Saturday Night Live: Top 10 Chris Farley sketches of all-time
By David Rouben
5. Bennett Brauer on Weekend Update
The Weekend Update is SNL’s longest running sketch, and as such, it has seen some great characters. Gilda Radner started it off with Emily Litella and Roseanne Roseannadanna, while cast members Don Novello and Tim Kazurinsky’s most famous contributions to SNL came on The Weekend Update. And in recent years, Stefon has been the best character on Update, although it sadly came to an end during the show’s 40th season.
Chris Farley’s best character on Weekend Update was Bennett Brauer, which came while Kevin Nealon served as the lone anchor. His appearances brought the phenomenon known as “air quotes” into the mainstream before Dr. Evil perfected it.
His best appearance as Bennett Brauer came when he aimed his social commentary at himself. There was no need for anyone to insult Chris Farley since he did that himself – the best ones were when he said he wasn’t “sovvy” rather than savvy, or that he doesn’t “clean the area between my crotch and legs.”
And then, in what was surely a send-up of the highly political film Network, he said the network “enforcers” would keep him on until Joe Consumer gets tired of his approach. Then, all of a sudden, he got attached to wires and starting flying through the crowd, but even that didn’t stop him from air quoting.
Outside of the opening monologue, audience participation and fourth-wall breaking is pretty rare on SNL, so it was cool to see that happen here. And of course, because Chris Farley is such a crowd favorite, they loved every bit of it.
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