I’m Not Me!

One of my favorite 3 Stooges shorts has the Stooges getting into the movie business, when a director needs primitive men (guess who fits the bill perfectly!) to play cavemen in a film that will be shot in darkest Africa. In the filming, Moe and Larry are cavemen, and Curly puts on a gorilla suit to do a scene with the haughty blonde leading lady. Along the way, a real gorilla gets involved (naturally!), and Moe, of course, mistakes it for Curly. As Moe is treating the gorilla as if it really is Curly, the real Curly, from behind some shrubbery, yells out to him "Hey Moe! I'm not me!" That's kind of how I felt yesterday, when I went to NBC.com, and scrolled down to a section of the website page titled "Latest from NBC" which included a still picture promoting the Thursday night Saturday Night Live Weekend Update Specials- in which anchor Seth Meyers is at the Update anchor desk, and sitting next to him is...Svengoolie! (You can go there and check if it's still there- it is as I'm writing this...) Wait! How can that be me? I never went to New York and appeared on that show! At first glance, it's pretty convincing- then you notice some details-the red shirt doesn't look right- and there's no skeleton lapel pin, nor any blue pocket handkerchief.Regardless, at least in that picture- the resemblence is pretty close. But- what's the deal? I knew absolutely nothing about this. If you click on the link by the picture, it shows you a different clip from last week's show, with no faux Sven.In fact,I checked with a co-worker who watched last week's show, and he said there was no Sven impersonator in it-which I would understand,since, if there was, SOMEBODY would have seen it and told me about it! I wondered-would it be in tonight's special? And- who is that in the Sven garb? I know we're seen all over the country now- and I also know there are a few Second City folks who are with the show- they just recruited a few more for this season.Has some new cast member decided that Svengoolie should be a character on the show? Well, it turns out the Chicago connection is indeed responsible- our webmaster got in touch with Michael Patrick O'Brien, a writer for SNL- it turns out that he and Tim Robinson, who ws just brought into the cast from Second City, came up with this idea of a character called the Scaremazing Ghouldini, a horror show host who has decided to become a political pundit,delivering lines about the "libooral bleedia"!Basically, they wanted it to be Svengoolie working for Fox News (hey-been there, done that-sort of...) The bit got cut after they tried it in front of the dress rehearsal audience, but Michael sent word that both he and Tim are big fans, and had fun watching Sven clips as they wrote the bit! I do think it is kind of cool that I'd be someone they'd even think to impersonate on that time-honored comedy show. Some people have said this means "I've arrived"- I'm not sure about that.Hey-the bit got cut! Did I arrive and then depart? Or, did I miss my stop? You might remember the shout-out that occured on "Glee" last season, with the appearance, as a judge at the regional chorus contest, of popular horror host "Svengoobles".That character really didn't resemble me much- but he was played by one of the show's creators, who is a fan, and it was meant as a brief homage. This SNL doppleganger, though, looks almost exactly like me. So- that's the story! Thanks to Michael and Tim,as well as my co-workers Steve and Joe who helped find out the answer. In other words, after all...I'm not me.At least not this time around.