During an appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, Taccone revealed that the skit featuring Steve Martin was possibly the “worst failure that we’ve ever had on ‘SNL.'” As the “MacGruber” auteur related to Fallon:
“[T]here was a thing that would happen, like, when we were at ‘SNL,’ where if it would get to a certain point at night and I ‘d be laughing a certain way, Andy would always be like, ‘It’s not gonna work. Jorm’s laughing in that Jorm way. It’s not gonna work.’ But we wrote this sketch called ‘Surf Meeting’ […] and it’s a group of surfers. Andy’s running the surf meeting, and he’s like, ‘There’s somebody in our crew that just doesn’t fit in, you guys. Like, we don’t like him.’ And then it just cuts to Steve [Martin]. And he’s like, ‘Who is this un-gnarly dude?'”
It’s a wafer-thin premise, but Martin can sell a bit like none other. He tried his damnedest, but, alas, it wasn’t happening. As 11:30 p.m. approached on the East Coast, Taccome realized the sketch was going to air, and it was going to bomb. Taccome vividly remembers Martin arriving at the same conclusion. “[B]etween dress [rehearsal] and air, I went in to give [Martin] last-minute notes, and he was like, ‘It doesn’t work, does it?’ And I was like, ‘No, it doesn’t.’ I was like, ‘Good luck, man.’ And he was like, ‘Yeah, sorry.'”
Steve Martin might be a certified comedic genius, but he’s also survived “Mixed Nuts,” “Bringing Down the House,” and two dire “The Pink Panther” remakes. He can take it.