Peyton Manning’s imminent return to the Broncos and are all over Twitter, Facebook and Prodigy, and, of course, Peyton himself made multiple appearances on that SNL 40th anniversary show.
Did you see that thing? It was surreal how many stars were there. Manning is in the top five of most famous athletes in sports, and yet he was, like, the 37th-most-famous person there, overshadowed by the likes of Paul McCartney, Keith Richards, Robert De Niro, Jack Nicholson, Jerry Seinfeld and Ellen Cleghorne.
OK, so Manning hosted SNL in 2007, after his Super Bowl victory with Indianapolis. To this day, is one of the most talked about sketches of the past decade, and rightfully so. It featured Manning, in a sweater and a collared shirt, mentoring impressionable kids. It starts off sweet, and then suddenly he’s out-of-control mean to the kids, yelling at them for not catching passes in a pickup game, or teaching them lessons such as: “I’ll kill a snitch.”
But my favorite Peyton SNL sketch is one they wedged late into the show. It’s preposterous and zany and stupid. And I can’t get enough of it.
Here’s the premise. Jason Sudeikis (the SNL writer-turned-cast member and Olivia Wilde husband, AKA MY IDOL) plays the director of the movie “300.” Manning is an actor named Mitch, who is shirtless with this gross, scarred bald head. And Mitch has one job — throw a huge foam boulder on top of an enemy, played by Fred Armisen.
So Sudeikis yells “action,” and Mitch holds the boulder with two arms above his head, while Armisen cowers underneath, anticipating his impending doom. But Mitch just keeps standing there.
Sudeikis calmly says: “Throw the rock, Mitch,” but Mitch doesn’t move.
“Throw the rock, Mitch! Go ahead and throw it!”
Nothing.
“Cut! … Mitch what happened, you’re supposed to throw the rock?”
“Oh I’M supposed to throw it?” Mitch deadpans back. “So it’s not like special effects?”
So they try the scene again, and Mitch won’t throw the rock. It’s ridiculous, he just stands there, holding the rock in the air.
“THROW THE ROCK, MITCH!”
Again, he doesn’t.
“What happened?”
“I was gonna throw the rock, I waiting on my cue.”
“What cue?”
“You tell me!”
This goes on and on, and it’s ridiculous and hilarious and also ridiculous.
Chew on this
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• And as we always do here in , let’s celebrate a celebrity birthday! Monday’s virtual cake goes to who looks like someone you’d never want to be friends with. Happy birthday!
Benjamin Hochman: bhochman@denverpost.com or
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