Last month's triumphant return of the "Celebrity Jeopardy!" sketch to Saturday Night Live was a hilarious bit of celebrity snark genius. It is without a doubt the only sketch in the show's history that just gets better and better every time a new one is rolled out for the public to digest and enjoy. The most recent incarnation of the sketch was no exception. In fact, it built on the solid foundation that lay before it by casting Tom Hanks as a clueless himself and bringing back Norm MacDonald as Burt Reynolds. MacDonald's appearance was funny not just because he does a scary good Reynolds, but I also like to think that every time he returns to the show, Don Ohlmeyer cries a little inside.
As much as there was to laugh at in the sketch, a tiny but hilarious joke seeped through the cracks and no one seemed to spot it -- until now. I have found the missing joke from last month's Jeopardy! sketch, thanks to my keen eyes, my intrepid nose and my ever-widening butt.
The joke popped up at the back end of the sketch, just after the Final Jeopardy! theme song utters its final "bum-bum" and Trebek drudges himself over to the podiums to read the contestants' mentally-damaged answers. The shot goes wide as Trebek walks over and the lost joke passes by within a mere blink of an eye. See if you can spot it in the shot below.
For those of you who weren't able to spot the missing bit, let's zoom in on Reynolds' podium and read the name on the screen.
The mighty Turd Ferguson has returned! Whoever thought to put that name on the podium deserves the Congressional Medal of Honor or maybe a beer or free basket of extreme jalapeno poppers from T.G.I. Fridays.
It's not only a great throwback to a joke, but hiding it the way they did in the show makes it twice as funny to the people who are lucky enough to spot it. That means I have ruined one of the greatest jokes in television history. I certainly don't deserve a free basket of extreme jalapeno poppers.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
6-09-2009 @ 3:10PM
dt3 said...
fail
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6-09-2009 @ 3:20PM
Papytendo said...
That wasn't obvious?
Huh.
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6-09-2009 @ 5:26PM
Niraj said...
Agreed. The 5 people I was watching it with all caught it too on the first viewing.
6-09-2009 @ 5:39PM
scott said...
same here, only with 2 people ;-)
6-10-2009 @ 4:33PM
Jon said...
I deff caught it ... Though i have been know to rock a SNL shirt or 2 ...
6-09-2009 @ 3:31PM
Brad said...
I saw that the night it first aired. It wasn't exactly hidden or a secret. If you missed this, you clearly weren't paying attention... during MULTIPLE viewings
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6-09-2009 @ 3:33PM
Jimmy said...
So noted on cliqueclack -- three weeks ago.
http://www.cliqueclack.com/tv/2009/05/17/saturday-night-live-will-ferrell-green-day/comment-page-1/#comment-16705
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6-09-2009 @ 3:51PM
Jen said...
That was a really long post to tell us something not that interesting
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6-09-2009 @ 3:44PM
Rico said...
And who even thinks of the Norm McDonald character as Burt Reynolds anyway? As soon as I see him, my first thought is "Turd Ferguson".
On a side note, I love how McDonald plays this exact same character (including the same clothes) on 'My Name is Earl', but he plays it as 'Little Chubby', son of 'Chubby', who was played by the real Burt Reynolds.
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6-10-2009 @ 10:04AM
boogieM said...
I hope they never retire that bit in the show It always cracks me up.
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6-09-2009 @ 5:29PM
chrissthomas said...
I caught that too and laughed really hard because that was the big joke back in college. We even named a rec team we had Turd Furgeson. No one else in the room laughed because they didn't see it and I was scorned for being a TV nerd.
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6-09-2009 @ 5:42PM
ansky said...
I think the "sibilant" joke Hanks made in reference to the old Wayne's World/Aerosmith sketch was much better and less noticeable than Turd Ferguson.
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6-09-2009 @ 6:35PM
chris said...
agree with the other commenters. I think that you just might have been the one who missed it. I think most people caught it actually from what it seems like.
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6-09-2009 @ 9:09PM
Craig said...
That was a really pointless post. It was hard to miss.
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6-10-2009 @ 12:17AM
Joe Siegler said...
I think the news story here should be you guys not reporting on that when it first aired.
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6-10-2009 @ 12:16AM
Picviewer said...
Slow posting day and needed to fulfill a quota?
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6-10-2009 @ 1:27AM
jonathan said...
i'm going to have to get on the hate train for this one.
mr. gallagher.
what were you thinking.
this post was awesome.
a month ago.
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6-10-2009 @ 9:04AM
Martin said...
I saw that the moment it was on. Damn, I was even looking at it considering the huge deal he made out of it the first go around.
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6-11-2009 @ 2:43AM
Melissa said...
Umm, yeah, I agree with everyone else. How did you miss this?
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6-11-2009 @ 8:47AM
StillBash said...
People come on. This post is simply awesome because it was cryogenically frozen four weeks ago and is now on display here at TVS. It's a marvel it just smells a tiny bit rotten ;-)
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