Zach Galifianakis recalls pitching Saturday Night Live ideas for Britney Spears that ‘bombed very badly’
Actor and comedian wrote a joke about singer’s belly button
Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.The Hangover star Zach Galifianakis has reflected on his short stint as a writer on Saturday Night Live, when two of his Britney Spears joke ideas went down terribly.
During a two-week trial run on the US sketch show, Galifianakis’s suggestions “just bombed very badly”, he has now revealed on the Literally! With Rob Lowe podcast.
When Spears hosted an episode in May 2000 just after her album Oops!… I Did It Again was released, Galifianakis came up with a joke about her midriff.
He told Lowe that Spears’s “belly button was always exposed then and I thought she needed to protect it”. So he pitched an idea where a green screen would be used to “shrink” cast member Will Ferrell, who would play a security guard for the singer’s belly button.
“It felt like a tumbleweed went right across the writers’ room table, and a cricket riding it,” he recalled. “I’m not offended that no one liked it. It was probably bad.”
Read more:
- Jessica Walter: Tony Hale leads tributes after Arrested Development actor dies aged 80
- Judge Rinder ‘in shock’ after being robbed by ‘three boys in balaclavas’
- Jane Fonda says the only relationship she would consider now would be with ‘a younger man’
- The heartbreaking detail you may have missed in The Falcon and The Winter’s first episode
- From Britney Spears to Nina Simone: The 10 most outrageous sexual innuendos in music
- The 21 worst movie posters of all time
The comedian had another opportunity to pitch to Spears directly, and that didn’t go very well either. Galifianakis recalled telling the singer his idea, in which she was “being interviewed by Entertainment Tonight. There’s no jokes. And during the middle of the interview you just start bleeding from the mouth”.
Recalling Spears’s response, Galifianakis said: “She looks at me, and then she looks at the ground, and then I looked at the ground, and she looks back up at me, I look at her, and she goes, ‘Yeah, that’s funny.’”
At 18 years old, Spears broke the record in 2000 for being the youngest person in SNL’s history to appear as both host and musical guest in the same episode.
Galifianakis said the writers’ room at SNL was an intimidating environment.
“I didn’t know what I was doing,” he said. “I was a standup, I had never written sketches to turn in. It was not easy, I don’t know if ‘supportive’ is necessarily the word I would use there. But you’re new there, and in show business, especially as a standup, you get a thick skin.”
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments