Ferrell also named the sketch sending up a classic sitcom star as his least favorite from his time on “SNL.”

Tina Fey remembers the time Will Ferrell ‘face planted’ in notorious, failed SNL sketch

Ferrell also named the sketch sending up a classic sitcom star as his least favorite from his time on "SNL."

By Ryan Coleman

Ryan Coleman

Ryan Coleman is a news writer for with previous work in MUBI Notebook, Slant, and the LA Review of Books.

EW's editorial guidelines

June 1, 2026 11:01 p.m. ET

Leave a Comment

Tina Fey and Will Ferrell on 'Saturday Night Live'. Credit:

- Tina Fey immediately thought of one Will Ferrell sketch when asked to discuss how she dealt with ideas bombing on *SNL*.

- The sketch involving Will Ferrell playing an office worker so enamored with *Welcome Back, Kotter *star Gabe Kaplan that he begins to dress like him bombed so hard it was pulled from air.

- "It like was so funny at the table read," Fey recalled on the *New Heights *podcast, "and then death."

Any comedian worth her salt knows that every triumph is built atop a plinth of failures... that the road to bops is paved with flops, if you will.

Tina Fey had no trouble thinking up an example of a flop so unlikely it proves they happen to everyone. Speaking with Jason and Travis Kelce on a recent episode of their *New Heights* podcast, Fey began to explain that during her ten years as a writer and player on *Saturday Night Live*, failure was so predictable you simply had to accept it.

"After a while you just kind of — I always do kind of compare it to what little I remember of sports. It's like, sometimes you just go hard and you lose and you're like, 'Okay, I didn't die. I live to fight again. I guess we'll try again next week.'" When her mind landed on the perfect example from that *SNL** *tenure, it wasn't one of her own sketches that epitomized the point, but one starring Will Ferrell.

"One time Will Ferrell had a sketch that we thought was so funny, that was about a guy who looked exactly like Gabe Kaplan, the *Welcome Back, Kotter* guy," she explained.

The four-season NBC sitcom about a high school teacher (Kaplan) who contends with his rowdy class of remedial students is best remembered now for providing a young John Travolta with his breakout role. But Kaplan was a popular stand-up comic when *Kotter *debuted in 1975, and his curly halo of hair, thick mustache, and penchant for sweater vests became instantly recognizable as the series climbed in popularity.

The three decades since *Kotter* ended have not, evidently, been kind to the show, as the audience during dress rehearsal completely failed to recognize Ferrell's resemblance to Kaplan, and thus, the thrust of the joke. "It was like, a guy who looked like Gabe Kaplan and who works at an accounting firm, and then he comes over and they're like, 'Oh, you just missed it. Gabe Kaplan was here.' And he's like, 'You didn't call me. No one came to get me. You know I'm obsessed,'" Fey elaborated. "It was so funny at the table read, and then death."

The 50 best teen shows of all time

'SNL' recap: Host Will Ferrell opens season finale as Jeffrey Epstein

Will Ferrell on 'Late Night with Seth Meyers'; Gabe Kaplan for 'Welcome Back, Kotter'.

Late Night with Seth Meyers/YouTube; Courtesy Everett Collection

The sketch was pulled from air after it bombed in dress rehearsal. It was embarrassing for Fey, Ferrell, and everyone involved at the time. But she took a good lesson from the experience.

"To see it happen to Will, who, everyone loves Will, the audience. That even Will face planted was almost reassuring," she said.

***Get your daily dose of entertainment news, celebrity updates, and what to watch with our ******EW Dispatch newsletter******.***

Ferrell shares Fey's sentiment wholeheartedly. He has spoken at length about the pulled *Kotter *sketch over the years, telling Andy Cohen on a 2017 episode of *Watch What Happens Live** *that the sketch "got zero laughs."

Last year, fellow *SNL *vet Seth Meyers gave Ferrell the opportunity to redeem himself in a segment of *Late Night*'s "Second Chance Theatre," in which alums of the sketch series get the chance to perform material that was cut during dress rehearsal.

After Ferrell performed the sketch in its lengthy, cerebral entirety alongside John Oliver, Bowen Yang, and Rachel Dratch, he described the sketch as reminiscent of a "novice college improv troupe you were forced to see because your friend is in it." When Meyers suggested that part of the problem may have been that a modern audience isn't as intimately acquainted with the comic stylings of Gabe Kaplan anymore, Ferrell joked, "We should have probably passed out like a leaflet that night at the show explaining what to look for."

Original Article on Source

Source: “EW Comedy”