Who knew?
In an interview with Grantland’s Bill Simmons, comedy writer Robert Smigel (writer of SNL’s TV Funhouse skits and the voice of Triumph, the Insult Comic Dog) reveals that he wrote a Bill Swerski’s Superfans movie script along with Breaking Bad‘s Bob Odenkirk.
First of all, who even knew Bob Odenkirk wrote for Saturday Night Live, let alone conceived and co-wrote one of its most iconic sketches? Apparently more than a few people.
Inspired by the mid-’90s baseball strike, the script revolved around a football strike. The Superfans were to travel around the country rallying fans, getting in confrontations with other cities, and then apparently something about inventing their own sport. Or something. Also, a Martin Short character buys Soldier Field and turns it into an elaborate piano bar because it was the ’90s and you couldn’t get away from Martin Short.
Smigel mentions a live-reading of the script back in 2010. The Sun-Times’ Darel Jevens was lucky enough to be there:
Now here’s something you don’t often see in the Bears universe: a theater full of fans joyously flashing back to the Dave Wannstedt era. But that’s what happened Saturday night — twice — at the Park West as comedians revealed what could have been if a movie about the Swerski brudders and their Ditka -worshipping, Super Fan pals had been made in the mid-’90s, well after Ditka ‘s heyday.
Between the internet’s love for Bob Odenkirk and the recent resurgence of the Super Fans in State Farm commercials, let’s pray to Ditka that Bill Simmons’ suggestion of an annual script reading for charity comes to fruition.
For good measure, here is Bob Odenkirk discussing his time with Saturday Night Live, including how he wrote the Superfans sketch.
