Taran Killam as Pee-Wee Herman & Gilbert Gottfried in "Back to the Future DVD" (SNL)

Commercial - Back To The Future 25th Anniversary DVD

Fred Armisen ... Prince
Paul Brittain ... director (voice)
Abby Elliott ... Joan Cusack
Bill Hader ... Alan Alda
Steve Higgins ... announcer (voice)
Taran Killam ... Pee-Wee Herman
Taran Killam ... Gilbert Gottfried
Andy Samberg ... Nicolas Cage
Kenan Thompson ... Bill Cosby

Okay so the video clip isn't available by itself, but you can watch it in the full episode at 25 minutes. And you'll be glad if you check out the first version of this commercial at 18 minutes (they had so many great impressions that they broke it into two skits). The one at 18 minutes includes Jon Hamm as Robin Williams and Jay Pharoah as Eddie Murphy (those were the most hilarious impressions, but Kristen Wiig's Jennifer Tilly was also impressive).



Taran's Pee-Wee Herman really won over the audience and book-ended the second occurance of this skit. I would love to see Taran lead a skit with this impression, because he really could have piled on the jokes with such an amazing performance. His Gottfried was very good, but it was only one joke.

Pee-Wee has only been done on SNL in 1984 and 1985 (both by Mary Gross). Pee-Wee Herman was actually a former Groundlings member and a good friend of SNL Player, Phil Hartman.

Jimmy Fallon played Gilbert Gottfried twice, in 1998 and 2003. Gottfried was an SNL player in the 1980 to 1981 season.


This is how I'd rank the impressions in this skit:

1. Bill Hader ... Alan Alda - Wow. Bill Hader just strings this out and makes it funny. This is all Bill here. It wouldn't have been so funny if it wasn't so long and clever. Who would have thought an Alan Alda impression would be the funniest?
2. Taran Killam ... Pee-Wee Herman - Very impressive. This won over the audience.
3. Kenan Thompson ... Bill Cosby - Kenan is great at Cosby, and the tone/laugh at the end really seals this.
4. Taran Killam ... Gilbert Gottfried - Funny, but it would have been better with more layers/jokes.
5. Abby Elliott ... Joan Cusack - Amazing impression, but not funny.
6. Andy Samberg ... Nicolas Cage - Not Andy's best Cage. It could've used more 80's references rather than a "wait 25 years" joke.
7. Fred Armisen ... Prince - Very funny, but not much of an impression. Fred just walked off. An easy joke.


And then the overall rank, including the version at 18 minutes in the video above:

1. Jon Hamm ... Robin Williams
2. Bill Hader ... Alan Alda
3. Taran Killam ... Pee-Wee Herman
4. Jay Pharoah ... Eddie Murphy
5. Kenan Thompson ... Bill Cosby
6. Kristen Wiig ... Jennifer Tilly
7. Bill Hader ... Al Pacino
8. Taran Killam ... Gilbert Gottfried
9. Abby Elliott ... Joan Cusack
10. Andy Samberg ... Nicolas Cage
11. Bobby Moynihan ... Sam Kinison
12. Fred Armisen ... Prince

Enjoy!