparable since his first appearance in December 1985, with the two-time Academy Award winner and A-list superstar becoming one of SNL’s most frequent comperes.
Hanks was welcomed into the illustrious ‘Five-Timers Club’ in December 1990 and has hosted the show ten times in total, putting him joint fourth on the all-time list alongside Buck Henry and behind only 13-timer John Goodman, 16-timer Steve Martin, and 17-timer Alec Baldwin.
He’s been a regular fixture on SNL for 40 years and has taken part in sketches that run the gamut from great to godawful. Some of them didn’t even air, and one of them was deemed so regrettable by its creator that he felt obligated to issue a heartfelt apology to Hanks for putting him in something so terrible.
For the most part, The Lonely Island are regarded as one of modern comedy’s most inventive troupes. Jorma Taccone, Akiva Schaffer, and Andy Samberg have been responsible for such viral skits as ‘Dick in a Box’, ‘Jizz in My Pants’, ‘I’m on a Boat’, and ‘I Just Had Sex’, which also offers an inkling of which direction their humour skewed.
On paper, Hanks and Samberg wearing bald caps to parade around the streets of New York City as a chrome-domed Europop duo inspired by Right Said Fred who ask people not to harm their nuts through the medium of song was right up The Lonely Island’s street, only for the aptly named ‘My Testicles’ to fall exruciatingly flat.
Mercifully, it didn’t air on the main show but lives forever in infamy as an SNL Digital Short, and Taccone was wracked with guilt and shame on the podcast they host alongside Seth Meyers when reflecting on the dire sketch. “I just saw Tommy Hanks recently,” he said. “And I was just immediately feeling terrible that we let him down so hard with the short.”
It certainly wasn’t The Lonely Island, Hanks, or SNL‘s finest hour, especially when they’re capable of so much more individually and collectively. The actor is probably too nice to admit that it’s shite, but Taccone knows it, and all he could do was hold his hands up and admit that he wishes he’d never placed one of the industry’s most popular stars into such a woefully unfunny music video.
On the plus side, it didn’t dissuade Hanks from returning to SNL. ‘My Testicles’ is arguably the worst thing he’s ever been a part of during his four-decade association with the show, but since it was dumped online in May 2006, he’s returned for three more hosting gigs.
