Jon Hamm’s SNL Monologue Less Scary Than Martin Lawrence’s
On last night’s SNL, the conceit for host Jon Hamm‘s monologue was not for taking off his shirt — that was for two other wonderful, wonderful sketches — but about Hamm’s pre-fame roles, before he ended up starring as Don Draper in the critically-acclaimed and super-award-winning Mad Men. The joke was that Hamm has always played it as Don Draper, with the slicked-back hair and the cigarette and the scotch and the power suit — and spoofily showed him on a sitcom, on QVC — and doing standup for Def Comedy Jam. This is what caught the eye of aficionados last night. Turns out Hamm’s Def Jam “set” included a reference to comedian Martin Lawrence‘s hosting monologue in 1993 — which was so risqué it was banned from ever being shown again.
Here’s the bit from Hamm’s monologue. Also, warning to the faint of heart, the humor referenced and explicated on below is graphic. You’ve been warned:
…and here’s how SNL described Lawrence’s monologue in future airings when they cut the offending portions out, from the essential SNL Transcripts page:
V/O: “At this point in his monologue, Martin begins a commentary on what he considers the decline in standards of feminine hygiene in this country. Although we at Saturday Night Live take no stand on this issue one way or the other, network policy prevents us from re-broadcasting this portion of his remarks.
In summary, Martin feels, or felt at the time, that the failure of many young women to bathe thoroughly is a serious problem that demands our attention. He explores this problem, citing numerous examples from his personal experience, and ends by proposing several imaginative solutions.
It was a frank and lively presentation, and nearly cost us all our jobs. We now return to the conclusion of Martin’s monologue.”
The full Lawrence monologue is here. But here’s the offending line, upon which Lawrence elaborates: “I’m single, I’m a single man, I don’t have nobody, I’m looking for somebody and- but I’m meeting a lot of women out there, and you got some beautiful women, but you got some out there that, uh, I gotta say somethin’. Um… some of you are not washing your ass properly.” (emphasis added.) As always here on Mediaite, we’d just like to point out that such generalizations often apply equally across both sexes.
In any case, clearly a decade and a half has mellowed the NBC standards people, who obviously saw that bit in dress and figured it was cool to let pass. I will just say that “They need to wash their ass” seems to me a tad more shocking than Jenny Slate‘s much-later-in-the-show “I fuckin’ love you” but clearly if I ran SNL there would have been more celebration of glorious womanhood jokes, too. Anyhow, a bit of SNL history for you, which is always fun for fans and nerds alike. Hamm’s full monologue is below.
